Vietnam Redux: Why Bush's 'New' Iraq Plan Will Not Work

When President Kennedy was assassinated in the early 1960s [1963], there were 90,000 American soldiers in South Vietnam in the form of military advisors. When President Johnson decided not to seek his Party’s nomination for another term [1967], there were 450,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, a million South Vietnamese troops … and thousands from Formosa [The Republic of China, also known as Taiwan], the two Koreas and Australia. After a resounding defeat early in the 1970s [1973], the U.S. had lost 51,000 troops, with 120,000 severely wounded or handicapped and a few thousand others who became drug addicts … and who ended up heart broken!!

President Bush is now implementing a new strategy in Iraq; a strategy that is based on dispatching twenty or thirty thousand additional troops. Meanwhile, his man in Iraq [Prime Minister Al-Maliki] is preparing for the new plan to control a defiant Iraq which refuses to acknowledge or submit to occupation … or to the coalition of sectarians and racists that collude with the conqueror.

Iraq is similar to Vietnam, when the gallant Vietnamese people, backed by the former Soviet Union and China, managed to defeat the top superpowers in the West at the time, the U.S. and France. The Sino-Soviets also stood by millions of freedom-seeking nations in Asia, Africa, and South America. The difference in Iraq’s case today, however, is that Iraq is standing alone … resisting both the Americans and the Mullahs in Iran … and Arab impotence as well: There are Romans standing in front and only Romans behind.”

[Editor’s Note: This proverb apparently refers to he period when Ancient Rome held sway over much of the Middle East].

An example of the plans and strategies that the Bush and Al-Maliki Administrations are trying to implement, is the fierce battle that occurred [and still occurring] in the middle of Baghdad, specifically on “Haifa Street,” where Iraqi defense forces backed by American air cover launched an attack on residents living there. Those who are familiar with “Haifa Street” and its high-rise buildings, know very well that residents there are Palestinians, political refugees from Syria and Iraqis that have seen their homes demolished and now live in apartments in these modern buildings.

The followers of al-Qaeda, the insurgents and the terrorists that were bombarded by aircraft and heavy weaponry are for the most part Palestinian and Syrian refugees that have been targeted for death and expulsion by the armed militias in their respective foreign supporters. These militias, which have plagued many other Arab countries with their false slogans, are the same people who are killing Palestinians in Beirut and refugee camps in South Lebanon, now seek to enforce inequality on Haifa street in Baghdad, and in other Iraqi cities. Within these militias are the same people who kill Syrians who flee that country and who have captured many others (including Syria’s former president Amin Al-Hafez , the Assistant Chairman of the Baath Party in Syria [?] and high-ranking military officers) attempting to flee across the border, only to fall into hands of the murderers in these militias.

It is not unlikely that Bush’s new strategy for Iraq will work any better than those of Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam, simply because the Iraqi people are no different than the Vietnamese in that Iraqis cannot be subjugated and have heads that are harder than cupboards!! Iraqis are well aware of the evil forces that have infiltrated their country, from America to Iran to Israel. It is incumbent upon us not to lose the compass of [Arab] nationalism and to stay on the path!!