Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Throughout the Vietnam War, especially in the early years, American officials deliberately misrepresented the enemy. Vietnamese nationalists were ignored with all opposition labeled Communist or with the delightfully pejorative phrase "Viet Cong." In Iraq, the Bush administration has once again written nationalists out of the script. Insurgents are variously labeled "dead-enders," "fanatics," "thugs," "militants," "terrorists," or "outsiders," despite growing evidence that a large percentage of the Iraqi people are opposed to the U.S. occupation. Recent intelligence reports suggest that support for the insurgents is widespread and growing. In some areas, Sunni and Shiite groups are joining forces, at least temporarily, in a common cause -- killing Americans.

There is also a failure in Iraq to understand and empathize with local mores and culture or the role of Islam in Arab society. The military has too few Arab language specialists and those experts in government with good knowledge of Iraq’s history and culture were marginalized from the Pentagon’s planning of the war and the peace, just as we failed to comprehend the Buddhist culture of Vietnam. The bombing of a mosque in Fallujah in April 2004 is a recent case in point. Suicide bombers in the Middle East, like Buddhist self-immolations in Vietnam, are incomprehensible to the average American, nestled in a comfortable suburb with a good paying job. Plunging into a maelstrom of political and religious rivalries, we have too often depended in Iraq on the counsel of a few self-serving Iraqi exiles and Arab intellectuals experienced in manipulating Western arrogance and ignorance.

There was no real plan for victory in Vietnam, and there appears to be none for Iraq. The June 30 date for the transfer of sovereignty back to the Iraqi people, in particular, makes no sense except in the context of President Bush’s desire to be rid of Iraq before the U.S. elections in November. When asked...