Biggest difference between Vietnam and Iraq is oil.

America can't pull out of Iraq, like it pulled out of Vietnam, there is far too much at stake. Oil is the lifeblood of the American economy, its endemic sources, the once grat Texan oilfields, are down to around 17%, so it has to shore up its external sources - at almost any cost.

Biggest mistake Bush made was not to tell the truth about why he (we) invaded. If Americans were told right at the start that their lifestyle depended on maintaining oil supplies from all of the dwindling sources around the world, then he probably would have had a mandate from his people to kill for it.

That's not a justification for the war, just a reflection on his failed strategy

vietnam was much worse than iraq in about anyway you would like to measure. but at least the american war machine was not directed by madmen.

part of the charm of resource war II is that megalomania underpins american policy, and there is a real goal driving the invasion and occupation. the mixture of insanity and perceived necessity means anything can happen, as long as it's not good.

the clear lesson is that the human race had better take the direction of nations out of the hands of politicians, before they kill us all. assuming they haven't already started that ball rolling.

Regardless of Bush's plans, tactics or wharever one thing we know for sure.

Australia will stay the distance. Even if the US leaves we'll stay as we wouldn't want to "cut and run". It's just not possible that we could leave, ever. As the job is never going to be done. How do I know that?

Well no one has ever defined "the job". So how can it ever be done? if the job were democracy then they have had an election. Job over. Nope, different job apparently. Remove Saddam? nope, he's gone. WMD? Nope, none there.

I get it. The job is just to copy the US. So we will be out as soon as Bush leaves office. Solved!

Iraq and Vietnam, have you ever imagined that imposing policy will face failure and utterly failure . simply USA wants oil, this is acceptable, but why in the cost of Iraqi people and on the base of previous failed project by Britain in early twenties last century.

Iraq can not functioning as a normal country, it is invented country and the only logical way to stabiles Iraq , its not by withdrawing like did in Vietnam . this would be huge disasters . but it is divided to 3-4 part, every region ( Kurdistan, Sunni area, Shia and Baghdad itself) functioning .

In this case , Shia and Kurd will be very successful state, and Sunnis will follow them in rebuilding their area.

Its wasting time , money, and most importantly human , if anyone still think , something can be stabilise and not become Vietnam

Iraq much worse than Vietnam , simply because , the Iraqi people can not and never ever be untied. Anyone understand , politics, culture, anthropology, religion. They are not be able to live together.

Lets save Iraq and Iraqi people to help them to be disintegrated….

We are as Kurds, want our independent and our country on our land, we do not hate Arab, and Islamism, but we do not want live with them anymore.

The conducted genocide against us, they killed more than 300 000 civilian Kurds from us, just in the Saddam’s era….,enough , enough , Iraq is not my country , it is my grave, I want to be called as Kurdish people rather than Iraqi…

The headline article makes just one salient point: in
Vietnam America's enemy was a government with a credible
project of national unification and nationalist development.
The government in the North was the legitimate government of
the entire country, so the only goal the Americans had was
to save Vietnam from itself.

The machinery of state in North Vietnam was damaged, not
destroyed by war, and grass-roots opposition in the South at
all times had the leadership and material support of the
North.

The real prize in that game for America was not Indochina
(which the USA was happy to "bomb into the stone age") but
Indonesia, where US encouragement and the threat posed by
its intervention in Vietnam ensured a million summary
executions on suspicion of communism.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Rulers-World-John-Pilger/dp/185984393X

In Iraq, there is no credible nation-building alternative
government, and none can arise as long as the situation
remains as cloudy as it is now. The only thing which might
unite the Iraqi opposition is their common enemy, and
divide-and-conquer is working fairly well in that enemy's
favour as each ethnic or religious group is perceived by
some other as being in the Americans' pocket. Saddam
himself had brutally suppressed the labour movement, which
might otherwise have provided a secular (and thus credible)
leadership to the opposition.

Absent a political left wing, President Saddam Hussein's
administration *was* the best secular hope for Iraqis, but
through brutality and venality had long since lost the
support of liberal and religious Iraqis of all ethnicities.

Saddam took power as the lap-dog of the West, and squandered
the good will he had in the early years of his reign by
pursuing a debilitating war against Iran to serve a foreign
agenda. A tragedy of miscommunications led to his invasion
of Kuwait in 1991, and only the lack of a credible
alternative left him in power after that war. A decade of
sanctions and ever-deepening corruption left Iraq without a
sense of itself; removing the regime left a region where
there really is "no such thing as community".

Iraq and Vietnam are utterly different.

Re. Gecko's comment about America not being able to pull out of Iraq because of its dependence on oil: America is not as dependent as it makes out. It is more important to the USA to keep the global economy and "security situation" on an even keel than it is to acquire oil for its own consumption. After its quiet acquiescence to the September 2001 attackers' principal demand (to remove US troops from the holy soil of the Prophet's country of Saudi Arabia), the USA needed somewhere else nearby to wield its big stick, and it was time Saddam (who had just announced a switch to accepting payment for Iraqi oil in Euros instead of US Dollars) had another hiding. Building the "coalition" for Afghanistan established a pipeline route to the Indian Ocean for Central Asian oil & gas, bypassing both China and Iran, and Iraq is just another square on that board that needed occupying.

Chinese growth is the biggest threat to American dominance. As long as American capital controls much of the Chinese economy, that threat is minimised, but China still has a nominally communist government and might easily expropriate capitalist assets within its borders. An American stranglehold on the fuel supply to the Chinese economy helps ensure Chinese co-operation.

The USA need not be dependent on imported oil at all, despite the propaganda to that effect by left & right alike:

"Investing $180 billion over the next decade to eliminate oil dependence and revitalize strategic industries can save $130 billion gross, or $70 billion net, every year by 2025."

http://www.oilendgame.com/ExecutiveSummary.html