Is the US not winning the Iraq war for the same main reason they didn't win the Vietnam war?

Question

They could never secure the borders of the country they were fighting in so enemy supplies/troops pored in?

With Iraq it's Iran & Syria. With Vietnam it was Laos & Cambodia. How can you win a war win when the enemy never runs out of supplies/troops?

Answer 1

It isn't about winning the war.

We won the war in Iraq. It's over.
Saddam died. A new government is in place.

We are now fighting a battle IN Iraq with Islamic fundamentalists who have entered Iraq to overthrow the new government.

We don't expect to win this battle, just give Iraq enough time to establish it's government and defend itself, while giving those in Islam a chance to fight for free speech, freedom of religion, and equality on their own.

A cultural revolution has hit Islam, and I hope it survives, but it will change, it will join the 21st century, and free speech, freedom of religion, and equality will be part of it's values.

We just have to let freedom take it's course as people learn to speak up.

Answer 2

No one puts rules on how we fight a war but the President, Secretary of Defense, and the Generals. We can't win because we have never had a plan. Plan A was to invade and shrug off the rose petals. That didn't happen and we had no Plan B. We're not fighting a war; we're roaming the steets, the same as any other militia. We've killed at least 500,000 Iraqi civilians, thus far. You can't win the hearts and minds when you keep killing the populace, invading their homes, imprisoning people at random, and ignoring the plight of the civilians. We aren't winning because the war has been a clusterf@%ck from the day we invaded. We lost this war in March, 2003, and there's no saving it. The human rights activists that we need to worry about are the mothers and fathers of children that are being killed and starved. Those activists carry guns and kill themselves to get revenge. Peaceniks, hippies, and Communists are vocal dissidents. Victims are active dissidents, and we've created 25 million of them. Bombs defeat armies: they enrage civilians. As Ghandi said, "violent means lead to violent peace". (it's meant to be an oxymoron) EDIT: You have no idea what you're talking about. You think that the dicotomy is between treating prisoners like house guests or shooting them on the spot. First of all, torture has never worked for the last 5,000 years; prisoners will tell you anything if you cause enough pain. Secondly, the only enemies that we have are those that we create. George Bush has done more for al Qeda recruituing than Osama could have ever hoped for. When you say that this is an atypical enemy, you're right. The problem is that you (and this administration) view the tactics that are appropriate to a conventional war as being applicable to this one. You are so ignorant of the enemy that you face, you might as well be fighting robots or aliens. These people will kill their own sisters or mothers for being raped. What the hell do you think that dropping bombs on them will do to thier spirits of revenge? You have to know your enemy better than he knows himself in order to defeat him. Every violent act will result in two more violent acts. We will pay dearly for every insult to their culture, security, peace, well-being, etc. You win the hearts and minds by winning the hearts and minds, not by bombing and torturing them. They may be animals in your view, but these animals have the power of reason. They will use that power to make you suffer as they have suffered. The flip side of "do unto others" is that others will do unto you. 9/11 wasn't a surprise. It was the chickens coming home to roost. They did unto us what we have been doing unto them for half a century.

Answer 3

An occupation army in a hostile country is in an impossible situation.

In History it worked for the Romans, Alexander the great, Attila the Hun etc. but because they were absolutely brutal. They massacred whole cities.

Recent history (last 200 years ) shows that less brutal armies fail as occupiers....
Napoleon in Russia
Britain in the US
Russia in Afghanistan
Hitler in all of Europe and Russia.
Japan in China
Vietnam
Iraq
The UN coalition in Afghanistan will probably run out of steam as countries lose soldiers and interest.

Hitler was brutal against what he decided were subhumans, Jews, Russians. As was Japan against Chinese, Koreans.

Modern armies also lack the staying power that the old boys had. They moved in to stay, married, farmed, built forts, cities etc.

Answer 4

It's a pointless war based on lies and flawed logic. Period.

Fundamentalism has been growing for decades now... Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc... all have fundamentalists who are becoming more and more aggressive and violent, and thus are called "terrorists".

Terrorists fight because they believe in something so much that they will use any means necessary to make that belief law.

The Iraq war has actually increased the amount of "terrorists", since their beliefs are being threatened by American values, so people are becoming more passionate about defending those beliefs.

Thus, it's a moot war. You can't end terrorism... it's impossible. Fundamentalists are willing to live and die for their beliefs, so obviously setting up a "democratic government" isn't going to stop them from believing what they do. If anything, it will just give them more to fight against on the path to creating their own heaven on earth. The more "democracy" you have, the more fundies have to blow up to get what they want.

And that's why the war's failing... because it's a pointless war that can't be won. But in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Americans, etc... will die. But it's OK, coz at the same time, the military contracts are just rolling in so all of Bush's friends and business buddies can get richer.

To LeAnne below:

Fine... we've been "attacked" (nevermind America's foreign policy and sanctions on the middle-east which caused the attack...)... Find the villain, bring them to "justice". Cool. But who's the villain?! The 10s of thousands of INNOCENT Iraqis who have already been killed in this war (by American, British, etc... soldiers)? Or howabout the Iraqis who have themselves survived but had their siblings, parents, etc... blown up at school or work or wherever else was "accidentally" targeted, and have banned together to defeat the American terrorists who have come to their country and ATTACKED them and their family? You see, it's a 2 sided situation. Most "terrorists" are just people defending their country, their beliefs, their families, etc... Just like Americans supposedly are. So who's the villain? Osama Bin Laden? Great... find him, put him on trial, whatever... But I don't see how invading an entire country (which he isn't even from and has NO PART in the government of ANY country) and killing thousands of innocent people is "defending America".

Answer 5

America cannot be defeated militarily - not in Iraq and certainly not in Viet Nam. We can, however, be defeated at home as the war wears on and the far left keeps pounding their anti-war rhetoric at the people.
I don't understand how a person can be supportive of a policy of total defeat for America. We have been the victims of numerous terrorist attacks across the globe - we have been threatened and attacked on our own soil - yet for some strange reason, this is not enough provocation to justify confronting the Islamic terrorists militarily. Our policies of inaction and no effective response is arguably a policy which culminated in the events of 9/11 - we must not revert back to these policies.
It baffles me.

Answer 6

What's going on in Iraq has a lot of similarities of Vietnam because they don't always know who their enemy is.

Answer 7

Both wars were not declare by Congress and therefore not legal. The last legal war was (I believe) WWII.

When you don't declare your wars, supports die out very quick! That was the reason for loosing in Vietnam and is the reason we can't really finish Iraq without all of the fuss.

Answer 8

It has nothing to do with winning the War, you could be out, and you shouldn't even be in there.

They lost Vietnam because they allowed the oposition to dictate the battlefield.

In this care, they just want Oil.

Answer 9

They will eventually run out of supplies and troops.
The U.S. won't, the only thing we will run out of is support, which is abysmally low now anyways

Answer 10

They are losing it for the same reason. But that reason is that they are behaving like conquereors and not liberators.