In November, in this democratic presidental race, more and more
candidates are repeating the idea that Iraq is like Vietnam.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
In Vietnam, 58,000 men died in 14 years of hostilities.
The draft was place, so men would get yanked out of their lives, thrown
onto planes, and told to die in rice paddys. In Iraq, there have been
251 dead between May 1 and November 1, and the soldiers who go have
chosen to go - for
the pay and the glory.
Some people might say that any dead are too many dead, that the
country was lied to about the reasons for being there. But there's a
huge difference between 58,000 and 251. With the news stories about the
251 grieving families, can we imagine 58,000 families? To get to the
same number of casualties, we'd need 10 *times* the death rate. Instead
of a few people a day, we'd have 20 or 30. Every day. For 14 years.
Does anyone really believe that this will linger on for 14 years?
That whatever resistance in Iraq happens will have the level of
organization and support that the NVA had?
To say that Iraq is like Vietnam in any but the most trivial ways is
to make Iraq bigger, and make Vietnam smaller.
Let's get back to the issue of the draft. Those of us who were born
too early don't have a real concept of what the draft meant. You
registered, and if you didn't, you went to prison. If you got a bad
number, you went into the Army. If you didn't go, you went to prison.
If you disobed your orders, didn't charge the hill, you went to prison.
The coersion was total.