Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq

Is Iraq another Vietnam?

Anti-Bush, anti-war, and anti-American proponents love to draw parallels between the two wars.

They say:

It's a quagmire.

It's an imperialistic endeavor.

It's just a scheme to deliver billions of dollars in profits to evil corportations.

We have no right to "force" freedom and democracy on sovereign nations.

We are occupiers, not liberators.

Young Americans are sacrificing, even losing their lives, for an ignoble cause.

If you listen to the yammering of Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, Chuck Hagel, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, Aljazeera, Ayman al-Zawahri, and assorted aging baby boomers longing to relive their glory days, you could be brainwashed into believing Iraq IS Vietnam.

Of course, Iraq is NOT Vietnam.

Read Steven Komarow's article for USA Today."Vietnam vets in Iraq see 'entirely different war'"

Read Christopher Hitchens's article for Slate.
"Beating a Dead Parrot, Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common"

Put all that Vietnam talk aside for a moment and consider this:

Is Iraq going to be another Somalia?

That is the question that we should be asking.

Somalia started out as a humanitarian mission. Operation Restore Hope was intended to halt the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. Although that goal was achieved, our forces got bogged down in the country's chaotic political situation.
OpinionJournal.com summarizes what happened in Somalia.

President Bush the Elder sent U.S. forces into Somalia in December 1992 to aid the United Nations in relieving a massive famine. In May of 1993, four months into his term, President Clinton declared that mission accomplished and pulled out most of the U.S. force. In a speech on the South Lawn to associate himself with the effort, he extolled the decision to intervene: "If all of you who served had not gone, it is absolutely certain that tens of thousands would have died by now." It was a "successful mission," he said, and "proved yet again that American leadership can help to mobilize international action."

But back in Somalia, with no U.S. deterrent, Somalia's warlords began fighting again. After a series of bloody attacks on U.N. peacekeepers, Mr. Clinton launched a new mission: In August 1993, he sent in a force of Rangers and Special Forces units to capture the brutal warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid and restore order.

That force asked for heavy armor--in the form of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles--as well as the AC-130 gunship, but the Clinton Administration denied those requests. On October 3 on a mission to pick up Aidid, two Black Hawks were unexpectedly shot down; in the ensuing urban gun battle, 18 American soldiers were killed and another 73 injured.

Many military experts believe that if the U.S. forces had had armor, fewer would have died. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned two months after Somalia, having acknowledged that his decision on the armor had been an error. A 1994 Senate Armed Services Committee investigation reached the same conclusion. But perhaps the most poignant statement came from retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Joyce, father of Sergeant Casey Joyce, a Ranger killed in Mogadishu: "Had there been armor . . . I contend that my son would probably be alive today."

Mr. Clinton's responsibility in Somalia doesn't stop there. Despite the mistakes that October day, Aidid had been struck a blow. The U.S. military, with 18 dead, wanted nothing more than to finish what it had started. Mr. Clinton instead aborted the mission. The U.S. released the criminals it had captured that same day at such great cost, and the U.N., lacking U.S. support, was powerless to keep order. Somalia remains a lawless, impoverished nation. Worse, the terrorists of al Qaeda interpreted the U.S. retreat from Somalia as a sign of American weakness that may have convinced them we could be induced to retreat from the Middle East if they took their attacks to the U.S. homeland.

It's worth mentioning that in 1993, while Osama bin Laden was living in Sudan, he and other radical Islamic fundamentalists were extremely angered by the US military presence in Somalia. They offered assistance to Aidid's forces.

During the investigation of the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Africa, the Justice Department discovered evidence that bin Laden and al Qaeda provided support to the Somali fighters.

Frontline's "Hunting Bin Laden" explains:

When the Marines landed in the last days of 1992, bin Laden sent in his own soldiers, armed with AK-47's and rocket launchers. Soon, using the techniques they had perfected against the Russians, they were shooting down American helicopters...

"After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians," bin Laden said. "The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat. And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda ... about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."



In retrospect, Clinton's decision to inadequately arm our troops, followed by his decision to cut and run from Somalia after the battle in Mogadishu proved disastrous.

There is no question that Somalia emboldened the terrorists. Bin Laden himself says that was the case.

From bin Laden's perspective, he had defeated one superpower in Afghanistan and another in Somalia. He was victorious. As a result, bin Laden chose to take his "holy war" to the U.S. homeland.Don't forget 9/11. Don't forget what was done to Americans.

Rather than dwelling on Iraq being another Vietnam, I think the lessons of Somalia prove to be far more pertinent.

1) We must adequately arm our forces.

2) We must fight to win.

3) We cannot cut and run.

4) Defeat is not an option.

If we withdraw from Iraq before the Iraqi people are ready for us to leave, radical Islamic fundamentalists will accurately claim yet another victory. In our weakness, they'll be encouraged to hit us again.

For our own safety, we cannot repeat the mistakes of Somalia in Iraq.

As bin Laden said, America retreated and "forgot about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."

(Some insist Iraq had no connection with al Qaeda. They're WRONG.)

If we allow Iraq to be another Somalia, if we cut and run now as some are calling for us to do, we will not have peace.

It will be an invitation for radical Islamic fundamentalists---the terrorists, bin Laden and his forces---to continue their war on free, peace-loving nations.