Bad habits die hard. Some never seem to die.Witness the irrepressible Vietnam Syndrome expressed in an article written by Nicholas M. Horrock, a chief White House correspondent, no less. For Mr. Horrock, America is likely to fail in its military campaign in Iraq because it is a repeat of Vietnam. There will be many civilian casualties. We will underestimate the will of the enemy. We will not be seen as liberators but as conquerors.
Mr. Horrock seems unaffected by the acts of terrorism committed by the Viet Cong. Their use of women and children seems, to him, to put the onus of moral conduct on the American GI.
We called them acts of terror there too. The blowing up of the telephone exchange in Saigon, operated so GIs on in-country leave could call home; the booby-trapped "hootches," with a wired grenade under a baby's blanket. Every restaurant or public garden bar had netting up so that a person on a motorbike could not drive by and hurl a grenade in. And every "ville" we knew had VC. In the daylight they worked in the paddies, by night they ambushed GIs.
We called them acts of terror there too. Oh really? What else should we call them? When faced with an enemy as evil as the Viet Cong or the equally odious Ba'athist regime in Baghdad, would it be better for American soldiers to do nothing to defend themselves? You would think that booby trapping a baby blanket, with baby intact, would inspire Mr. Horrock's outrage. Not really.
The killing of women and children is indeed horrendous but who actually ordered that innocents be used to kill our soldiers? Apparently, babies don't have much say in the matter. But who made the choice for them? Our GIs? If we lived in a world where minimal standards of wartime honor and protocols were observed by the enemy, such tragedies need not take place. As in Vietnam, we are dealing with a foe in Iraq who knows no rules.
Mr. Horrock's hand-wringing is a sure sign the '60s generation is getting old. Old in its complete lack of faith in America, old in its tacit and not so tacit support of Third World barbarism, old in its rejection that America can do any good, old in its hateful spin that America is morally the equivalent to its enemies, old in its cynical contempt for values such as honor, loyalty, and duty; and old in its belief that giving peace a chance will have everything turn out all right.
The "analysis" he offers ignores what is actually happening on the ground in Iraq, where the swiftest land invasion in modern warfare is taking place. No, it's not a cake- walk and Americans can be forgiven for hoping at first it would be. But we're a resilient people, despite the worst assumed of us by the anti-American left and their allies, and can adapt to changing scenarios as they occur.
In short, Iraq is no Vietnam. Sure, the evil nature of the enemy is the same and terrorism is the recourse of such foes. If Mr. Horrock mentions My Lai, why does he not condemn the countless atrocities of our enemies? Maybe they're not so bad to him. In the meantime, we live in a nation that decried the horror of My Lai long ago and has taken great pains to examine and denounce America's wrongs. Would we expect the same of Saddam or Ho Chi Minh?
Perhaps Mr. Horrock navel gazes too much. History is passing him by. A good antidote would be to ponder America's fight against every brand of tyranny in the 20th century, including the one currently underway in the Middle East, and learn that, despite our failure in South East Asia, the balance tips very much in favor of our sacrifice and duty in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil.