Obviously it's been a particularly bad week in Iraq for the United States. I could never hope to fully cover the events there on this blog, but I do think it's worth taking a step back and looking at where things are at now.

Back when the march to war was just beginning in 2002, quite a few people pointed out that a campaign to topple Saddam might not be as quick and easy as BushCo guaranteed it would. A small number of those critics even dared to invoke Vietnam, the quagmire that killed over 50,000 Americans, scarred an emerging Great Society, and divided the nation to no end (not to even begin to mention the stark consequences for the Vietnamese people). Those critics were essentially labeled anti-American by the Administration, which preferred that Americans draw links between Saddam and Osama, and not a desert and a jungle.

As the campaign began and US tanks rumbled across the sand, within a short time toppling Saddam and then a statue of him in Baghdad, things looked good. Things did not look like Vietnam. As the spring became summer, little problems began to pop up here and there. The Coalition Provisional Authority, run by the Defense Department (perhaps the single worst decision of the entire debacle), was not doing a good job restoring Iraqi infrastructure and making people happy. Roadside bombs began to explode with great regularity, seeming to indicate something was not going quite right. Former Baathist Iraqi Army officers, accustomed to lives of privilege, were stripped of their commands and kicked out Army and society. They had a lot of time on their hands. And a lot of anger.

But, we know Bush. Nothing wrong. Stayin' the course. Freedom on the March. Now let's talk about keepin' the gays from marryin'. On September 22, 2003, neoconservative god Richard Perle, in a speech to the ultraconservative American Enterprise Institute, painted quite a rosy picture:

And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.

So when is the time, Richard? Never, maybe. Because now things are really getting quite a bit like Vietnam. And there is no Lyndon Johnson Square in Ho Chi Minh City. Military historian Tom Collier comments:

There seem to be two developments in Iraq that are "more than eerily Vietnam speak." The first is the increasing use of bigger and better mines: bundled 155mm artillery shells, 500lb aircraft bombs, shaped charges, and clever booby traps to kill the mine clearers. All of that is old hat dating back through Vietnam and at least to WWII, but the insurgents seem to be able to plant their mines without either being detected by our surveillance [ e.g., drone aircraft] or being reported to the police by the local people. That is a bad sign, and means we control neither the terrain nor the populace.

[snip]

The second development reminiscent of Vietnam is the US decision to move away from the population centers and move west to the border in order try to attack "base areas" and interdict routes from Syria [read Cambodia & Laos]. SLA Marshall...warned in 1967, "Rattling around the Cambodian border held nothing good for our side....The enemy from out of Cambodian base camps was ever scouting, measuring, and plotting the countryside....We were literally engaging [the enemy] on the maneuver ground where they did their training."

Add to that the general hostility of the Sunnis of Anbar Province and it makes you wonder why Marines and soldiers are repeatedly searching and destroying out in the Wild West...Surely it defies all the lore and knowledge of insurgency/ counterinsurgency.'

And that is just in tactical sense. Vietnam, of course, is known as the first "living-room war." Seeing the carnage on TV every night made it very real to the American people. The draft made it even realer. Perhaps today's media is too diffused to have the same effect (cable TV and the internet allow everyone to learn what they want, and ignore the rest) and there is no draft, so if you're well-off enough, you probably won't have to serve in the military. But Iraq is getting real for the American people in it's own way. The national debt is close to 8 trillion dollars. That is partially due to the fact the the Iraq War has so far cost the US over 185 billion dollars . Instead of investing in our national infrastructure, schools, and health care, we are burning money away in Iraq.

Debt, though, is by its nature a problem for the future. It does not do a good job at convincing people current policy is wrong (though 5-10 years from now, we will feel it). The most recent polll puts approval of Bush's Iraq policy at 38 percent, and it isn't because of the debt clock.

A recent article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer captures the current feeling:

An oak tree grows on a shaded street in southwest Cleveland, planted the day Edward "Augie" Schroeder II was born 23 years ago.

Wednesday morning, his parents stood in the shade of that tree, grappling with the loss of a son in a war they have never understood.

And this from the New York Times:

Mayor Elliott, 47, said that for all Brook Park's experience with war, this week's death toll had shed a harsh new light on the war in Iraq, bringing home bloodshed that had seemed distant to some. For that reason, he said he thought some residents might begin to question the continuing American military presence in Iraq.

"When it hits home this much, I would expect people to say: 'How many more lives do we have to lose before we get our troops back home?' " he said.

With 48 US service members dying since July 24, casualties seem to be spiking again, just as the Iraqi constitution is supposedly a month away from completion. Some people might think that that document will bring an end to the carnage, but it will not. Did the handover from the CPA to the Iraqis bring any let up? What about the Iraqi elections? No and no. How much longer will the American people tolerate this? They might not have an option. Just as the nation begins to show strong dissatisfaction with the President who lied to bring the nation into Iraq, it becomes more and more apparent that there is no way out.

When America left Vietnam, the domino theory aside, it didn't have to worry about much spillover. The Vietnamese were not going to bring communism to Mexico. Iraq is a different story. If we pull out, there will be a massive fight among many different factions, probably much worse than Lebanon in the 1980s: the foreign Islamist radicals wanting to maintain their terrorist camps, the Sunni Baathists, the Kurds, the al-Sadr Shiites (probably supported by Iran), the "government" forces, and probably lots of criminals just looking to murder and plunder thrown in the mix. All on top of of a massive oil supply. A lawless land, perfect for terrorists to thrive. A training ground equal to the 1980s Afghanistan were Bin Laden was tested.

But what about staying? All of that still will exist, just with American soldiers trying to keep a lid on it all, a few dying every day. Many more with serious injuries. Even more scarred mentally. And, just like Vietnam, soldiers returning from war, their efforts underappreciated and their lives never the same.

There is no way out. It is said that even the Iraqi Prime Minister himself is sabotaging American efforts to train Iraqi security forces. Why? Because as soon as they are trained (or, as soon as the US can halfway claim they are trained) American troops will be gone, and the government will collapse. Precisely what happened to South Vietnam.

And in the end, that is why Iraq is becoming Vietnam. I leave you with the definition of quagmire:

A quagmire (from "quake" + "mire") is, literally, shaky, miry ground; as a political term used to describe a foreign military campaign in which there is either no foreseeable possibility of victory or the objectives are unclearly defined, and at the same time no clear exit strategy has been formulated in the absence of victory. The military campaign is likened to a kind of swamp or marsh in which the warring nation is unable to remove itself.