“Vietnamization” probably has bad connotations for many of us, who may remember it as fig leaf intended to cover an ill-advised and catastrophic surrender. It is not surprising our distrust would be awakened by handing over tasks to the Iraqis, though that is certainly the whole goal of the occupation.

I have to disagree with Bill on this. Vietnamization worked and could have continued working. It was undermined by the refusal of the Democratic Congress to continue to back up the South Vietnamese government. So there were two different things going on and you’re conflating them: there was Vietnamization, the policy of the Nixon administration; and there was surrender, the policy of the Democrats. The latter destroyed the work of the former.

Thanks for the correction.

I think a great mistake Nixon made—and I wrote him a letter asking him about this after reading his very worthwhile book “No More Vietnams” in the 1980s—was that he didn’t make clear to the American people that the continued backup by the U.S. for the South Vietnamese was the necessary condition for Vietnamization and the peace treaty to work. It’s strange and sad he didn’t do this, because he had also written that the most successful speech of his presidency was the “great silent majority” speech where he appealed to the good sense of the American people and got tremendous response. But the peace treaty with North Vietnam was presented by the administration as though it was self-operating, rather than as something that would have to be _enforced_ by our continuing presence in the region and our readiness to use bombers to punish the North Vietnamese if they broke the treaty. At the time of the peace treaty, Nixon neglected to make that case and win support for that necessity, which made it all the easier for the Democrats a year or two later to pull the plug on the whole thing and allow South Vietnam to be conquered.

I will never forget the words of Vernon Walters in the 1980s (I’m paraphrasing): “When there was fighting in every hamlet in South Vietnam, when war consumed the country, there were no refugees. It took a North Vietnamese victory to send a million people onto the sea in open boats.”

Mr. Auster is right that a Democratic Congress undercut the Nixon Administration’s efforts to make Vietnamization of the war effort work. I think he is also right to criticize the Nixon Administration for giving Americans the impression that once the treaty was signed and the defense of South Vietnam turned over to the ARVN, the U.S. armed forces would be done in Southeast Asia.

One other problem contributed to the ultimate failure of Vietnamization. In many areas the process was rushed, and U.S. advisors to ARVN units were pressed to say that those units were ready to operate independently of the Americans before they were. In this way also, ARVN units were left in the lurch and U.S. advisors’ service with them was wasted. I say this not from personal experience (I was too young to do anything but watch Vietnam on TV) but from serving later with officers and staff NCOs - mostly Marine - who were advisors during the Vietnamization period and believed it had been rushed and felt pressured to certify ARVN units ready.

I am not sure that South Vietnam then is all that comparable to Iraq now. What both have in common is internal insurgents (Viet Cong in SVN; various in Iraq). The threat was greater in Vietnam, as the VC had a unified national command structure and formal external military support (the NVA, and its Soviet and Communist Chinese suppliers). There was an invasion threat to SVN: North Vietnam, which could rely on external support from larger Communist regimes. There is no comparable threat to Iraq, unless one believes the Iranians are waiting for us to leave in order to invade Iraq themselves.

For those reasons, I think it should be easier for the United States to turn Iraq over to Iraqis and leave - which is exactly what we should do - than it was to leave Vietnam. The difference in the two situations is another reason why we should not repeat another mistake of our Vietnam involvement: accepting enormous numbers of refugees. HRS

Strange and sad indeed. How much did it cost the the whole world, to bring down America the Defender of Freedom!

The Marine colonel quoted in the article has got one thing wrong. The Fallujah Brigade didn’t succeed by fighting the insurgents but by putting them on the payroll. Apologies if I posted this link once before, but this is an eyewitness account of the first Marine patrol through Fallujah.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=323

extra pictures:

http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/archives/000367.html#more

Anybody notice that the army now announces the locations of carbombings as “in Anbar Province”, rather than “near Fallujah”?

I think it is an illusion to suppose that Vietnamization ever worked. The Allies DID beat the guerrillas in South Vietnam, but the North Vietnamese army, though stopped in 1972, was basically intact and was well within the borders of South Vietnam when the “peace agreement” was signed. Further, the latter was never effective, and there was continuous fighting during 1973-1974… a fact Nixon, Kissinger and some of their apologists have always scanted. It is also an illusion to suppose Americans would have supported going back in to enforce the “peace agreement.” Mr. Auster is right in that the Administration did lead people to expect that the agreement would be self-enforcing, but the problem was deeper than that, or the deception that there actually was a peace to enforce. Public opinion gave Nixon a remarkable amount of leeway to get out “with honor”, but there was no willingness to go back in once our men were out and an “agreement” was signed. Contemptible as Nixon and Kissinger were, I suspect noone could have overcome the demoralization and war-weariness that had developed by the time they came on the scene.
Howard Sutherland may be slightly overoptimistic about the lack of external threat in Iraq. The danger may not be so much an overt Iranian invasion after we leave, but an Iranian intervention in alliance with Shiites in the midst of a civil war, which the Iranians might not find it hard to arrange.