Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past | 
 enlarge | Creators: Lloyd C. Gardner, Marilyn B. Young
Publisher: New Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 198128
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 1595583459
Dewey Decimal Number: 956
EAN: 9781595583451
ASIN: 1595583459
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
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Product Description
The widely praised book featured on Bill Moyers Journal that looks at a war of an earlier era to help explain what has gone so wrong in Iraq.
With countless lives lost and the situation in Iraq more desperate than ever, it is clear that U.S. foreign policy makers have learned little from the past, even as they have been obsessed with the "Vietnam syndrome." Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam explores this conundrum.
In Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam, Lloyd C. Gardner, author of several celebrated books about U.S. foreign policy and Vietnam, and Marilyn B. Young, author of the leading history of the Vietnam War, have brought together the most renowned historians of Vietnam—and leading analysts of contemporary U.S. foreign policy—to consider the correspondences between then and now. By closely examining how our policy makers have failed to understand the history of our wars, relations with allies and antagonists, military strategies and capabilities, and the nature and limitations of presidential and American power, these writers demonstrate that Rumsfeld had it right when he noted that "the biggest problem we've got in the country is people who don't study history anymore." As Howard Zinn notes, "Iraq is not Vietnam, the makers of war tell us, hoping we will forget. The writers in this volume insist that we remember, and, in these thoughtful, sobering essays, they explain why. It is history at its best—meaning, at its most useful."
With contributions by: Christian G. Appy • Andrew J. Bacevich • Alex Danchev • David Elliott • Elizabeth L. Hillman • Gabriel Kolko • Walter LaFeber • Wilfried Mausbach • Alfred W. McCoy • Gareth Porter • John Prados
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent studies May 8, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an excellent collection of essays on the USA's wars, past, present and future. As the Washington Post noted, "the lesson of Vietnam is that once you make the initial mistake, little you do afterward is right. If the basic policy is flawed, the best tactics in the world will not salvage it." When the attacks on Vietnam and Iraq were mistakes, then all proposed solutions - a different strategy, more troops, more bombing, attacking neighbouring countries - will fail.
The editors write, "Iraq is most certainly the greatest so far of the neo-colonial wars as the great powers seek out spheres of influence and special advantages in the oil-rich areas bordering the Persian Gulf." Yet Rumsfeld lied, "it has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." So did Blair.
The US resolution for war against the `threat posed by Iraq' was in the US state's long tradition of faking threats to justify aggressive wars. After 9/11, Rumsfeld's undersecretary Douglas Feith scolded the senior staff officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "Why are you working on Afghanistan? You ought to be working on Iraq." Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, noted, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." And Bush told Blair, "the diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning."
In every counter-insurgency war - Japan against China, France against Vietnam, France against Algeria, Britain against Kenya, Malaya and Northern Ireland, the USA against Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel against Palestine - the people do not want to cooperate with the occupiers. So the occupiers, unable to find out about the resistance, resort to mass torture to get information. In Vietnam, the USA had its Operation Phoenix. Now it has Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo. As the Red Cross said, "The construction of such a system ... cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture."
Once a counter-insurgency war has got started, the occupiers are doomed to defeat. Capitalism will drive imperialism to repeat the same disasters for ever - make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again - if we let it.
 Stuff everyone should know. October 19, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Iraq and the lessons of Vietnam is full of the background information we all
need to know about. Too bad we didn't know some of this before this crew was installed in the White House. The book is a series of articles by different people with expertise in each aspect such as intelligence, foreign policy, etc. The book is excellent but not an easy read.
ACUTE COMPARISON April 12, 2007
38 out of 42 found this review helpful
THIS IS A VERY USEFUL AND ORIGINAL COLLECTION, AND THE COMPARISON OF VIETNAM AND IRAQ IS VERY RELEVANT TO THE PROTRACTED WAR IN IRAQ. MANY OF THE ANALOGIES, SUCH AS THE USE OF 'CREDIBILITY,' ARE IDENTICAL. BUT THE SCOPE OF THE IRAQ DISASTER IS FAR GREATER GEOPOLITICALLY THAN THE INDOCHINA WAR BECAUSE THE U S IS NOW RIPPING APART THE ENTIRE REGION. THIS BOOK IS VERY TIMELY AND QUITE CONCISE COMPARED TO MANY OF THE BOOKS THAT SEEK TO CONFRONT THE IRAQ DISASTER.
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