On the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) published an opinion piece titled "Iraq of '08 eerily like Vietnam of '68" written by Maurice Isserman, James L. Ferguson Professor of History, and University of Albany Professor of English Thomas Bass. As the title suggests, Isserman and Bass compare the official reports on the status of the war in Vietnam in 1968 to the war in Iraq in 2008 and suggest that the situation in Iraq is far less stable than the administration would have the nation believe.
According to the writers, when Saigon and a hundred other cities in Vietnam were attacked, the United States was caught totally off guard and even considered using nuclear weapons to repulse the North Vietnamese forces. The offensive began shortly after Gen. William Westmoreland had assured President Johnson that 65 percent of the South Vietnamese population was living in secure areas, with "victory in sight."
"Claims that victory is at hand in the Iraq war are as fatuous and unsubstantiated as Westmoreland's belief in 1968 that he was seeing 'the light at the end of the tunnel.' In spite of the optimistic talk coming from Baghdad that 'civilian deaths have decreased by 62 percent,' the metrics measuring progress in Iraq are no more believable than they were 40 years ago in Vietnam. In fact, America's military adventure in Iraq is even less sustainable than it was in Vietnam," wrote Isserman and Bass who enumerate the weaknesses in the administration's evaluation of the situation in Iraq. Concluding their piece, they observe, "In the meantime, the calm prevailing over Tet in Iraq has the same eerie unreality that it had 40 years ago in Vietnam. Welcome to the Year of the Rat."
According to the writers, when Saigon and a hundred other cities in Vietnam were attacked, the United States was caught totally off guard and even considered using nuclear weapons to repulse the North Vietnamese forces. The offensive began shortly after Gen. William Westmoreland had assured President Johnson that 65 percent of the South Vietnamese population was living in secure areas, with "victory in sight."
"Claims that victory is at hand in the Iraq war are as fatuous and unsubstantiated as Westmoreland's belief in 1968 that he was seeing 'the light at the end of the tunnel.' In spite of the optimistic talk coming from Baghdad that 'civilian deaths have decreased by 62 percent,' the metrics measuring progress in Iraq are no more believable than they were 40 years ago in Vietnam. In fact, America's military adventure in Iraq is even less sustainable than it was in Vietnam," wrote Isserman and Bass who enumerate the weaknesses in the administration's evaluation of the situation in Iraq. Concluding their piece, they observe, "In the meantime, the calm prevailing over Tet in Iraq has the same eerie unreality that it had 40 years ago in Vietnam. Welcome to the Year of the Rat."
