Due to its dreadful nature, war creates strong emotions and differences of opinion. That is probably because in war there is so much at stake; lives can be lost and countries ruined. For this reason the decision to go to war can cause great controversy. In the past century no two U.S. wars have caused greater controversy than the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq.
Because of the way in which these two wars have been conducted and the consequences they have created for both the U.S. and Iraq and Vietnam, both wars are very similar. To begin, with the reasons for these wars are very similar. The U.S. was trying in both to counter the spread of a force that threatened its' power and security. In Iraq this was terrorism and in Vietnam, communism. Both wars became greatly unpopular at home as time passed and casualties, chaos and cost increased, seemingly exponentially. In both conflicts the U.S. attempted to defeat a native force who employed tactics that made it impossible to differentiate the enemy from civilians.
In neither case could the U.S. find a way to counter this tactic. In this way U.S.' soldiers had to suspect all non-Americans. This led American soldiers to kill innocent civilians. As a result the people of Iraq and Vietnam came to hate their American occupiers. This hatred in turn created more enemies who had one goal: the destruction of their American occupiers by whatever means necessary. The U.S. had no support from the people of Iraq or Vietnam and little from their own citizens. Without this support the U.S. could not be succeed in these wars.
The Vietnam war and the war in Iraq also had many differences. Although the reason for the war in Vietnam remained clear (the prevention of the spread of communism and the preservation of South Vietnam) the reasoning for the war in Iraq constantly wavered. As one reason for entering the war was found to be illogical or untrue another was created. Initially the war was waged to attack the forces of Terror that had struck the U.S. on 9-11. When it was made clear that few terrorist cells operated in Iraq, the reason became the presence of weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein might use to attack the U.S.. It was then discovered that there were no WMD's in Iraq. Reasons for the war that many trusted and supported were found to be untrue.
This along with the fact that the situation in Iraq was steadily declining led many Americans to withdraw their support of the war. Another difference in Iraq was the presence of a civil war, something that did not occur in Vietnam. The people of Vietnam were united under the nationalist Ho Chi Minh against the U.S.. The U.S. leaving Vietnam created peace. In Iraq the Sunni's, the Shiites and the Kurds are fighting amongst each other in addition to fighting the U.S.. The U.S. leaving would not create peace because the three groups would continue to fight. The U.S. must stay to create peace between these three groups.
In writing this essay I came to an interesting conclusion. The Vietnam war was initially a worthwhile conflict that later became a war that was no longer reasonable to fight or possible for the U.S. to win. On the other hand Iraq was an unreasonable, illogical and terribly planned and executed war from which we must not currently withdraw. This conflict has caused great death and destruction and has left us in the unfavorable position we now find ourselves. Despite this we must not leave Iraq now and create that thing which we originally sought to destroy: a place of instability were hatred of the U.S. and terrorism are bred. Iraq is in a poor state right now. It can get better or much, much worse. Our current attempts to resolve the conflict within Iraq are not working but that does not mean we should abandon this objective. We must change our strategy and achieve this very necessary goal. It is our duty to fix the problem we created, but more so it is our duty to create stability in Iraq to ensure security for Iraq, security for America and security for the world.
