On the eve of Iraq's historic elections, the American Left and the media continue their double-pronged assault on the legitimacy election and American attempts to establish democracy in the Middle East. Senator Kennedy again compares Iraq to Vietnam and advocates the withdrawal of American forces from the country. American troops are the cause of the violence, not the actions and murderous ideology of Islamists:

We have reached the point that a prolonged American military presence in Iraq is no longer productive for either Iraq or the United States. The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution… Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing-the hearts and minds of the people - and that is a battle we are not winning.

The terrorists and Baathists are not fighting for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, they are fighting against the Iraqis' desire for self-determination. They only offer death and slavery – Taliban style. A "liberal" such as Senator Kennedy should be able to easily recognize this, but instead can only find fault with those working to promote liberty, not those that oppose it.

Senator Kennedy continues to advocate for the unrealistic approach put forth by Senator Kennedy during the 2004 Presidential Elections: bring in the United Nations, despite the unwillingness and inability of the United Nations to get involved in Iraq:

The first point in a new plan would be for the United Nations, not the United States, to provide assistance and advice on establishing a system of government and drafting a Constitution. An international meeting - led by the United Nations and the new Iraqi Government -- should be convened immediately in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East to begin that process.

Glen Reynolds aptly describes the American Left's detachment from reality, and their abdication of the ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights:

When Ted Kennedy can make an absurd and borderline-traitorous speech on the war, when Michael Moore shares a VIP box with the last Democratic President but one, when Barbara Boxer endorses a Democratic consultant/blogger whose view of American casualties in Iraq is "screw 'em," well, this is the authentic face of the Left. Or what remains of it.

There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn't a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone.>

The necessity to oppose the Bush administration at every turn has unwittingly forced the Left to align with the enemies of liberty. Quick to seize on the statements of Senator Kennedy, the New York Times publishes a history-challenged article titled "Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam", which attempts to draw comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, demonstrating their political opportunism and ignorance of history. The last real victory of the Left, the destruction of American efforts to fight communism in South East Asia, has warped their view of the American application of power. All future conflicts are viewed through the distorted looking glass of Vietnam. The analogy is severely flawed, the difference between Vietnam and Iraq could not be greater.

Colonel Harry J. Summers Jr., in On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, explains the Vietnam War was primarily fought against the North Vietnamese, not against the guerrilla Vietcong, as it is so often characterized. The failure of American leadership was to not recognize this. Because of this, we turned our efforts to fight the Vietcong, not the real center of power, North Vietnam.

While a strategic offensive against North Vietnam may not have been politically feasible, we could have taken the tactical offensive to isolate the battlefield. But instead of orienting on North Vietnam – the source of the war - we turned our attention to the symptom – the guerrilla war in the south. Our new "strategy" of counterinsurgency blinded us to the fact that the guerrilla war was tactical and not strategic. It was a kind of economy of force operation on the part of North Vietnam to buy time and to wear down superior U.S. military forces. (Page 81)

In Iraq, there is no equivalent of North Vietnam stalking the battlefield, waiting for U.S. power to wear down. Terrorism and the disruption of the elections are both the strategy and tactics of the enemy in Iraq. While they hope to wear down American power, they do not operate from a strategic stronghold much like the North Vietnamese did. Nor do the terrorists and Baathist have a powerful, global strategic ally to limit American actions (Iran and Syria hardly qualify as such, and hence their support is offered clandestinely). Their very base of operations is in Iraq, amongst a population hostile to their brand of politics. Fighting the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq is the proper course of action, as they are the strategic enemy.

In Vietnam, the insurgent arm of the North Vietnamese offensive – the Vietcong – was roundly defeated during the Tet Offensive in 1968. The NVA also encountered a stunning defeat on the battlefield. However negative media coverage and weak leadership turned victory into defeat:

In earlier chapters we saw that as a tactical offensive, Tet 68 was a resounding failure for the North Vietnamese. But we also saw that it was a strategic success against our center of gravity – American public opinion and the American political leadership. Discussing the effects of the Tet Offensive, W. Scott Thompson and Donaldson D. Frizzell commented that:

General Giap's offensive drove a wedge between optimistic public pronouncements and the realities seen on American television. In spite of the generally good performance of the ARVN, the war began to look hopeless and irrational to the American people and to American leaders. In Washington, the net effect of Tet was to convince our leaders that success in our goals in Vietnam could not be attained by military means.

After Tet, there was a golden opportunity to exploit the weakness of the enemy. Instead, Washington reacted with an investigation into charges that American forces had been taken by surprise in the coordinated attacks. There was an opportunity at this point in the war to convert military success into meaningful political gain. Instead, our resolve obviously wavered, we began to fold our hands and started looking for a way out of the war. (Page 140)

Senator Kennedy and others on the Left attempt to replicate the effects of Vietnam in Iraq using every political means to erode public support and political will: the hand wringing over Abu Ghraib; constant comparisons and moral equivalence of the American military to the Islamofascist enemy; the characterization of the case for war as a intentional deception of the American public; stalling Condolezza Rice's vote for Secretary of State to trash the war in Iraq; using the "torture" memos to characterize America as a rogue nation; the list goes on.

The media offensive against Iraq compliments the actions of the Left. The Obsidian Order documents the media's latest attempts to act as the media arm of Iraqi terrorists; photographers lying in wait for terrorist attacks on polling stations (additional analysis at The Adventures of Chester). Belmont Club uncovered a similar situation last December when photographers were conveniently on hand to photograph the execution of poll workers on Haifa Street. The media's latest flirtation with assisting the enemy is not just another isolated incident of poor judgment or bad journalism. It is a systematic effort to de-legitimize American effort s in Iraq and emasculate American foreign policy.

Ironically, the only way for Iraq to become Vietnam is if the Left and the media are successful in their efforts to destroy public opinion and break the will of the government. In the case of the media, it would be an example of their ability to influence events instead of merely reporting them.

Successful elections are not the end of this battle. The terrorists will continue to attack Iraqi and American forces. Encouraged by the media and the Left, Baathists and terrorists hope they can duplicate the effort of General Giap in Vietnam.

Ignorance, arrogance and irresponsibility are the hallmarks of the media and the Left. While Vietnam could be abandoned with relatively few consequences to American security, save the slaughter of millions in South East Asia (the shame liberals bury deep inside), the abandonment of Iraq would have serious consequences for Western civilization. The Islamofascist enemy would be emboldened pursue the attack, knowing America is truly a paper tiger. Retreat would be followed by rout, and the calculus of war would grow dangerous indeed. America has yet to come close to exploiting her full military potential, something no one, especially "liberals", should wish to see.

Additional Reading:

Arthur Chrenkoff writes on the folly of the American Declinists.