At Africana, Jelani Cobb suggests that we've got another Vietnam on our hands.
I would suggest a comparison of numbers. First of all, let's start with a math question. What is 22 x 254? That's the number of soldiers who died in Vietnam, just from California. If you care about the dead, perhaps you might check out their names. The answer is somewhere north of 5500, which is more than 8 times as many American soldiers as have died in Iraq. At the current rate of American casualties it will take 8 years of occupation in Iraq to match the number of Vietnam dead from California alone.
Look around you. Do you see any mass demonstrations in the streets of America? NO. It's because Americans can count. That's reason number one why this is not 'another Vietnam'.
Do you know what Congress was debating yesterday? They were debating whether or not National Guardsmen on active duty in Iraq will be penalized for early withdrawl of funds from their IRAs. If this were Vietnam, I daresay they'd be a lot more worried about whether they're ever going to see America again, much less the tax rates on their stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
Moral outrage is a good and fine tool in politics, but let's keep things in perspective. The occupation of Iraq is not another Vietnam, it's not even another Gulf War. It is what it is, so let's pay attention to that and leave historical comparisons to the time in the future when this occupation actually will be history.
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