The fact that Iraq's army is not willing to defend itself against ISIS, as noted by the New York Times Editorial Board, calls into question whether we should be aiding them.
Mr. Carter’s stark judgment once again raises the question of how long the United States should continue arming and training Iraqis and dropping bombs on targets related to the Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group also known as ISIS or ISIL. If the Iraqis don’t care enough to defend and sacrifice for their own country, then why should the United States?
I submit that we should not aid countries or groups of people unless they are committed to American and Western values and unless they are willing to help themselves. If we send aid to the Syrian rebels, there is no guarantee that it will not fall into the hands of Al-Nursa or ISIS. If we aid the Iraqi government, we are simply throwing good money after bad given that substantial numbers of their forces refuse to fight. If we are to aid anybody in this conflict, it should be the Kurds, who at least seem to be willing to fight and who at least purport to stand for democratic values. I submit that this situation is similar to South Vietnam, where we dealt with numerous units who were not willing to fight for their country.
While there were South Vietnamese units that fought effectively in that conflict, they were too often the exception and not the rule. In 1973, we proclaimed "peace with honor" as we ended over 15 years of involvement in Vietnam. Yet, in reality, the writing was on the wall for South Vietnam. The same is happening in Iraq; while units in Tikrit fought effectively as Iraq recaptured that city, the units that have been deployed to Anbar have been unwilling to fight.
While Richard Nixon secretly promised the South Vietnamese leader in 1973 that the US would use force to defend any violations of the Paris Treaty that ended our involvement militarily in Vietnam, it was all empty talk. Nixon knew that there was no more political will to send troops to die halfway around the globe. Like Bush with Cindy Sheehan, Nixon could not explain to the American public the noble cause for which our troops were expected to die.
The day after Saigon fell, the New York Times published a letter to the editor from Andrew Linn of Farmington, CT in its May 1st, 1975 issue, which read in part:
Unemployment is increasing, and the only easy solution seems to be to have a way, or at least enough of a war scare so that the Pentagon can spend great amounts of money to buy everything from boots to bombers.
When an aircraft company, for instance, finally produces a new bomber at a vastly higher cost than had been expected, and the bomber is a failure, nobody complains when the plane is scrapped, with all the money down the drain. Congress cheerfully appropriates enough money for the next bondoggle, and the profits and wages continue to roll in.
But if a mass-trainsit system does not work properly, irate citizens by the thousands complain and make things difficult. Who can blame the businessmen who prefer to deal with one customer (The Pentagon), a customer who never objects to things costing more than they were supposed to or even if they don't succeed at all?
Forty years after the fall of South Vietnam, the racket is continuing more than ever before. Whether we succeed or fail in our objectives is not the point for these people -- the only thing is whether the bottom line is being met. We can fight all the futile wars we want for all they care -- it doesn't matter, since more wars equal more profits.
Part of the reason that Vietnam turned into civil conflict was the stoking of sectarian tensions by South Vietnam's dictator in 1963:
On May 8, 1963, Buddhist followers in the city of Hue celebrated the Buddha's 2,527th birthday. The day before, a deputy province chief invoked a previously ignored law that prohibited the display of religious flags, even though many Buddhist and Catholic flags had been flying for years. Police forcibly tore down flags, inciting waves of protest. On the morning of May 8, over 500 Buddhists marched and held a demonstration at the Tu Dam pagoda in opposition. The participants soon numbered over 3,000 and marched into downtown Hue, waving banners and calling for religious equality. Banners were written in English as well as Vietnamese to attract Western allies. Leading the Buddhists was a chief monk named Thich Tri Quang. The protesters soon found themselves surrounded by eight armored cars, civil guardsmen, and other armed security officials.
Tri Quang directed his people to meet outside the local radio station for a huge rally that evening. Thousands of Buddhists crowded around the radio station, demanding they broadcast a regularly scheduled religious service. In response, armed police and military forces from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) attempted to forcibly disperse the crowd. Stun weapons and fire-hoses were used. Ultimately, police and military fired shots into the crowd. Grenades exploded among the protesters. Eight were killed, including several children, and four were left severely wounded.
The next morning, government officials spoke to a gathering of almost 800 demonstrating youth. The Diem regime did not take responsibility for the violence, blaming the casualties on both NLF and Buddhist protesters themselves. In response, the youth marched around the old citadel section of Hue, chanting 'Down with Catholicism' and 'Down with Diem government.' A student banner welcomed martyrdom: 'Please Kill Us!'
And now, as noted by the NYT Editorial Board in its editorial today, the Iraqi government is doing the exact same thing:
The Iraqi state has been fragile since the Americans overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, in part because the Shiites have excluded Sunnis from a fair share of the country’s political and economic power and fostered grievances that extremists exploit. Now, under the new threat of ISIS, the politically dysfunctional state is under more strain, and may be in greater danger than ever of splitting apart into Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni sectors. That would make defeating Islamic State forces even harder.
The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, even after we have left, are simply too stark to ignore. The more we continue to get involved propping up a government whose military has numerous units which do not wish to fight, the more we risk repeating the tragic scenes we endured when Saigon fell 40 years ago.