IRAQNAM

Jim Glaser is a Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran who learned the lesson of Vietnam and now speaks out against the Iraq war. As a Vietnam vet he can speak with authority on the parallels between the quagmire in the jungle and the quagmire in the sand. In his commentary today at LewRockwell.com, We Were Winning and Doing Nothing But Good in Vietnam Too, he explains the important parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Jeff Boskovitch, of North Royalton, Ohio, died in Iraq this week. His uncle Paul said, "We got a lot of e-mail from him." "He felt he was making a difference there and that the Iraqi people were appreciative of what they were doing. He loved the Marines and he loved his unit."

Every Marine I knew in Vietnam loved the Marines and unit loyalty is a given. I too thought that the Vietnamese loved us and appreciated everything we were doing for them. Like most Americans in Vietnam and most Americans in Iraq, I didn't speak the language, so smiles and shaking of the head, looked to me like approval, but who knows, they might have been saying, "Get out of my country, you son of a bitch."

While in Vietnam Glaser received daily pep talks on all the good they were doing and truly believed it, but

When I finally came home and started learning just how much death and destruction we were causing, I knew we would never win that war. When you are in a combat zone, you can only see what is going on right in your area and yes, there are a few mistakes, and yes, some women and children are killed, but only a few. When you have a chance to look at the big picture and realize that those "few mistakes" are happening all over the country, you know something is very wrong. When you add all those mistakes up, they reach sickening numbers. Soon you realize that no matter how many "good works" you and your unit do, you will never overcome the horror and suffering inflicted throughout the country.

The same is true in Iraq:

Some reports say we have killed 25,000 innocent Iraqis, while other reports put that number at over 100,000. No one has any idea of the numbers wounded, but it is safe to assume that American and coalition troops have hurt someone from almost every family in Iraq. Those people look at their country after two and a half years of occupation, and there is destruction everywhere. There still isn't reliable electricity. Iraq still doesn't have safe drinking water and much of the raw sewage is pumped directly into the river, untreated.

Yes, some American troops are doing some good things, but when those things are compared to what most of the American units are doing, it isn't much. If you kill with the right hand and attempt to heal with the left, which hand is remembered?

Any good the US might be doing in Iraq is so insignificant when compared with the bad that it becomes meaningless.

This is in agreement with the point I have been making all along and as recently as yesterday; the major parallel between Iraq and Vietnam is that the people hate us.