Escalation of Troops Numbers into Iraq Brings Back Memories of Vietnam

Was watching the Rachel Maddow Show last night on MSNBC and she had a segment on how what is happening now as far as the first call for military advisers in Iraq was around 200 just before President Obama announced that he was sending 300 more to provide embassy protection and airport security only yesterday to announce another 200.  Pentagon Spokesperson said that this was going to be a short mission but those who know or have studied the history of the Vietnam War, showed eerie similarities between that and this.

They are similar since I was Dwight D. Eisenhower who first sent in a small number of military advisers into Vietnam because he did not want to send a larger group of troops.  Word is that later, John F. Kennedy inherited that mission and even though beefed up the number of advisers in Vietnam would have probably never increased them past that point.  The Maddow piece further explained that after Kennedy died and Lyndon Johnson took over, he was convinced to escalate and he did.  So it appears that the Iraq War Part Two is on the same track.  The show’s piece did leave one to wonder and did show compelling evidence that this could be the case but of course I think it is different.

It’s different because of a part in the piece that said President Obama and many of his closest aides read the book detailing all this on the Vietnam War and this president has stated quite seriously that he does not want another boots on the ground conflict in Iraq.  So far, he has been a man of his word, so I am compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I am also compelled to see a different reason for the 700 plus military members that are there and the seldom mentioned arrival of a carrier off shore with helicopters.


What I see is the preparations for American citizen immediate withdrawal in case Baghdad does fall and the lives of these citizens are threaten.  He wants a force large enough to protect the evacuation of these citizens safely but not too large as to present a problem of removing them after the citizens are gone.  It’s a short term mission because they expect to see signs of this soon and if it does turn around, they can safely and quickly remove those extra troops just as quickly as they deployed them.  This is just my opinion, I could be wrong and if so ME CULPA.  

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