compare contrast

Iraq is another Vietnam. Some people will adamantly defend this idea. Others completely disagree. While other still will say there are similarities but there are major differences and Vietnam has no relevance in determining Iraq.  There are a lot of similarities between the two wars but there are major differences as well. The way people react to the comparison in the two  wars also varies.
 Some of the major similarities include things such as the beginnings of the wars. In both Vietnam and Iraq the U.S had already been in the countries for various reasons. Then there was an incident that incited action. Both Vietnam and Iraq were set off on  faulty information. For both there are conspiracy ideas stating  the incidents were set  up by the United States government. In Vietnam there was the Tonkin bay incident. A U.S vessel was allegedly attacked by enemy boats. This was the go ahead to begin the bombing campaign in Vietnam. This  information was  found  to be false. The vessel had not been attacked. Then in Iraq there was supposedly weapons of mass destruction. The U.S invaded Iraq in order to stop the production of the weapons. The weapons were never found. Also  both wars have had other informational problems. The public has been falsely informed of facts. Weather this was intentional or  just communicational problems is  up  for debate. 
 Both wars after being initiated were continued in order to establish a functioning government.  In Vietnam the us was combating communism out of fear of the domino theory. The domino theory was the thought that if Vietnam fell to communism the rest of South East Asia would. Then it would spread to the rest of the world. In Vietnam the U.S was looking to establish any kind of functioning government.  In Iraq after taking Hussein out of power the United states continued and still is working on setting up a democratic government.
 Vietnam and Iraq were also said to be fighting against global threats. In both wars the United States justified their actions by claiming the work that they were doing was to combat global threats.  This was to give  reasoning to the people. The aim was to get people to rally behind the choices of the government. In both wars it worked. In Vietnam it was a fight against  communism. In Iraq it was a fight against terrorism.
 Economics had a play in both wars.  Not so much in Vietnam in Iraq. The economic side of war was ignored by the media and the government for the most part. In Iraq there has been more  attention to the issues over oil, but the government tries to downplay it and the media has taken other interests. In Vietnam the economic side of the war got no attention. 
 There was difficulty in finding the enemies in Vietnam and Iraq. Vietnam the enemy fought a guerilla style war and often took the identity  of  civilians. They would farm during the day and attack at night.  In Iraq the soldiers have had problems differentiating who the enemy is. In Iraq sometimes children would be strapped with bombs.
 In Vietnam the Vietnamization  process was implemented. This was the process in which the U.S would train the south Vietnamese to defend themselves and rebuild as a nation. The U.S is  currently working to do this in Iraq. The success of Vietnamization was visible but fell apart when the us cut funding  for south Vietnam and the north continued to be funded by Russia. How successful this idea will be in Iraq has not been determined.
 In knowing the similarities between the two wars, people approach the relevance in different ways. Some people say that because we can see what has been done in Vietnam we can approach Iraq in a similar fashion and just change the things that went wrong in Vietnam. Some people look at Iraq and seeing the similarities to Vietnam say that Iraq is a lost cause because Vietnam was. Other people say the wars are completely different and Vietnam should not determine how to handle Iraq. Liberals and democrats usually will look at Iraq and Vietnams similarities and say the war in Iraq is of no merit. It will end just as Vietnam had, in failure. While republicans and conservatives usually take the approach of the wars are different wars and Iraq cannot be compared to Vietnam. Though some republicans conservatives will recognize the similarities and say that the U.S can use the lessons learned from Vietnam and change the outcome in Iraq.  The popular idea following the ideas of correcting the mistakes from Vietnam to win Iraq is to teach the people on our side to defend themselves and continue to fund them in their efforts while the united states pulls out.