Tet for Tat

An interesting take on the Tet Offensive by Michael Gaddy on LewRockwell.

Apparently, depending on whom you believe, Tet either proved that the North Vietnamese could not be permanently defeated and would keep rising again; or else was a discouraging blow to the Commies that would have ended the war if the antiwar types hd just shut up.

I think that the former is somewhat closer to the truth; I will elaborate in my next posting on why I distrust the latter statement.

In any case, I see two possible outcomes in Iraq if things continue down the current path:

(1) The insugency will continue to grow slowly. We will essentially need to use increasing manpower and resources to keep control, such as it is, of Iraq. Ultimately a rising tide of casualties will either become so unpopular that we will withdraw or the commanders will get so frustrated that we will engage in genocide to avoid withdrawing.

(2) Urged on in the belief that Iraqis would quiet down and acquiesce to us if only it weren't for those pesky foreign jihadis (because Iraqis love us so muich, you know), we will spread the war to Syria and/or Iran, and when covert action doesn't work, we invade. At this point, if we are to avoid a draft, the use of carpet-bombing and maybe even nukes will be necessary if we are to achieve victory in any sense.

Boy, is this depressing.