Petraeus, remember Tet!

It was just over 40 years ago, early in 1968, that the great Tet Offensive by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam showed beyond a doubt that U.S. imperialism could not crush the people’s resistance in that poor, agricultural country in Southeast Asia.

South Vietnam at the time was occupied by almost half a million U.S. soldiers. U.S. carpet bombing had been pounding both South and North Vietnam with millions of tons of explosives over five years. The imperialist armed forces tried to break the resistance of the people by employing fiendish weapons like white phosphorous and napalm, which burned everything and everyone they touched. Peasants, workers, students, anyone suspected of being sympathetic to the national liberation forces could be interrogated, tortured and often murdered.

Nevertheless, in 1968 the people rose up all over South Vietnam in well-planned insurrections that came to be known as the Tet Offensive. They penetrated U.S. bases and officers’ clubs and showed the vulnerability of the occupation forces.

Even after that, however, U.S. generals on many occasions testified before Congress that the war could be won if only more money was authorized, if more troops were sent, if more weapons were deployed.

It took another six years before the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. NLF forces rolled into Saigon waving their liberation flag as the last U.S. personnel leaped in panic onto helicopters from the Embassy grounds.

Richard Nixon was president. By that time, the number of dead in Vietnam had risen to several million. The U.S. had also invaded Cambodia and carpet-bombed Laos, causing many more casualties. More than 55,000 U.S. soldiers had died—a fraction of those wounded, mentally or physically.

It is too bad that no one reminded Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, of these historical facts when he testified before Congress this April 8 and 9. Petraeus had come to Washington from his safe havens in the Middle East to call for a halt of at least 45 days in the withdrawal of any U.S. troops from the Iraq war.

Eighteen months ago, U.S. military commanders had told Congress they needed extra money for a “surge” of troops to Iraq so they could turn around the situation there and win the war. Congress gave them the money. Weary troops were sent back for third and fourth tours of duty. Now Petraeus describes the situation as “fragile” and says that the “gains” made by his forces are “reversible” unless Congress extends the soldiers’ stay there yet again.

Iraq is not Vietnam. The Vietnamese leaders were communists who had been carrying out a struggle for national liberation for generations, and had earlier defeated the French colonial army at Dien Bien Phu.

But Iraq, like Vietnam, is a country the imperialists covet for its raw materials, its exploitable labor force, and its strategic position in Asia. And Iraq, like Vietnam, rose up against the colonial ruler—in this case, Britain—and won control over its most precious resource, oil, back in the 1950s.

In both Iraq and Vietnam, U.S. imperialism has tried to set back the clock to the days before national liberation movements broke up the old colonial world order. It failed in Vietnam. It will fail in Iraq, too.

What the imperialists never seem to be able to understand is the determination of ordinary people to resist foreign domination and exploitation.

As the senators and representatives, including the three presidential candidates, questioned Petraeus, none would think of referring to the Iraq war in this way. The troops are supposedly “defending their country,” although Iraq never attacked the U.S. The issue the politicians raise is whether the surge has been a “success,” not that the war and the surge are both criminal efforts by the super-rich to grab Iraq’s oil.

It was the resistance of the Vietnamese people and the mass opposition of U.S. civilians and soldiers to that war that finally convinced the ruling class to end it.

Today, the Iraqi resistance is doing its part. The U.S. had to admit its “error” in bombing Basra after its savage attack failed to crush the people’s spirit. Petraeus’ testimony just confirmed that the position of the Pentagon and its Iraqi puppets is weaker than ever.

But more is needed—nothing less than ratcheting up a militant anti-war struggle here in the U.S. That is a precondition to end this vicious colonial war in Iraq and bring the troops home.