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"But with Joe Six-Pack the war was never more popular. In January 1965, a Harris poll showed that 59 per cent of Americans were cool on the Administration's commitment to Vietnam. By summer, a solid two-thirds majority of Americans supported the war. 'There's too much involved for us to back out now,' said a 29-year-old labourer from Greensboro, Indiana. 'We have to finish the job.' Sound familiar to you, too? Or how about this: "Not only were the Americans fighting an unseen enemy in Vietnam, they were also fighting an unknown quantity. No-one could ever accurately estimate the number of North Vietnamese combat forces who were assisting the Viet Cong in their struggle, nor how many more were being prepared for future action." "The hospital at Thai Binh, near Hanoi, was bombed three times by the Americans. In 1967, it was estimated that 80 per cent of the North Vietnamese casualties were civilian." This from a chapter written by a Vietnamese fellow who joined the Viet Cong at aged 16: "It was things they did like offering us what we did not want and rebuilding something they had destroyed in the first place that showed how simple minded the Americans were. As if we could forget what they had done so easily. They could be generous to us if they wished but at the same time they could destroy whole villages and kill so many so quickly." "The Americans were well armed but slow and clumsy. They had firepower that we feared so we stayed hidden and out of range. They were like elephants, especially when moving through the jungle ... If we wounded or killed only one of theirs and lived to fight another day, it was a victory. Like the drop of water that wears away the stone, we would wear away the American Army."
Sounds exactly like Iraq.
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