If it looks like a dog, and it smells like a dog...

...then it must be a cat. Or, so Christopher Hitchens would have us believe. Yesterday in Slate Christopher Hitchens, fed up by Vietnam-Iraq comparisons, goes into a fit trying to explain how they are not at all in any way alike.

There it was again, across half a page of the New York Times last Saturday, just as Iraqis and Kurds were nerving themselves to vote. "Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam." The basis for the story, which featured a number of experts as lugubrious as they were imprecise, was the suggestion that South Vietnam had held an election in September 1967, and that this propaganda event had not staved off ultimate disaster.

I can't quite tell why this article was not printed on the day before the Afghan or Palestinian elections, or at any of the times when Iranian voters overwhelmingly chose reform candidates but were thwarted by the entrenched reserve strength of the theocracy. But perhaps now is the moment to state the critical reasons why there is no reasonable parallel of any sort between Iraq and Vietnam.

Hitchens then goes on to cite several ways in which Iraq and Vietnam are not alike, including-believe it or not-that the communist party of Iraq isn't actually attempting to overthrow the Iraqi government. Now to be fair this is only the most absurd non-parallel between the two wars that he mentions. Others, like the fact that the insurgents in Iraq do not have the outside support of powerful patrons, are much more relevant. But overall, Hitchens comes off with the tone of someone who's comparing two breeds of dogs and tell you the many minute ways in which they're different. He's right, but he's also missing the big picture.

The truth is there are more than a few similarities between Vietnam and Iraq. First and foremost is the fact that we are looking at a tenacious insurgency that is supported by a significant portion of the population. Granted American's fought more insurgencies then Veitnam and Iraq, but you have to start somewhere. Another resemblance is the means by which we were persuaded to go to war; Johnson had Tonkin Gulf, Bush has WMDs. Third is the damage the war has inflincted on our military, in terms of morale and readiness to fight in another conflict. Then there are the "small" comparisons, like this one at Slate about the proportion of casualties our military has suffered compared to Vietnam.

Overall, I'll admit that Hitchens is not totally off his rocker. Vietnam and Iraq are not the same, and the same result is not sure to follow. And yes it's annoying when anti-war protestors who are certainly not experts in history or foreign policy start making the connection to Vietnam. But, there are also valid bases for comparison, and it's not something that can be as easily dismissed as Hitchens would like it to be.