Posted by Jim at June 1st, 2004

During the past year or so, I’ve often wondered about whether the parallel some people make between Iraq and Vietnam really makes much sense. For example, Vietnam was an attempt to indirectly work against the goals of China and the Soviet Union. In Iraq, we went to war against a nation with much less power than ourselves. We are also losing far fewer people than in Vietnam.

There may be similarities in that there’s ongoing resistance to us, but in Vietnam we had North Vietnam vs. South Vietnam sort of situation. In Iraq we’ve conquered the country and now we’re dealing with the normal cost of occupation–military personnel being sent home in coffins.

I’d argue that the Phillipines are a much better historical comparison.

President William McKinley led the war against Spain, picking up some territory in the bargain (Guam, the Phillipines, Puerto Rico…), viewed the war as an opportunity to liberate Cuba and to Christianize the Phillipines. Interestingly, the period in which this happened a period of revival in the US. This was the period of Dwight Moody and many others with the goal of evangelizing the world.

Here’s a quote from William McKinley as reported by Mark Noll (a historian), “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

What we got out of going to the Phillipines was a long occupation, resistance to the occupation, some atrocities and eventually withdrawal.

Interestingly, one of the people involved in pushing the war against Spain was Theodore Roosevelt, a person Bush apparently admires. Also, I’d argue that US has had a big push toward evangelical influence in politics for the last long while, much like the Protestant influence of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (of which McKinley was a high point). I’m not arguing that Christianity is the problem here, but there are similarities in the tone of our period and that one. For example… “muscular Christianity” and the Christian Businessman’s Association of that period vs. the Promise Keepers in ours.

If you feel the urge, you can check out look at someone else’s argument for similarities between Iraq and the Phillipines. Unlike me, the guy who wrote it appears to actually have some background in history…

Oh… One other thing, I was interested to note what a blogger in the Phillipines thought of the situation.