Is Iraq Really Vietnam?

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Mark Steyn on his show yesterday and much of the interview dealt with the mdia's obsession with turning Iraq into Vietnam. I thought this exchange was particularly good (transcript from Radioblogger):

Hugh Hewitt: Mark Steyn, a mil-blogger in Iraq, in Mosul, actually, named Buck Sargeant, sent me an e-amil today, which includes in part, some slams at Michael Ware and other journalists, and he says soldiers really do know what's going on, and he concludes by saying the media wants us to lose, and they're doing their damnedest to see it happen. But I have faith in the American people that they're too smart to fall for that trick twice. Do you think that attitude, whether or not justified, is pervasive in the American military?

Mark Steyn: Yes, I think so. I think that is one of the big stories here, that in fact, the military, whether or not Iraq is like Vietnam, I don't think it is. That's rubbish. But clearly, the military this time around is not like Vietnam. That's the big difference. Anyone who gets e-mail from the troops knows that they're full of pride in what they're doing, and they think it's doing very well. And the way...I think the way to test this is just to try and be reasonably objective about it. When people use terms like insurgency and civil war and all this, think about the meaning of those terms. We've seen what civil war is within recent memory, in Rwanda and Bosnia and Ivory Coast, just to pick three examples. That's where the country gets split from top to toe between different ethnic groups, and they all start killing each other, and rival governments spring up, and there's massive population displacements. None of that is going on in Iraq, and it's absolute...you know, Tim Russert said today, he defended NBC, the media's Iraq coverage, by saying we capture reality. Yeah, they capture reality in the same sense that those insurgent guys capture people. They saw it's head off and shout Allah Akhbar at reality. That's what they're doing when they capture reality. The reality of what's happening in Iraq is very different from what Tim Russert thinks it is.

Great answer, but as long as the media herd continues to reinforce each other's misperceptions about what's going on in Iraq, the negative stories aren't going to stop.