Noam Chomsky made his famous speech when the United States was involved in a war in Vietnam, a South Asian country in the midst of a civil war. The United States fought on the side of South Vietnam, with the official purpose of preventing that country from becoming a communist state, which is where North Vietnam was headed. Many Americans compared the more recent war in Iraq to the Vietnam War. Other Americans insisted the two military actions were very different. Is the comparison between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War fair and reasonable?

Think about arguments you have heard about the United States’s reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. In what ways are those arguments similar to Chomksy’s claims about U. S. involvement in the Vietnam War? In what ways are they different?