Is Iraq Becoming President Obama's Vietnam?

In 1961, at the age of thirteen, I remember my junior high school history teachers beginning to talk about the struggle in Vietnam. During my high school senior year, 1966, I wrote my final term paper on the war in Vietnam.

In 2014, with the United States now getting involved in the new Iraq conflict, President Obama has assured everyone there will be "no combat boots on the ground." This situation should be different, because President Obama is the man who pulled all our troops out of Iraq in 2011 and ended the war. But at the same time, this all seems very familiar.

In May of 1961, President Kennedy sent 400 American Green Beret "special advisors" to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers in methods of "counter-insurgency", in the fight against Viet Cong guerillas. By December of 1961, 3,200 U.S. military personnel were in Vietnam as advisors, supported by $65 million in military equipment and $136 million in economic aid.

In June of 2014, President Obama sent 275 advisors to Iraq, and on June 30th, 300 additional troops were sent to secure the airport and the American Embassy in Baghdad. On September 2nd, 350 more troops were sent to protect diplomatic facilities and personnel. On September 10th, President Obama sent 475 more advisors to Iraq. Then on November 7th, it was announced that 1500 additional troops would deploy to Iraq to expand the "advise and assist" mission.

With the additional 1,500 troops, the number of "advisors and trainers" will reach a new total of approximately 3,000 troops. Plus, President Obama asked Congress for another $5.6 billion to fight the Islamic State.

The mission creep of 1961 in Vietnam looks eerily similar to Obama's Iraq deployments of 2014. What's next?