What do YOU think: Is Iraq the same as Vietnam, or are they two entirely different types of wars?

Same thing as far as our involvement, much more complicated dynamically. Instead of north/south, communist/nationals there's lord know how many factions fighting there. Throw in religion and people who are honored to kill themselves in order to kill others and our chances for a positive outcome are much bleaker.

I voted "no." They are not the same, but they are strikingly similar. Both wars were founded on lies, Viet Nam on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was a total prefabrication, and Iraq on WMD, also a complete lie. Both wars were/are wars of choice, not necessity, and both were and are fought by the poor and working classes to further enrich the already wealthy. Both were about natural resources...Viet Nam was titanium to build a fleet of next-generation fighter planes to counter the new Soviet MIGs that outflew anything the US could field, and threatened US defense industry profits around the globe, and, of course, oil in Iraq. Both wars involve an extremely high ratio of civilian to military casualties...as high as 85% civilian casualties. Both wars relied heavily on the dehumanization of the "enemy." "Those people, they just don't respect life." Then we kill them. Both wars also made use of superior air power to bomb civilian populations indiscriminately, and turned illegal weapons on civilians, agent orange defoliant, white phosphorous and napalm in Viet Nam and white phosphorous, napalm and depleted uranium in Iraq, resulting in the poisoning of the air, land and water as well as the gene pools of those nations for generations, perhaps centuries into the future. Both wars were funded by cutting social programs here at home, and both wars have been used as excuses to spy on American citizens here at home in the name of national security. Both wars are illegal and immoral, and in both wars, the American war criminals who conceived these slaughters-for-profit, their underlings, and the military and civilian contractors who carried out the darkest of deeds, including torture and murder, have and will go unpunished. Of course, there are also obvious differences...location and terrain, the religion of the victims (Gooks v. Ragheads), and the fact that the war in Viet Nam has been ended. The same? No. But very, very similar. Enough so to say we should have known better after Viet Nam.

I voted no, but the analogies between the two are quite amazing.
Most important IMO, is that both were and are based on lies, and the lower social strata pays the cost.

I voted yes... a human quagmire by any other name....

I think a better question would be "is the current political/military situation in Iraq like that in Vienam circa 1969? And I wasn't alive then so I'm not a good person to ask.

...and the govenment treated returning veterans like shit, then as now, and we will lose in Iraq as we did in Viet Nam, and we will not clean up our mess in either war. In both wars the US fought a conventional war while our victims waged a guerrila war. Both wars will leave the host nation in a state of unprecedented internal strife. In both wars, our primary targets were civilian infrastructure. In neither war will our government admit any mistakes. Both wars, while unpopular, were and are supported by the mainstream media, until they are lost beyond the point of no return. The loss will be blamed on the American people...lack of public support. We are not sufficiently patriotic. That will leave the door open to do it again in 30-35 years, when enough people have forgotten. Let's make it a game, like "I spy." How many similarities can you find? How many differences?

A completely different environment, against a completely different enemy, would make me vote no. However, in the sense of what they do have in common, they have many things in common, as previously mentioned. And both are/were unwinnable. So, in some ways, they're more similar than dissimilar, but I still would vote no.

The outcome of both wars will be the same, but the wars are different.

Are they the same? Of course not. The wording of the question doesn't leave much leeway for interpretation.
However, they are enough similer that people can and naturally will draw the comparrisons.
And to me, that's what important. The nit picky, are they exactly the same? Who friggin cares?
They are enough the same, and these similarities need desperately to be attended too. End of answer.

If the war in Iraq ends within the coming year, it will be perhaps not a better war, but a less bad one in terms of loss of life, but we will still have destroyed a sovereign nation for $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

If that war does manage to end for us in 07, that war will not be finished, and it will continue to cost us for decades.

Yes, it won't be as bad, thank goodness. Unfortunatly that's mighty slim consolation for the Iraqi's.

They'll hate us...for our freedom.

And both wars have given the US a generation of veterans scarred for life in ways not visible to the eye...

The final and worst insult of this disaster is the government will likely turn their back on their many problems.

Over 20,000 of them do have clearly identifiable scars, thousands more do not.

I voted they are not the same. There are several reasons for this:
1.) Vietnam was a proxy war fought following the containment doctrine.
2.) The influence of the media is greater now.
3.) Vietnam was fought to support a 'democracy'. The second Iraqo-American war was fought to install a 'democracy'.
4.) We are now struggling with the arbitrary borders drawn when Iraq became a Mandate under the league of Nations. Vietnam was to a lesser extent an arbitrary creation.

The comparisons to Vietnam are applicable in very specific conditions, but for the most part they are misleading. Right now our invasion and occupation of Iraq has degraded a stable but oppressive dictatorship to a pre-feudal patchwork of warring factions. The US should pull out, and either Iran will kick things back into some sort of order because they cannot have anarchy on their border, or the natural evolution of government will start.

Then their hatred is misplaced. 7 million of us (Americans) are incarcerated or on probation, mostly for victimless crimes (i.e. drugs).

3% of Americans in jail/parole/probation