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Published on Friday, August 28, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Obama's War: Afghanistan Is Spelled V-I-E-T-N-A-M
President Barack Obama has staked his presidency on winning his “necessary” war in Afghanistan. Coming into office, one of his first acts, on Feb. 18, was to boost US troop levels in that country by 17,000, bringing the total number of soldiers and Marines in the country to about 57,000, to which one must also add about 33,000 other soldiers from NATO countries and Australia. That’s 100,000 foreign soldiers fighting against Taliban fighters.
Ominously, even with the new US troops, US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen this month has described the situation in Afghanistan as being “serious and deteriorating.” The Afghani national government—if an organization that is basically confined to the capital city of Kabul and a few other cities can be called a national government, is hopelessly corrupt and ineffective, and a current national election, which US forces sought to “protect” by sending troops to election districts, appears to have been a disaster, plagued by vote rigging and with low turnout.
The US war in Afghanistan, billed as part of a war on terror begun by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in September 2001, is now eight years old, and while the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan at that time has been ousted from Kabul, its insurgency grows by the day in strength and popular support.
The US, meanwhile, is identified as an occupier and as the sole support of a corrupt regime of drug lords, thieves and charlatans.
Does this sound familiar? It should. It is a replay of what America did in Vietnam.
The roots of the current Afghanistan War lie in the period when the Soviet Union was occupying the country and backing a Communist-led government in the 1970s, and the US was conducting a proxy war against the Soviets, with the CIA training and funding both the Taliban and foreign fighters, mostly Arab, led by the likes of Osama Bin Laden. In the end, the Taliban, with the help of groups like Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, triumphed, pushing the Russians out. But over time, as the Soviet Union crumbled and the US became more focused on the Middle East, successive US administrations became less and less happy with the power arrangement in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, following the US Gulf War in 1990-91, Bin Laden and other Arab fighters in Afghanistan and elsewhere began to see the US as an enemy, and the US began to shift its military focus from being based upon anti-Communism to being anti-Arab, or at least anti Arabist, as defined as being opposed to those Arabs who wanted to overthrow the corrupt dictatorial leaderships in the oil states of the Middle East.
When the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in 2001, the Bush/Cheney administration, which had already planned to overthrow the government in Iraq, launched an attack on Afghanistan, claiming that its Taliban government was harboring Al Qaeda, which was blamed for the attacks. The Afghanistan War was on. The Taliban was quickly ousted from Kabul, and Al Qaeda was largely driven into the remote tribal areas of Pakistan, but the war was not won. Indeed, since then, it has gone from bad to worse for the US, as the Taliban has clawed back territory and recovered much of its prior power.
The background of the war in Vietnam dates from 1954, when Vietnam, after a long struggle, won its independence from its colonial ruler, France. Two years later, the US blocked a UN-supervised national referendum, effectively splitting the country into two parts, a Communist north led by the hero of Vietnam’s independence struggle, Ho Chi Minh, and the south, led by the corrupt former French colonial stooge Ngo Dinh Diem.
With elections off, a small group of partisans, the Viet Cong, began an insurrection against the government in the South in early 1959, which the US became committed to opposing, initially sending in “advisers” to train and direct the South Vietnamese army. That war went from bad to worse, and when, in 1964, it became clear to US police-makers, that the Viet Cong were likely to win, President Lyndon Johnson made a decision to send in massive numbers of US troops and to begin a major bombing campaign against the North Vietnam. From 2000 US troops in Vietnam in 1961, there were 16,500 in 1964, and by mid 1965, 100,000. That number continued to rise, reaching 200,000 by 1966, and ultimately, at the height of the war, over 500,000. But the Viet Cong, and later, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese troops sent down from the north, were never defeated. Indeed, they continued to grow in number and in their control of the countryside. While they suffered horrific losses because of the superior firepower of US forces, and an American scorched-earth policy in the countryside, the Vietnamese forces continued to gain more and more support from the Vietnamese people. In the end, after suffering over 58,000 dead, the US cried uncle and left Vietnam. By 1975, the puppet regime in Saigon fell, and Vietnam was finally unified again, under Communist rule.
From the beginning of America’s involvement in Vietnam, the country, a poor nation of peasant farmers, was presented to the American public as a critical threat to the security of the United States. If Vietnam were to “fall,” Americans were told, the rest of Southeast Asia, like a chain of dominos, would fall—first Cambodia and Laos, then Thailand and Malaysia, then Indonesia, and finally, even Australia would be at risk. Of course, no such thing happened. The Vietnamese Communists were always, and remained, a nationalist movement, and after winning their multi-generational struggle for independence, focused on developing their country (though they did step in and overthrow a genocidal Communist regime that had taken over in Cambodia, installing a saner government).
It had been a giant scam on the American people from the beginning, and it ended up costing several million Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian lives, and 58,000 American lives, though that scarcely tells the toll, in terms of those crippled mentally and physically, those poisoned by the widespread spraying of toxic defoliants, and the laying of millions of anti-personnel mines that are still killing and maiming people in Indochina today.
Now a new president, Obama, like Johnson before him, is telling Americans that a war half a world away is “necessary for American security.” This is a ludicrous assertion on its face. If Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, and really hardly a country at all, is a threat to US national security, so is Malawi, Burundi and Fiji.
Let’s be rational for a moment. The Taliban, whatever their irrational Islamic fanaticism and their misogyny, have no interest in America, other than to drive our troops out of their country. When they were in charge in Kabul back in 2001, they had their hands full just trying to hang on in the face of the war lords and drug kingpins who held (and still hold) sway in various parts of the country, and when they eventually win and drive the US and its NATO allies out of Afghanistan, they will have their hands full again, just clinging to power.
American national security is not to the slightest degree threatened by the Taliban.
Okay, so back in 2001 there was a gang of Arabs in Afghanistan which had since 1990, at least, expressed some hostility towards the US, but that crew, after all, had been set up by the CIA in the first place, and anyway, by 2002 it had been largely shattered and driven out of Afghanistan, and into Pakistan and parts unknown.
The current Afghanistan War, which President Obama claims is so necessary to American security, is not against Al Qaeda though; it is against the Taliban, and it simply cannot be won, anymore than the US war against the Vietnamese could be won.
Today, as in the late 1960s, the Pentagon is telling the president that it needs more troops. There is a military imperative not to lose a war. No general or admiral wants to be the guy in charge when the jig is declared up, and the troops have to be brought home as losers. And so they are asking for more and more troops and weapons, in hopes of hanging on until they get get cashiered out.
Obama, like Johnson before him, will buy into this criminal policy, because he too doesn’t want to “lose” a war before he leaves office.
That should be pretty scary, since I’m sure Obama is hoping that he will be in office not just through 2012, but through 2016. That’s a long time to keep escalating a hopeless and pointless conflict, just to avoid having to say it was a mistake in the first place.
But lest you say that it cannot happen, recall that the first US advisers went to Vietnam in 1959, the big escalation began in 1964, and the US didn’t leave until 1974. That’s 15 years of war and ten years of major warfare.
Because the Bush/Cheney administration was always more interested in invading Iraq than in invading Afghanistan, and pulled out many troops from the latter country in late 2002 to ship them to Iraq, the Afghan War has escalated more slowly than the Vietnam War did. But I’d say that today we are about where we were in Vietnam at the start of 1965. That is, the big lie, and the big escalation in the fighting, are both just getting going.
If the American people don’t rise up and demand an end to this thing right now, we could be in for another 8-10 years of brutal and bloody warfare, and in the end, the United States is, once again, going to lose.
Ominously, even with the new US troops, US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen this month has described the situation in Afghanistan as being “serious and deteriorating.” The Afghani national government—if an organization that is basically confined to the capital city of Kabul and a few other cities can be called a national government, is hopelessly corrupt and ineffective, and a current national election, which US forces sought to “protect” by sending troops to election districts, appears to have been a disaster, plagued by vote rigging and with low turnout.
The US war in Afghanistan, billed as part of a war on terror begun by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in September 2001, is now eight years old, and while the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan at that time has been ousted from Kabul, its insurgency grows by the day in strength and popular support.
The US, meanwhile, is identified as an occupier and as the sole support of a corrupt regime of drug lords, thieves and charlatans.
Does this sound familiar? It should. It is a replay of what America did in Vietnam.
The roots of the current Afghanistan War lie in the period when the Soviet Union was occupying the country and backing a Communist-led government in the 1970s, and the US was conducting a proxy war against the Soviets, with the CIA training and funding both the Taliban and foreign fighters, mostly Arab, led by the likes of Osama Bin Laden. In the end, the Taliban, with the help of groups like Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, triumphed, pushing the Russians out. But over time, as the Soviet Union crumbled and the US became more focused on the Middle East, successive US administrations became less and less happy with the power arrangement in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, following the US Gulf War in 1990-91, Bin Laden and other Arab fighters in Afghanistan and elsewhere began to see the US as an enemy, and the US began to shift its military focus from being based upon anti-Communism to being anti-Arab, or at least anti Arabist, as defined as being opposed to those Arabs who wanted to overthrow the corrupt dictatorial leaderships in the oil states of the Middle East.
When the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in 2001, the Bush/Cheney administration, which had already planned to overthrow the government in Iraq, launched an attack on Afghanistan, claiming that its Taliban government was harboring Al Qaeda, which was blamed for the attacks. The Afghanistan War was on. The Taliban was quickly ousted from Kabul, and Al Qaeda was largely driven into the remote tribal areas of Pakistan, but the war was not won. Indeed, since then, it has gone from bad to worse for the US, as the Taliban has clawed back territory and recovered much of its prior power.
The background of the war in Vietnam dates from 1954, when Vietnam, after a long struggle, won its independence from its colonial ruler, France. Two years later, the US blocked a UN-supervised national referendum, effectively splitting the country into two parts, a Communist north led by the hero of Vietnam’s independence struggle, Ho Chi Minh, and the south, led by the corrupt former French colonial stooge Ngo Dinh Diem.
With elections off, a small group of partisans, the Viet Cong, began an insurrection against the government in the South in early 1959, which the US became committed to opposing, initially sending in “advisers” to train and direct the South Vietnamese army. That war went from bad to worse, and when, in 1964, it became clear to US police-makers, that the Viet Cong were likely to win, President Lyndon Johnson made a decision to send in massive numbers of US troops and to begin a major bombing campaign against the North Vietnam. From 2000 US troops in Vietnam in 1961, there were 16,500 in 1964, and by mid 1965, 100,000. That number continued to rise, reaching 200,000 by 1966, and ultimately, at the height of the war, over 500,000. But the Viet Cong, and later, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese troops sent down from the north, were never defeated. Indeed, they continued to grow in number and in their control of the countryside. While they suffered horrific losses because of the superior firepower of US forces, and an American scorched-earth policy in the countryside, the Vietnamese forces continued to gain more and more support from the Vietnamese people. In the end, after suffering over 58,000 dead, the US cried uncle and left Vietnam. By 1975, the puppet regime in Saigon fell, and Vietnam was finally unified again, under Communist rule.
From the beginning of America’s involvement in Vietnam, the country, a poor nation of peasant farmers, was presented to the American public as a critical threat to the security of the United States. If Vietnam were to “fall,” Americans were told, the rest of Southeast Asia, like a chain of dominos, would fall—first Cambodia and Laos, then Thailand and Malaysia, then Indonesia, and finally, even Australia would be at risk. Of course, no such thing happened. The Vietnamese Communists were always, and remained, a nationalist movement, and after winning their multi-generational struggle for independence, focused on developing their country (though they did step in and overthrow a genocidal Communist regime that had taken over in Cambodia, installing a saner government).
It had been a giant scam on the American people from the beginning, and it ended up costing several million Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian lives, and 58,000 American lives, though that scarcely tells the toll, in terms of those crippled mentally and physically, those poisoned by the widespread spraying of toxic defoliants, and the laying of millions of anti-personnel mines that are still killing and maiming people in Indochina today.
Now a new president, Obama, like Johnson before him, is telling Americans that a war half a world away is “necessary for American security.” This is a ludicrous assertion on its face. If Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, and really hardly a country at all, is a threat to US national security, so is Malawi, Burundi and Fiji.
Let’s be rational for a moment. The Taliban, whatever their irrational Islamic fanaticism and their misogyny, have no interest in America, other than to drive our troops out of their country. When they were in charge in Kabul back in 2001, they had their hands full just trying to hang on in the face of the war lords and drug kingpins who held (and still hold) sway in various parts of the country, and when they eventually win and drive the US and its NATO allies out of Afghanistan, they will have their hands full again, just clinging to power.
American national security is not to the slightest degree threatened by the Taliban.
Okay, so back in 2001 there was a gang of Arabs in Afghanistan which had since 1990, at least, expressed some hostility towards the US, but that crew, after all, had been set up by the CIA in the first place, and anyway, by 2002 it had been largely shattered and driven out of Afghanistan, and into Pakistan and parts unknown.
The current Afghanistan War, which President Obama claims is so necessary to American security, is not against Al Qaeda though; it is against the Taliban, and it simply cannot be won, anymore than the US war against the Vietnamese could be won.
Today, as in the late 1960s, the Pentagon is telling the president that it needs more troops. There is a military imperative not to lose a war. No general or admiral wants to be the guy in charge when the jig is declared up, and the troops have to be brought home as losers. And so they are asking for more and more troops and weapons, in hopes of hanging on until they get get cashiered out.
Obama, like Johnson before him, will buy into this criminal policy, because he too doesn’t want to “lose” a war before he leaves office.
That should be pretty scary, since I’m sure Obama is hoping that he will be in office not just through 2012, but through 2016. That’s a long time to keep escalating a hopeless and pointless conflict, just to avoid having to say it was a mistake in the first place.
But lest you say that it cannot happen, recall that the first US advisers went to Vietnam in 1959, the big escalation began in 1964, and the US didn’t leave until 1974. That’s 15 years of war and ten years of major warfare.
Because the Bush/Cheney administration was always more interested in invading Iraq than in invading Afghanistan, and pulled out many troops from the latter country in late 2002 to ship them to Iraq, the Afghan War has escalated more slowly than the Vietnam War did. But I’d say that today we are about where we were in Vietnam at the start of 1965. That is, the big lie, and the big escalation in the fighting, are both just getting going.
If the American people don’t rise up and demand an end to this thing right now, we could be in for another 8-10 years of brutal and bloody warfare, and in the end, the United States is, once again, going to lose.
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88 Comments so far
Show AllAn alert reader points out that the US also has 74,000 private contractors in Afghanistan who are doing jobs normally done by the military, so in fact, our forces in Afghanistan at this point actually number 174,000, which is really starting to look like Vietnam in 1965, and as in Vietnam in 1965, we are losing. Not a pretty picture.
Remember, Lyndon Johnson won election in 1964 by one of the biggest landslides in history. Eight years later, he lost the first primary to an anti-war candidate, Gene McCarthy, and shortly afterwards, recognizing that he was finished politically, he announced that he would not seek re-election. Obama should pay attention. This war will be his political Waterloo.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
If Obama withdraws from Afghanistan in the next year or two, he will not get a second term. Enough USer idiots will be rabble-roused that he lost US a war on the verge of victory that he will lose.
He may not get a second term anyway because of disruption to his domestic agenda.
Obama should just forge ahead with what he is smart enough to know is the correct path for the USA . . . but he won't do that, of course, if he is addicted to the political junk-juice.
you mean that the usa has that many contractors over in Afghanistan doing gods work building houses and repairing pluming.
Most Amerikans think that these hired killers are housing contractors.
This is a bit of propaganda that Hitler would be proud of.
I voted for obomba and I hate to admit it now. This guy is a flunky for the corporate war machine and can read a teleprompter very well and lies with the best of them..I fear we are in the end times of 2012..
"...I fear we are in the end times of 2012..."
As I peer out my kitchen window at the apocalyptic-looking 'red' sky this morning in Los Angeles (fires all around), I'm left to ponder your last line, erclone.
Indeed, we are quite obviously heading toward some kind of end/beginning. But the words, "end times" make me uneasy.
First, there is the biblical connotation (and Christians have been babbling about this from their beginning). I don't buy it. For an in-depth analysis of this particular delusion read Jonathan Kirsch's, "A History of the End of the World".
Second, why 2012? Because of a Mayan calendar? The only thing clear about this (which I've known about long before its current 'popularity') is that it marks a large (long) celestial cycle. Mayan's believed in the cycle of life. We in the West think in more linear terms. I believe it unwise to conflate the two.
And yet, clearly, a crisis is coming. Hopefully it will be one which creates the paradigmatic shift necessary for the continuation of the human species. A shift away from the Malthusian-Randian-corporate, BIG LIE that competition is a good thing because there "ain't enough to go around" and more toward a holistic view of our natural role as positive contributors within a universally regenerative system aboard our great, Spaceship Earth.
For the spaceship's sake, I sometimes hope the shift eliminates the human threat. The reptiles had their day, the mammels blew it, maybe it's the insects turn to control life on the ball.
I also sometimes share your pessimism (optimism?).
The thing that bothers me the most, wanked, is that it doesn't have to be this way. The human species has the means (artifact-making mind) to co-exist with Nature. Those damn Seven Deadlies seem to always get in the way...
In Afghanistan, Obama is compounding a crime, not making a mistake, just as Lyndon Bloodthirsty Johnson did in Vietnam. I don't think the original "Bastard Out Of Texas" ever believed in the so-called national security rationales for Vietnam. It was all just domestic politics. The same, or nearly so, for the the Bastard Out Of Illinois. Now breathing the rarefied air of the White House, this national version of the class valedictorian and head of the student government finds himself in the same stinking, ramshackle kibo as LBJ, only he thinks its Shangri-La. The pooh-bahs grovel and flatter, filling his boy scout head with visions of George Wanker Bushian Glory. Either that or he is so corrupt and so cowardly that he stays in Afghanistan because he fears if he declares victory and withdraws, the Republicans will destroy him. Either way, Obama's a gold plated MoFo.
"President Barack Obama has staked his presidency on winning his “necessary” war in Afghanistan."
Though I agree with DL's premise about Afganistan's being Obama's Viet Nam, I am amazed he gives a pass to Viet Nam for their invasion of a neighboring country. What they did was OK because they installed "a saner government"
I must disagree with his premise that "Obama has staked his presidency on winning his “necessary” war in Afghanistan."
I would suggest instead that Obama has literally staked his Presidency on Health Care Reform. If he can't get this mistake through, then his Presidency is over.
I don't just "give a pass" to Vietnam for invading Cambodia and ousting Pol Pot. It was the right thing to do. If you have a genocidal regime that is killing close to a million people, the right thing to do is to go and save those people.
Vietnam did not invade Cambodia to conquer it. They ousted Pol Pot, and then left.
Now I'm not saying invading Iraq would have been right, because Saddam was not killing a million Iraqis (in fact, the US embartgo, by preventing the import of Chlorine and other medicines, reportedly killed half a million Iraqi children), but for the sake of argument, imagine if the US had done that in Iraq--just gone in, ousted Saddam, and left...
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Thats the same argument that Bush and Cheney used. I guess I regard it as selective interference. But your point that they did leave fairly quickly is well taken and Cambodia was a hell hole.
"but for the sake of argument, imagine if the US had done that in Iraq--just gone in, ousted Saddam, and left..."
It would have made a world of difference, but who gave us that right? But who is to decide which evil state we attack?
Its like selective compliance with the law, once you begin to practise it, all laws are diminished.
Thanks
In Vietnam's defence, they share a border with Cambodia (Unlike US and Iraq). The mass murder going on in Cambodia (destabilized by US carpet bombing) was disruptive to say the least to their neighbor, already traumatized by years of anti-colonial war.
"they share a border with Cambodia"
Thats the best argument to be made. If it were Mexico, I don't doubt we'd do the same.
By the way, Cambodia was a hell hole long before any carpet bombing.
[Does this sound familiar? It should. It is a replay of what America did in Vietnam.]
It's also a replay of what the soviets did when they occupied Afghanistan. Although their troop numbers are said to have peaked at 100k. Adding in the contractors and the fact that there isn't an industrial nation supporting the Taliban, shouldn't the yanks be doing better than the soviets did when they occupied the country? If they're not (and they aren't), why not? It couldn't be that for both the ussr and the usa, the conflict in Afghanistan isn't really one that imperils the nation could it? There's no need to really 'win' the war, indeed what is the final victory that the leaders want to achieve?
If you listen to Obama and Harper it's some sort of 'peaceful, successful state' that doesn't export terror. Sorta like how the Communists wanted to build a peaceful successfully communist state in the same country.
Isn't that nice, they want to make Afghanistan into something that no other nation on earth is. Both the usa and Canada, amongst every other nation on the planet has 'exported terrorist groups' to attack other nations or peoples. Every other nation on the planet has done this, with or without the support of the government.
'taliban' means 'students'. Apparently, the students, true to their name, are learning from past experience, whereas the U.S. mercenaries ain't: they don't have to, since they are just doing their job, and we know what 'just doing one's job' means these days.
I agree entirely with Dave Lindorff's comparison of the parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Viet Cong and the Taliban.
It should be mentioned, too, that Allen Dulles's CIA black ops boys were busily fomenting crony warlordism inside South Vietnam well before the first significant number of uniformed military advisors were sent in, which took place quietly near the very end of the Eisenhower administration. In that sense, the Vietnam War and the current Af/Pak war are both to a great extent blowback - covert spy culture paramilitarism escalating into full bore, Pentagon-brand militarism, in response to the locals' understandable resentment towards foreign intermeddling.
JFK and LBJ inherited this slippery slope dynamic. It was Johnson who decided to finally go public, sending in the Marines and air power when the clandestine Air America approach proved insufficient, and the pretense of US noninvolvement could no longer be maintained with a straight face. In doing so, Lyndon flat out broke his own campaign stump speech promise never to send American boys to die in a needless Asian war. Ultimately, he paid a steep political price for that betrayal, and rightly so.
Barack Obama, however, has inherited two wars that were already deeply unpopular on the American domestic front, and which were indisputably the bloody partisan work product of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and the rest of the right wing neocons. LBJ feared being vilified by the GOP as the president who "lost Vietnam" to the commies. Obama should have no such fears, which is what makes his horrendous decision to escalate the US troop levels in Afghanistan and broaden the warfare in this region inexplicable and doubly tragic.
Bill from Saginaw
"what makes his horrendous decision to escalate the US troop levels in Afghanistan and broaden the warfare in this region inexplicable and doubly tragic"
The tragedy of the Demok consolidation with the Repuks is neither a tragedy nor inexplicable, but rather it's another increment of crime against humanity that's fairly easy to explain.
The Demoks and Repuks have been consolidating over in the extreme right gutter because the USA is like Goliath on his knees, teetering, and soon to be felled and squirming on his back. The systems and ideas the USA has been promoting and has come to rely on itself are unsustainable and are failing. More than anything, the USA wants to lead the world but the world just isn't following, for obvious reasons. The Demoks and Repuks both realize their predicament. So they consolidated over in the extreme right gutter. Another way to say it is the USA descended into fascism. Of course it's not something US elites can talk about in public because elites always have to keep their true agenda secret and reality hidden. Such secrets are the key to mass enslavement. What will the slaves do when their masters fall?
I always found it bizarre that when Bush Jr. was president so many commenters on such liberal sites such as Crooks and Liars [as well as others] would argue, like Obama, that the United States should concentrate on the "good war" in Afghanistan. Now that this good war has been proven to be a chimera, perhaps the moribund antiwar movement will finally arise from its ashes and take to the streets in protest. Or will that be too much to expect, i.e. that groups like MoveOn will actually muster the courage to protest the policies of a Democratic president?
MoveOn and the Dem groups were never a big part of the antiwar movement. The Leftists who were the backbone of that movement have mostly given up because our tactics and strategy made so little impact on the conduct of the wars.
What will it take to re-invigorate the movement? I'm afraid that would require a new, probably more militant strategy than we have seen in this country since the 30's.
It's astonishing that for one so often praised for his knowledge of history, Obama is in fact embarrassingly obtuse. Not knowing, or caring about, the history Lindorff relates here, Obama situates himself squarely in the category of historically ignorant Americans who never can make sense of what's going on because they've been intentionally ignorant of history all their befuddled lives.
Obama is in the same class as Sarah Palin when it comes to recent American history and how to interpret it. He thinks he can subdue and conquer Afghanistan when no one has been able to since Alexander the Great. This is dangerous historical blindness and his administration will crumble because of it, along with the near certain failure of his healthcare plan. This guy's going to be one of the biggest presidential flops since Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan.
I assume you meant since Alexander the Great *attempted* to conquer Afghanistan. He did not succeed either.
I think it is time to move beyond the Vietnam War analogy. We old-timers know the story, supposedly Obama and his crew know the story and younger people aren't so interested in what happened 40 years ago. The situation is also quite different in many ways. History does not repeat itself as is commonly thought. The American War in Afghanistan (not forgetting NATO) is possibly more destined for disaster than the American War in Vietnam. I should also point out that there were and are many who believe to this day that US would have "won" in Vietnam if it would have stayed longer and done certain things differently and that the US was betrayed by traitors, antiwar activitist, Hanoi Jane and the Democratic Party - - many of these people are with us today and apparently they are in power. I should point out as a related aside that Vietnam is a relatively peaceful country, citizens are relatively content and it is friendly to the US - - it is indeed a one party country (much like the US) which is somewhat repressive but it is a fine country and very attractive (I have been there many times for extended periods of time) and thus all the fears of Communism in Asia being a threat to US was for nothing and the death of 58,000 US soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese was for no good result. Afghanistan is more intractable. I know this country somewhat having travelled through for a few weeks in 1969 and I can assure you that the Afghanis will never be dominated by the US or anyone including their so-called central government. They would rather die than be subjugated by a degenerate, cowardly, hostile western power antagonistic to their way of life and religion. They won't be subdued; they won't be dominated. They are independent, tribal people for the most part who enjoy fighting and are very male oriented aggressive. The US and NATO doesn't have a chance. It is too horrible.
The most astonishing thing about the Viet Namese is that they (as a whole) don't hold a grudge against Americans. Even the guys we fought directly against. They are an amazing people.
You are correct about those that believe we would have "won" but I'd point out that 95% of them weren't there and have never even talked to a Viet Namese, let alone faced them.
odoco
Henry - I am reminded of three of my favorite quotes about 'Nam:'
An old Vietnamese peasant woman, a character in Michael DelVecchio's excellent novel, "The 13th Valley," simply stated the obvious: "I will cheer the peace when all the soldiers are dead."
The second, by Tacitus: "They made a wasteland and called it peace."
And the last by an NVA officer in response to Col. Harry G. Summers' observation that the NVA and Vietcong never won a major military battle during the entire war: this is a paraphrase, but the Vietnamese response was something like, "that may be true, but it is also irrelevant."
When I ponder Iraq and Afghanistan I automatically and immediately grow concerned about the futures of those who will return home to the US, the baggage they will carry, its impact on not only themselves but on all of society. War is truly a plague, and its rabid expansiveness is testimony to the limitations of the human condition. Until we begin to actually teach peace, live peace, and share peace, we will continue onward toward our own eventual destruction. This species is no different than any other - except in its wickedness and selfishness.
"that may be true, but it is also irrelevant."
I love that one because it is absolutely true. I believe that is what he said ....but no matter my friend, he was right.
We won every time....right up to the time they kicked our hinnies out. Only someone not there could believe we were going to "win"
The kids coming back from Afganistan and Iraq suffer from different things than we did, but injuries to the mind and body none the less. I hope they can help everyone understand.
But how do you explain real war, real combat to someone that hasn't experienced it?
I believe our countries best days are ahead as soon as we remove the rear eschelon warriors in charge. You know the type.
Ekzile
Your comment that "The US and NATO doesn't have a chance" in Afghanistan because "the Afghans will never be dominated by the US or anyone" is the very reason why an analogy to Vietnam is so relevant because the Afghans, like the Vietnamese, would, as you correctly note, "rather die" than allow the Westerners to occupy their country.
You took the words out of my mouth!
A few moments research on the web will soon reveal the core reason that US ruling elites including their current front man, one Barack Obama, must stay in Afghanistan and extend the war and occupation. Simply search "Unocal Afghanistan pipeline" or "US military bases Afghanistan pipeline" or read some of the highly informative articles by Pepe Escobar describing what he calls 'Pipelineistan' and you will soon see that many US military bases are lined up along the proposed route of the oil pipelines from the Caspian Basin to the Indian Ocean. The US military presence in the center of the greatest prize of 21st century resource politics is about one and only one thing: the control of oil and natural gas. All the rest is pure BS as neither Iraq nor the tribal peoples of Afghanistan living in 12th century conditions pose any threat whatsoever to the US mainland. But they don't want their lands used and occupied by western resource hogs and thugs, whose profligate use of hyrdocarbon fuels threaten to crash global living conditions in a disastrous tumult of climate changes.
It is dismaying that so sharp and studious a writer as Dave Lindorff seems unaware of the hydrocarbon/pipeline reality that lies at the core of US foreign/military policies since the information as been around for a long time and included a visit by a Taliban delegation with George Wanker Bush in Texas. Michael Moore had footage of the visit in Farenheit 911.
Thanks for the backhanded compliment! But really, anyone who'd waste half a trillion bucks and a presidency--or even ten bucks--on a pipeline through Afghanistan would have to be a world-class idiot. You cannot have a pipeline that will ever deliver a drop of oil if you get it by pissing off a whole nation of people who know how to make pipebombs.
No pipeline will ever traverse Afghanistan. A pipeline is probably the single most difficult thing in the world to protect. It carries an explosive substance, and can be ignited with a single high-velocity bullet, a grenade, an IED, or what have you. And we're talking about something that would be running hundreds of miles through country that even now, with over 160,000 troops and private mercinaries, the US cannot control.
This is nonsense.
You could only have a pipeline if you had a stable, friendly country in Afghanistan, in which there were no mutually warring factions or tribes, so nobody had any cause to take it out. the chances of achieving that under the best of circumstances would be negligeable, but trying to achieve it by killing a lot of people, as the US is now doing, is zero.
Besides, a pipeline wasn't the reason the US started training and arming the mujahadeen during the Soviet occupation in the 1970s, it was the cold war. Russia was in control of Afghanistan, in a position to open a path to the Indian Ocean, and the US because of its containment strategy, was looking to undermine them.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I would agree with Lindorff on this pipeline issue. The idea that the US and NATO are attempting to dominate Afghanistan for the purpose of some imaginary pipeline seems improbable. The notion of the pipeline is attractive because it is simplistic and easily places the blame on Oil/Gas companies which are easy targets for the Left/Progressive/Liberals. Even accepting that the need for said pipeline is important, is this war the way to achieve it by a disastrous, ruinous war doomed to failure. Discerning what the causes of this Afghanistan War were and what the causes of it's continuation are appear to be nonproductive attempts to stop it. Relying on analogy to convince anyone is also futile. Analogies are cheap and plentiful and the Vietnam War analogy has run it's course unless one is interested in studying history. It seems the issue is what is the best way to convince the American public and their elected officials to stop this horrendous war. This will be very difficult if not impossible at this time but perhaps concentrating on the futility of the war, it's disastrous effects on people in US and Afghanistan (and NATO countries as well) might do something.
OHhhh...!?ReaLLY?! (*ekzile*)...
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http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2499/3858212993_27b614ee3e.jpg
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'THiRD`tiMezs'...AHh`!CHaRM!...'BuDDy`BoYyyyeee'...
patzsdad August 28th, 2009 7:08 pm......Hesdgehog...What the hell are you talking about?
The pipeline through Afghanisatan may be only a "pipe dream" to US elites due to extreme logistical hurdles suggested by Lindorff but we have to remember that US elites no longer need to offer rational explanations to USans. US elites are free to pursue illegal pipe dreams because the USan people are comatose, and such pursuits are ends in themselves in that they keep the comatose rats spinning their rat wheels. Further, even without the pipeline, illegal US control of Afghanistan builds "geo-political capital" for US elites against their "great game" adversaries in the region, Iran, Russia, China, et al. Most importantly perhaps illegal US occupation of Afghanistan keeps China away, as China is offering gargantuan bribes to all for access to their resources. Meanwhile US elites illegally block all attempts toward progress in the rule of international law. Finally, US elites' illegal pursuit of "wars of choice", any old war will do, builds the War Culture back home, i.e. the rat wheels all tend to spin in the direction that makes the imperial chimp giggle instead of smirk, thankfully. God Bless the United States of America!
I think the pipelines, like "fighting terrorism" is a cover story, just a story aimed at different people.
The real reason for the war is the war itself. The profits and growing political power that ongoing war brings to the state and its corporate owners.
George Orwell had this breathtakingly, precisely correct in "1984." War is its own reason for being.
GreenDragon August 28th, 2009 3:45 pm................BINGO!
Dave,
The TAP would be used for natural gas not oil. Of course this may not be the only reason however cannot be discounted, especially with circumventing Russia and China. Have you read any Pepe Escobar, Tariq Ali, Robert Fisk or Chris Hedges?
"The roots of the current Afghanistan War lie in the period when the Soviet Union was occupying the country...."
Hey Dave, substitute "pipelines" for "roots" and you'll be getting closer. Then pass that joint over here!
I'LL...!TaKe!...'tHaDt'...(*doobie*)...'BRO'.
!Oil and Gas! NOttt...'Misogyny' and 'Terroristzs'.
ARE...?WHY? 'WE'/'U.S.'/'N.A.T.O.'...IS...!'THeRe'!
'?!NoW`ISNttt`ITttt!?' 'PeoPLe~of`AMeRi`KKKa'...
stlhhgg
];@~
Exactly. The same goes for Iraq. But the machine keeps churnin out the blood soaked dollars...
This is nothing new, however needs to be repeated ad nauseum, Mr. Lindorff helps in this regard. Quite a sham we don't see any meaningful discourse on the subject in the corporate media.
Imperial occupation of Afghanistan has more to do with private contractor crony profits, MIC profits, pipelines (rescource extraction networks) and geo-strategic calculations (vis a vis China and Russia) than anything else.
Thucydides figured out that profiteers are the ones who pull the strings and benefit from war, in the 4th cenury B.C.
Everyone that has really paid attention realizes that the Taleban is a very general label used for Pashtun tribal leaders (who used to be called "mujahadeen") and that "Al-Quaeda" is a fictitious story. Sure there are Islamist terrorists out there who have legitimate grievances against the imperial West. However repeating the al-Quaeda myths that they are operating around the world plotting against the US is laughable and there is no evidence of it. (Despite torture, renditions, and other human rigths abuses)
Boy, the Afghans sure have drawn the short straw. The poorest people in the world, fighting the richest country. We perhaps owe them our gratitude.
Since the US is determined to continue attacking somewhere, anywhere, as long as the deficit spending on weapons continues to collect in the bank balances of Obama's campaign contributors, the Democrats and Republicans, ever eager to contemplate the next target for their permanent war state are at least finding that enough of their divisions are tied down in Afghanistan to alleviate the need to move on to the next country.
How many more "Vietnams" does this country need to learn its lesson, a whopping million ?!?
Some people refuse to learn lessons from history until they are forced to find out the hard way. A former Vietnam war vet, I cannot tell you the long term hell I faced and dragged my wife and both our families into when I lost my limbs. And this was when the health care system wasn't as messed up as it is now. So here we have no single payer or universal care, no repairing the current VA system, Medicare, and Medicaid as all of them have been damaged by the Bush administration and are stuck in the reds, and yet more young people brainwashed, clueless, and poorly trained but nonetheless sent to do a politician's dirty war work. How many of those who survive will have the same loving care I was lucky to have when there is no good health care system left to save them? How many of them will be able to not only overcome their physical scare and wounds but also PTSD? I thought I was finally out of it and yet early this year, my infections took on my crippled status and my mental instabilities returned when I was subject to poor treatment from a couple of greedy doctors. How many of our returning soldiers will have to be subject to these kinds of criminals?
The ongoing wars and health care fiascoes are all tied to disaster capitalism. Washington has done nothing but continue to bailout the disaster capitalists and their current health care package they're trying to pass in a backdoor bailout to Big Insurance and Big Pharma. In the mean time, war spending keeps going up, another sign that it's another backdoor bailout to the Military Industrial Complex. I'm not surprised by the ongoing sabotaging to Medicare, VA, Medicaid, and any form of single payer Washington continues to do. This is one of the reasons that every time someone tries to tell me to "support the troops", I just tell them to kiss my ass since they wouldn't even know what supporting the troops really means. To them, supporting the troops means keeping them forever on the battle fronts and then denying them affordable health care as much as possible. This nation is so screwed !
JenniferB.
I completely concur with what you would tell someone who tells you to mindlessly "support the troops". I can still see the look of utter hatred on the face of my youngish [about thirty] next door neighbor as she told me about two or three summers ago that I was entitled to my antiwar point of view [I thought how generous of her to grant what is already given to me by the Bill of Rights in that document called the U.S. Constitution] but that I must support the troops. Afterwards, I pondered how it would have done no good at all to inform her that the only troops I support are those who have the wisdom and courage to say NO to the illegal and immoral occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, as it would have been impossible, I am sure, to have broken through that barrier of enmity and patriotic emotion that she had been swept up in as she worked herself into a fury while commanding me to support the troops. Attempting to reason with her would have been like shouting into the wind.
As a coda that occurred at the end of that bizarre discussion, she then helpfully suggested that this informative discussion that we had just engaged in should not prohibit us from remaining good neighbors. As if I were supposed to somehow pretend that she had not all but accused me of being a less than patriotic, if not actually a disloyal, American citizen because I do not support those people who belong to an organization that is creating grief, death and destruction upon many innocent citizens who have never threatened anyone in these United States.
Erroll and Jennifer, I understand the anger and frustrations but even with people that are very narrow minded, giving them an angry reaction doesn't help. I would do it only after all options are exhausted. The first thing I would do is ask that person what he or she actually means or views as supporting the troops. If they give their definitions, tell what you agree on and disagree on and give your view and see how he or she takes it. Perhaps some agreement or compromise can come about. Of course, not everyone is open to discussion. If he or she refuses to explain what he or she actually means by "support the troops", the best and only thing you can do is tell him or her something like this: "I am sorry but I do not know your definition of support the troops. I support the troops too but I probably have a different take on what that phrase actually means and what actions actually fit that definition."
Who profits from war? Not the soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors who are deployed abroad, but the people back at home who pay low fuel prices and seeing their 401Ks and pensions fatten because your funds and investments are in big oil companies and defense contractors. Go look at your 401K, Mutual Funds, and any other investments and see where your money is at. Who is profiting from Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe you should be looking where your money is at. Also, who is sending the military to Iraq and Afghanistan, your elected officials. Who did you vote for? As a deployed soldier I do not expect any support from anyone except from my fellow soldiers. My loyalty is with the American people, chain of command, and fellow service members, not individual politicians and corporations.
Newton94
I submit that your loyalty also lies to the oath that you took [and which I did also those many years ago] when you joined the military and swore to obey the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In particular, sections 809. Article 90, 891.ART.91, 892.ART.92 [1], and 892.ART 92 [2] refer to obeying "the lawful commands of his superior officers", the "lawful order of a warrant officer", the "lawful general order", and "lawful order".
As Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii pointed out during the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987, "Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders." Clearly Afghanistan and Iraq were never a threat to anyone living in these United States and since Congress never bothered to declare war under Article 1, section 8, then it should also be obvious that the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are certainly illegal.
As the GI movement proved during the Vietnam conflict, because one is in the military does not mean that one leaves one's brains behind in the civilian world. Your loyalty to your "fellow service members" and the chain of command should not blind you to the fact that, as in Vietnam, the United States is once again dropping bombs upon innocent people, the consequence being that those people are being ripped to shreds for no justifiable reason whatsoever.
I submit that your fellow service members, those in the chain of command, or even the great Barack Obama cannot bring these people back from the dead and make their mangled and crippled bodies whole. I submit that your duty to your conscience [if you have one] should [as the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! ably demonstrated] supersede your loyalty to your "fellow service members." Or do the lives of those people whom the United States continues to unjustifiably slaughter not count because they are not American?
I strongly suggest that you seriously think about joining the IVAW [Iraq Veterans Against the War and also those who are coming out against the occupation of Afghanistan] as that is where your true loyalties should be. It is way past the point that you finally come to the realization that you have been lied to by your government just as I and many hundreds of thousands of others were lied to when we ended up in that hellhole called Vietnam.
The UCMJ does not cover the legality of a war. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is to establish a standard set of procedural and substantive criminal laws for all the U.S. military services. If a military member refuses to deploy they would be charged with missing movement Section 887 Article 87 of the UCMJ. Making the argument the war is illegal would not be allowed as a defense because then you are putting the war under trial which is not the crime under UCMJ. Just because a service member participates in a war in Iraq or Afghanistan, does not make them a criminal under UCMJ, unless they violate any of the punitive articles. The legality of war is a matter of opinion. I have read the arguments that World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Civil War, and The American Revolution were all illegal wars. So do we go back and charge every military member as a criminal? By the Erroll way, thank you for your service.
Newton94
It does not appear that you are familiar with the case of Lt. Ehren Watada who was indeed charged with missing movement by the military. At his trial he was scheduled to take the stand after the lunch break. Unexpectedly Judge Head declared a mistrail because Watada supposedly did not understand a document that he had signed. The real reason goes to the heart of exactly to what you had stated:
"Making the argument the war is illegal would not be allowed as a defense because then you are putting the war under trial which is not the crime under UCMJ."
Judge Head was terrified that Watada would do exactly that, i.e. tell the court and the world that the Iraq War [even though only Congress has the authority to declare war and they ignored their responsibility by not doing that] was indeed illegal and chose to circumvent Watada from testifying by using a most flimsy excuse for declaring a mistrial which was done even over the objections of the prosecution which is practically unheard of. The military appealed the ruling and their appeal was denied essentially making Watada a free man since the military chose to keep him in the military despite the fact that he should have been released much earlier.
If you have any semblance of possessing an open mind, I would strongly suggest that you get your hands on Sir! No Sir which chronicled the GI movement that took place at or near military bases both at home and abroad during the Vietnam conflict. If you would do that, you would discover, among other things, former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan saying:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
It is probably shocking to find a Green Beret who had the courage and wisdom to think for himself and by doing so realize that he was lied to by his government. In the film, you would see a male nurse who said that when he was stationed in the neurology department at Fort Lewis, Wa., where he was taking care of soldiers who were paralyzed and who were unable to feed themselves and who could not go to the bathroom unassisted, not one of those soldiers said that what they had gone through was worth it, not for God, country or American imperialism. Or, if you are one of the few Americans who would actually take the time to read a book, then you may wish to read David Cortright's classic work "Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War" to discover how and why the GI rebellion happened back then. Cortright's book, which Sir! No Sir! used as one of its sources, states among other things, that, surprisingly, the majority of those who participated in the movement were enlistees and not draftees.
Finally, I am sure that you mean well, but I do not understand why you do what others have done and that is to thank me for my service. I hardly think that I should be thanked for participating in the deaths of many innocent Vietnamese people. I rue the fact that I did not have the awareness back then that what I was doing, as Donald Duncan correctly pointed out, was not right. A much better thing to say is what politicians like Obama and others will never say and that is to lament the fact that I and the other poor bastards who ended up in Vietnam had to be placed in that position in the first place. I strongly suggest that you stop waving the flag so vigorously in order to come to the realization that what you are and others in the military are doing is not noble or right. On the contrary, it is ignoble, unnecessarily aggressive and totally unjustified to be taking part in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
While you may believe that the occupations are somehow legal, the question that you should be asking yourself is: What about those people? What about the over one million Iraqis who have been killed through bombs, illness, starvation since their country was invaded in 2003? What about the people whose families have been killed at checkpoints" What about the 2.5 million Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes by the Americans? Do their lives matter or should you have disdain for them because they are the "other" and therefore not American?
What about the many Afghans who have been ripped apart by 500 lb. and 2000 American bombs? Do their lives matter? What about their families? Do their concerns matter? Or are you unable to do so because they, after all, are not Americans? Apparently. it appears that to you, if Americans invade and brutalize and terrorize citizens in third world countries, then it must be condoned because it is Americans who are doing these things and American is always right [supposedly].
As Ehren Watada correctly observed in a speech that he gave at the Veterans for Peace convention that I and other veterans attended in Seattle in 2006:
"Mark Twain once remarked, 'Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country...'
"The oath we take swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people. Enlisting in the military does not relinquish one's right to seek the truth-neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish right and wrong. 'I was only following orders' is never an excuse."
What about those people?
I am not a lawyer or pretend to be one. I am just an enlisted soldier. As for being opened minded, I am opened minded. That is why I read and listen to many different opinions whether it is progressive, liberal, conservative, or moderate. As for Iraq, I didn’t agree why we went in the first place. I think that President Bush received bad intelligence (intelligence was never validated and was only based on human intelligence of WMDs) and poor recommendations from his staff. Saddam Hussein, in his interrogations, said that he feared Iran more than the United States and he didn’t think that the US would invade Iraq. He wanted the Iranians to believe that he had WMD to deter them from attacking Iraq (information from Washington Post and declassified sources). Saddam Hussein feared the Iranians were going to retaliate against him because of his continued crackdown on the Shiite population in Iraq. Basically his bluff did him in, but personally, I still do not think it was justification for the invasion. As for the invasion, in my opinion, two major mistakes were made, insufficient forces and the de-Baathification of the country. If the US had the sufficient forces and left the government intact (police, Army, other infrastructure), I feel strongly that we would have been out of Iraq two or three years ago. As for the future of Iraq, I believe that the US will be gone within the next two years. Iraq has the ability to handle internal security, but they still cannot handle external threat from Iran. If Iran would stop shipping arms and stop “stirring the pot” with Sunni and Shiites, we could be gone tomorrow. As for your estimates of over one million Iraqis killed and 2.5 million displaced, I do not agree with those numbers. According to Iraq Body Count, which is an anti-war organization, has the toll at around 100,000 since 2003 (Still, it is unfortunate that the death toll is that high, but most of those deaths are not from coalition forces). The Death toll from Saddam Hussein, numbers vary from 300,000 to 500,000 (Iraq Foundation) prior to 2003, even more from other sources, but they seem to be inflated numbers. Iraqis starving, isolated cases, should not be happening, there is no shortage of food in Iraq. As for displaced Iraqis, numbers vary, but many Iraqis who fled to Syria, Turkey, and Jordan have been returning to their homes. As a person who is serving in Iraq and interacts with the local population (Southern Iraq), tribal leaders and your everyday Iraqi have told me that they are thankful that Saddam Hussein is gone after decades of abuse, neglect, and atrocities against the Shiites.
Many, perhaps most, of the warmongers believe that Vietnam War was lost because US quit before "the job could be finished" and that US will lose in Afghanistan because US will quit when US should keep fighting, never quit, "defeat is not an option" - - it's a different mentality than what is found on Commondreams.org but obviously the prevailing one. They think the US will never be "a loser" unless it gives up and quits - - this is the McCain mentality which appears to be the Obama mentality that the greatness of America and God will prevail if the US doesn't quit - - whatever it takes, more lives, more billions of dollars, more disgrace, more misery - - until "the job is done."