Afghanistan Obamas Vietnam

8/9/2019 Afghanistan Obamas Vietnam

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Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?Less New Thinking and More Old Mistakes

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

On October 2, 2002, Barack Obama, then an Illinois State Senator, gave a speech opposinggoing to war in Iraq. That speech, at that time, would prove crucial to his election, first as a US

Senator two years later, and then as President, four years after that. Democrats who equivocatedwere a dime a dozen. Obama stood out, because he stood up when others did not, and said,

"This is wrong."

He did not oppose all wars. He cited the Civil War and World War II as specific examples of

necessary ones. But, he said, "I'm opposed to dumb wars." Yet, on January 23, his third full day

as President, Obama ordered two separate air strikes in Pakistan, killing 14 civilians, along withfour suspected terrorists. One strike killed six civilians along with four suspected terrorists

staying in their home, the other simply hit the wrong target, the home of a pro-government tribal

elder, Malik Deen Faraz in the Gangikhel area of South Waziristan, killing him, his three sonsand a grandson, along with three others.

Now President Obama has made it official. In addition to another 17,000 troops promised early,

he made an additional pledge of 4,000 more on Friday, March 27. It was reportedly a 'carefullycalibrated' decision, these would be trainers not combat troops, we were told. But Ray

McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran, whose career included long stretches preparing security

briefs for Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr., was not impressed with such fine distinctions.

Paul Rosenberg :: Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?

"I was wrong," McGovern wrote about his belief that Obama's campaign rhetoric regarding

escalation in Afghanistan would not be followed through. "I kept thinking to myself that whenhe got briefed on the history of Afghanistan and the oft-proven ability of Afghan 'militants' todrive out foreign invaders - from Alexander the Great, to the Persians, the Mongolians, Indians,

British, Russians - he would be sure to understand why they call mountainous Afghanistan the

'graveyard of empires.'"

Perhaps Obama got that briefing, perhaps he didn't. But one thing is certain, McGovern went on

to explain: he did not get the kind of intelligence briefing that used to be standard before the

Bush regime consigned them to irrelevancy. Traditionally, the national intelligence estimate(NIE) had been the core intelligence product used to summarize the collective advice of the

intelligence community, but as USA Today reported on September 11, 2002 ("Iraq Course Set

From Tight White House Circle"), no NIE had been prepared on the topic of invading Iraq.

"An intelligence official says that's because the White House doesn't want to detail the

uncertainties that persist about Iraq's arsenal and Saddam's intentions. A senior administrationofficial says such an assessment simply wasn't seen as helpful," USA Today reported, adding,

"Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls that 'stunning.'

'If we are about to make a decision that could risk American lives, we need full and accurate

information on which to base that decision,' he says in a letter sent Tuesday to leaders of the
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"We taught women their rights under Pakistani and Afghani law, we taught about the passages

in the Quran that mentioned women's rights, and we also tried to educate people about othertraditions," he wrote in an article last November titled "The Case for U.S. Withdrawal from

Afghanistan."

Dossani's recommendations strongly paralleled those from Carnegie, but with an addedcomponent aimed at long-term cultural education in order to combat fundamentalism.

These are but a few of the voices from a wide range of perspectives urging us to turn away from

a military approach in Afghanistan. What's more, a February CNN poll found the American

people slightly opposed to the war there-51-47%, but with 64% of Democrats opposed. WhileBush never listened to those who disagreed with him politically, Obama seems to have made a

fetish of the opposite: he has listened almost exclusively to Bush holdovers in the military, from

Defense Secretary Gates on down, while tuning out those whose diverse alternative approaches

have much more support in his political base. In doing so, he risks splitting the Democratic basethat elected him-not right away, but over the course of years, as happened with Kennedy and

Johnson in Vietnam, who also felt a need not to break too sharply with Republican hawkishness.

Indeed, it is difficult to escape the feeling that if Barack Obama were still an Illinois State

Senator, he would look at this latest push to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and conclude that it

too, had to be opposed, because it is a "dumb war."

Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?by Helena Cobban

There's a rapidly growing discussion here in the US about "what to do in Afghanistan."Some of it is thoughtful, well-informed, and serious. Like this piece by Rajiv

Chandrasekaran in today's WaPo, which argues that the two best options look to be "Goall-in, or fold."

(Actually, that's only one choice, since the US citizenry and budget are quite incapable of

doing what would be needed to "go all-in" in that very distant and logisticallyintimidating country.)

I note that one aspect of the way path forward that just about nobody in the US discourse

has yet started talking/writing about is the idea, that I consider crucial, that it does nothave to be, indeed should not be, the US that dominates all decisionmaking and

international action regarding Afghanistan, going forward.

Members of the US commentatoriat are so US-centric! It still boggles my mind. I

suppose that right now, this is still part of the legacy of the 1990s, when the US was the

sole and uncontested Uber-power in the world...

Anyway, that caveat notwithstanding, Frank Rich hada fascinating piece in last Sunday's

NYT in which he noted a new aspect of the strong relevance the Vietnam precedent hasfor the decisions Obama currently faces over Afghanistan.
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Later, the Vietnam part of that decision would come back to haunt him badly...

On balance, then, it seems good that Obama and his people are all reading what sounds tobe an excellent study of the decisionmaking of those earlier years.

Written by Paul R .Gupta. Mr. Gupta is a lawyer in New York City. He is a graduate of

Yale College and Harvard Law School. Further information about him can be found inWho's Who in the World.

It seems fitting that I read theRolling Stone McChrystal article on July 4th.

Doesn't anyone read history anymore? How can we not see the parallels between JFK andObama as young, untested war presidents? July 4th is a day to reflect on lessons that we

as a nation have painfully learned, but seem to have forgotten.

Maybe JFK's decision to go forward with the Bay of Pigs will be seen like Obama's

decision a few months ago to approve the Afghanistan "surge." And maybe, just as JFKlearned to be more skeptical of military advice after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Obama willlearn to better trust the judgment of his civilian advisers as we are now mired in a

seemingly hopeless post-surge war and looking for a way out.

Let us remember that, after the Bay of Pigs, JFK was confronted with the Cuban MissileCrisis -- which was resolved by diplomacy, not by troops on the ground. So, too, let us

hope that Obama learns to trust the diplomats rather than the generals to guide us out of

Afghanistan in a way that protects American lives and interests.

Petraeus has shown himself to have a much better sense of the bigger picture than

McChrystal. But all may get sucked into the military vortex and the military logic thatwould recommend that we commit even more brave men and women to the Afghan

struggle. Military logic may be like the old logic of all-too-many institutions, which

favored growth at all costs. Of course, today's successful institutions favor rightsizing.

It is to save the lives of our troops -- our sons and our daughters -- that we should realize

that American superiority lies in technology, not in more boots on the ground. Our valiant

troops deserve better than being subjected to daily ambushes and IEDs by Afghanfighters who know every inch of their terrain and who observe no codes of conduct.

(Petraeus to his credit has moved quickly to improve our troops' ability to confront the

enemy.)

No solution here will be perfect, or perhaps even palatable, but we must do the best wecan. History teaches that Afghanistan has successfully resisted all ground armies sinceGhengis Khan's. However, technological solutions, such as our drone attacks, have had

notable successes, and can achieve further success without imperiling large numbers of

our troops. It is fair to assume that, if just a fraction of our war billions were spent on

further improving our military technology and training, our air strikes could be evenbetter targeted.


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History also teaches that a foreign war cannot be won where the foreign government is as

corrupt as Afghanistan's. As an example, it has been well documented that literally

billions of dollars are being flown out of Kabul in plain sight, to say nothing of theclandestine theft of money meant to properly equip our troops.

JFK's attempt at violent regime change in Vietnam ended in disaster, when he chose asecretive option that was contrary to American values and his own rhetoric. The lesson to

be learned is that our focus in Afghanistan should be to require our military leaders and

the diplomats to work together properly, to improve the Afghan government byconsensus rather than force. There is evidence that Petraeus would welcome this focus on

consensus, even though McChrystal rejected it.

You say that there can't be a consensus because there are too many different views andagendas? How about this: let's do whatever it takes to save the lives and limbs of our sons

and daughters who are today -- and could be tomorrow -- in battle.

Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?Lee Cary

President Obamais embarking on a very dangerous path in Afghanistan that could

become his Vietnam.

Its risky to draw parallels between wars, since each in unique. The Left was, and some

still are, determined to liken the Iraq War to Vietnam. But much of that talk has subsided.

Now were dialing up our efforts in Afghanistanwhere some aspects of the war against

the Taliban along the Pakistan-Afghan border do compare to Vietnam. Heres how:

Sanctuary for the Enemy: Cambodia and Laos offered a safe haven for the NorthVietnamese and Viet Cong. Not until Nixon ordered an invasion of Cambodia in May

1970, did we attempt to deny the NVA/VC that sanctuary in Cambodia. It worked for a

while. I then lived about four kilometers from the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Things

went quiet in May after we invaded.

Small groups of brave U.S. gun-fighters slinked through the brush in Cambodia, Laos and

North Vietnam to startle and disrupt those sanctuaries, as well as gain intelligence. Manynever returned and the sanctuaries remained.

Training for Self-Defense: Preparing the Afghan military to defend itself isVietnamization redux, except hopefully done smarter. Vietnamization didnt work so

well. We tried to build the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) in the image of the

U.S. military. Their tactics were ours. Their equipment was our equipment. In some

cases, it was newer. I drove a Korean-era jeep. In the towns, the ARVNs drove brand newjeeps, sometimes tricked out with accessories like tire rims painted white. Although we

gave them every tool to fight, many lacked one essential thing: Motivation.
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Vietnamization was never going to work because many (certainly not all) South

Vietnamese soldiers didnt know what they were fighting for, or fighting against. Neitherdid their leaders.

Albeit from a distance, forming up the Afghan military looks like an even more difficultchallenge. Again, from a distance, motivation looks to be on the side of the Taliban.

Questionable Allies: Some of our NATO allies have engaged in Afghanistan, particularlythe Brits and Canadians. But it gets thin quick after that. Those two mirror the support the

S. Koreans (ROK) and Australians gave us in Vietnam. The ROK (rock) troops were

especially feared by the Vietnamese. They were not simpatico with political correctness.

The weak engagement of NATO in Afghanistan has been a major disappointment that

makes some question the role of the alliance going forward.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is an on-again off-again ally. Mostly off-again. Expecting theirsustained, positive engagement against the Taliban who take sanctuary in Pakistans

version of the Wild West-squared has been a multi-year exercise in diplomatic wishfulthinking. There was a lot of that in Vietnam, too.

More Boots-on-the-Ground Doesnt Guarantee Success: Obama is sending more troops to

Afghanistan. More boots will mean more U.S.-driven offensive operations. And, moreTaliban casualties. Thatll likely drive more Taliban into Pakistan where, while waiting

for the heat to be turned down back home, theyll aggravate the Pakistanis. Just like the

VC/NVA did in Cambodia in 1970, the Taliban can out-last us.

Of course, more aggravation for the Pakistanis may be the objective of more U.S. troops

on the ground. The thought being that that aggravation may motivate the Pakistanis tofinallydeal with the insurgency inside their country. If you accept the premise that the

best gauge of future behavior is past behavior, that expectation is, at best, a Maybe.

More boots-on-the-ground will almost surely mean more U.S. casualties in Afghanistan,

because more boots equals more targets. At the peak of the Vietnam War, we had a half-

million U.S. military personnel there. Would adding a half-million more have brought

victory? Or just more casualties? We still debate this question.

Political Correctness in War Gets More People Killed: This last week our President and

Secretary of State apologized for something we appear not to have done killed Afghancivilians in an air attack. Our leaders were quick to apologize too quick. The President

who said recently that he doesnt like to talk about something until he knows what hes

talking about, broke his own rule.

Our political leaders may not be smart enough to out-maneuver the Taliban. Lyndon

Johnson was not as smart of Ho Chi Minh. Lyndon was awarded the Silver Star for being

the observer on one combat flight in the Pacific. A political medal. Ho, on the other hand,
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survived wars against the Japanese, the French, and the Americans. In Ho v. Johnson,

Lyndon never had a chance.

Now its Obama v Mullah Omar, or if Omars with 72 virgins, someone like him. Its a

scary match-up.

Does that mean were headed in the wrong direction by pumping-up our military

headcount in Afghanistan? I dont suggest that. I do suggest that President Obama is

embarking on a very dangerous path in Afghanistan that could become his Vietnam.

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Afghanistan Obamas Vietnam