Bob Herbert: Afghanistan and Iraq - Obama's Vietnam?

[johan helge]

Bob Herbert (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/03herbert.html?_r=1):

Even as the U.S. begins plans to reduce troop commitments in Iraq, it is sending thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan. The strategic purpose of this escalation, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged, is not at all clear.

(..)

We invaded Afghanistan more than seven years ago. We have not broken the back of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We have not captured or killed Osama bin Laden. We don’t even have an escalation strategy, much less an exit strategy. An honest assessment of the situation, taking into account the woefully corrupt and ineffective Afghan government led by the hapless Hamid Karzai, would lead inexorably to such terms as fiasco and quagmire.

Instead of cutting our losses, we appear to be doubling down.

As for Iraq, President Obama announced last week that substantial troop withdrawals will take place over the next year and a half and that U.S. combat operations would cease by the end of August 2010. But, he said, a large contingent of American troops, perhaps as many as 50,000, would still remain in Iraq for a “period of transition.”

(..)

In short, we’re committed to these two conflicts for a good while yet, and there is nothing like an etched-in-stone plan for concluding them. I can easily imagine a scenario in which Afghanistan and Iraq both heat up and the U.S., caught in an extended economic disaster at home, undermines its fragile recovery efforts in the same way that societies have undermined themselves since
the dawn of time — with endless warfare.

(..)


Lyndon Johnson, despite a booming economy, lost his Great Society to the Vietnam War. He knew what he was risking. He would later tell Doris Kearns Goodwin, “If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society — in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs... All my dreams...”

The United States is on its knees economically. As President Obama fights for his myriad domestic programs and his dream of an economic recovery, he might benefit from a look over his shoulder at the link between Vietnam and the still-smoldering ruins of Johnson’s presidency.

[dysfunctional press]

1. the troops are being kept in the area in preparation for iran and/or pakistan.

we WILL be involved in some SERIOUS shit with one or both of those countries in the very near future- and israel will be a BIG part of the why.

[Kolesar]

2. Poor analogy--this is not a proxy war in the Cold War eom

[johan helge]

5. Well, a war is a war, and

like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq goes nowhere.

[Vattel]

3. too bad we get this from herbert

instead of a serious discussion of the issue

[johan helge]

4. You don't think Herbert's column is a serious discussion of the issue? (nt)