The Slippery Slope To Escalation In Vietnam (Oops!), Sorry, Afghanistan

Click on title to link to "The Boston Globe" article of March 27, 2009 detailing Obama's Afghan troop escalation plans.

Commentary

Anyone who has caught today’s , Friday March 27, 2009, headlines is aware that the Democratic Party-run Obama government has called for some 4,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and what they, euphemistically, call civilian support teams in order to bolster the sagging regime of “Mayor of Kabul” Karzai. Those numbers are in addition to the 17,000 extras already committed by the Obama regime in February. Does the word escalation seem appropriate here?

One of the problems of having gone through the Vietnam experience in my youth (including periods of lukewarm support under John F. Kennedy, a hands off attitude in the early Lyndon B. Johnson years and then full-bore opposition under the late Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford regimes) is a tendency to view today’s American imperial policy in the same by-the-numbers approach as I took as a result of observing the Vietnam War as it unfolded. There are differences, some of them hugely so, between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Just as, I have previously noted in this space, there are differences between Vietnam and the recently “completed” Iraq War (Hey, I’m just going by what the media tells me is going on. They wouldn’t lead us astray, would they?)

But, I keep getting this eerie feeling in the back of my neck every time I hear, or see, anything concerning Afghanistan coming out of this new Obama administration. They appear clueless, yet are determined to forge ahead with this policy that can only lead to the same kind of quagmire than Vietnam and Iraq turned into. That is where the analogies to Vietnam do connect up. In this regard, I have recently been re-reading Kennedy/Johnson War Secretary Robert Strange (that’s his middle name, folk, I didn’t make it up and didn’t need to) McNamara’s memoirs, written in 1995, of his central role in the development of Vietnam policy, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”.

Obviously McNamara put his own ‘spin’ on his personal role in order to absolve himself (a little) before history. That is to be expected. What comes through crystal clear, however, because in the final analysis McNamara still doesn’t get it, is that when you’re the number one imperial power all the decisions you make are suppose to fall into place for your benefit because you represent the “good guys”. Regardless of what you do, or do not, know about the internal workings of the situation at hand. That is why I have that eerie, very eerie, feeling about this Obama war policy.

This continual escalation, moreover, bears closer watching because as I have said since the Obama election, when push comes to shove, he has decided to stake his place in history on Afghanistan. He is running full steam ahead on his well-publicized campaign promises. So, for all those who have given Obama a pass on his war aims, mainly because he isn’t George Bush. For all of those who did not go out in the streets on March 19th and protest the Iraq/Afghan Obama war policy on the 6th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. For all of those who have forgotten the lessons of Vietnam, or are not aware of them. Remember the fate of Robert Strange McNamara. And to be on the safe side call now for-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan! And Hands Off Pakistan while we are at it.