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America's Next Unwinnable War
David Guttenfelder / AP Photo
Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's closest adviser, says Afghanistan isn't threatening to become another Vietnam. It already is.
America’s unwise, unwarranted, and sadly unwinnable war in Afghanistan—hastily initiated and then abandoned for Iraq by President Barack Obama’s ideologically blinded predecessor and dumped into Obama’s lap in the worst possible way—is beginning increasingly to smell like the 1964-68 war in South Vietnam that swallowed up the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
It all sounds familiar. A powerless leader (whether Vietnam’s Diem or Afghanistan’s Karzai) with a corrupt family and little support in the countryside, who refuses to undertake the reforms (land, tax, electoral, and administrative) that the U.S. president tries to press upon him, therefore endangering the regime’s stability against the guerrilla extremists (once communists, now Taliban). Repeatedly changing U.S. commanders and initiating open-ended increases in U.S. forces, without a clearly definable goal, does not help. A military strategy of “clear and hold” usually lasts about a day.
Too many of Obama’s advisers, ignoring Kennedy’s lesson, apparently think the answer in Afghanistan is sending more U.S. combat troops. The real question is not the number of American troops in Afghanistan but their mission—to win more deadly battles with the Afghan people, or to win their goodwill?
The Kennedy-Johnson team, like the Obama team, was called “the best and the brightest”—but nobody’s perfect. Indeed, Richard Holbrooke, a Vietnam veteran now charged with finding a solution for Afghanistan, once wrote about Kennedy-Johnson National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy: “The smartest man in the room is not always right.” If Holbrooke permits the current dead-end strategy to go forward, the same sentiment may someday be written about him. But it’s up to Obama, not Holbrooke or the generals, to make the final decision.
John F. Kennedy, a World War II hero in the South Pacific, did not need to prove himself “tough” to either the generals or the Republicans, and he refused to send combat troop divisions to Vietnam as urged by his own hawkish advisers. I hope Obama does not feel he needs to prove himself tough.
John F. Kennedy knew that “regime change” and related problems are political problems not solved by superior U.S. military force and technology. He had successfully weathered crises in Berlin, Laos, the Congo and even the Cuban Missile Crisis through negotiations and political solutions, not superior force as urged upon him in each case by his own “hawks.” One colorful hawk scornfully dismissed talk of seeking to “capture the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people: “Grab them by the short hairs and drag them across our line,” he said, “and their hearts and minds will follow!”
• Walter Russell Mead: Why We Need Deals With Shady People to Win in Afghanistan
• Elise Jordan: Shattering Kabul’s Calm
• Christopher Buckley: It’s Time For Us to Leave Afghanistan
• Michael Smerconish: Musharraf on Fixing Pakistan and the Afghan SurgeBut the Vietnamese people, who had long resisted complete occupation and domination by the French, Japanese, and others, were not so easily grabbed, and were determined to drive any would-be occupying power from their land, just as Afghans, who resisted complete occupation and domination by Alexander the Great, the British, and the Russians, are equally determined to drive out the Americans today. Nor was rule by the Taliban and their al Qaeda friends popular among the Afghan people.
Even the rhetoric today is familiar—the dire warnings that an American loss would embolden our enemies and lead to a “domino effect” chain of setbacks across the region; that we must keep on sending fresh troops to kill or be killed, thereby expanding both America’s mission and stakes, even though Obama had no more initiated America’s role in Afghanistan than Kennedy initiated America’s role in South Vietnam. There was little the U.S. could do to stop the flow of arms and enemy combatants into South Vietnam across its porous border with North Vietnam, just as there is little the U.S. can do now to stem the flow of arms and enemy combatants pouring across Afghanistan’s porous border with Pakistan.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Everything is Vietnam. The economic crisis is Vietnam, the housing crisis is Vietnam. Iraqi was Vietnam until it wasn't and now Afghanistan is Vietnam. Honestly have you people no other reference to use except Vietnam? The Taliban is currently at 7% support in Afghanistan, last time I checked the rebels in Vietnam had the popular support of the people. Why don't you spend time in Afghanistan and find out if people want to live under the brutal laws of the Taliban again and have their women and girls treated like cattle.
If people were so outraged by the elections why didn't they go out in the streets and protest like the people in Iran and other countries. The only people who care about the "integrity" of elections in Afghanistan are Americans. The second election is being done solely to make U.S. citizens feel better about helping the Afghan people. Most of the world's governments are shady, that's the reality deal with it.
If you are against wars, just be honest about it. Playing the Vietnam card is getting old and boring. The 60's are over people, take the time to learn about another time in history to reference!
I missed the account of your personal experiences in Afghanistan and with the people there. Such certitude would be a comfort coming from someone who knew the culture well and the military strategy first hand.
We do get hung up on history don't we. I mean, it's so lame and it's not like it ever repeats itself...like the costly failures of the British and Soviet to occupy Afghanastan. Get with it people. History is for losers.
Unlike you and the average American, I read, listen to and watch news DAILY straight from foreign reporters and newspapers. I never said not to pay attention to history, I said to leave the 60's and pay attention to ALL historical battles and wars. Vietnam is lazy short-hand for people who do not take the time to fully understand the situation in Afghanistan or it's complexity. Americans love short-hand.
I agree that comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam is getting tiresome. There is some truth to it: They are both counterinsurgencies--they are alike in the same way that all football games are alike. And they are different in the ways that all wars and football games are different.
A big difference this time is that our generals understand counterinsurgency in a way that Westmoreland and the rest never did. That is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. It really helps to know what you are doing.
The next necessary condition is a national government that is believed to be legitimate by the people. The Republic of South Vietnam was never that. It fell as soon as we stopped propping it up. At the present time the Afghanistan government is too corrupt to be legitimate. Do the Afghan leaders have the will to reform? I do not know, but the war will be decided on that point.
Seeing eighteen coffins coming home yesterday was Vietnam all over again.
If the Afghan leaders have the will to reform,let the Afghan men fight the war.
Getting tiresome? The comparison has become a chiché, but a cliché is one usually because it is true.
We think we know what we are doing this time. So did Westmoreland.
We think we know what we are doing in Afghanistan. So did Britain.
Thinking we can do it better than anyone else, and we know better than those before us, is called hubris.
History's for losers. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is also a working definition of insanity. I'll tell ya what's getting tiresome: watching Americans making the same dumbass mistakes over and over again: lift banking regulations, get an economic crash, invade a country we know next to nothing about, lose an unnecessary war. Then listen to the same claptrap from armchair experts. Tiresome. Losers.
Chucky: The Taliban government in Kabul was relatively uncorrupt. Do you want them back in power?
Our Generals are all from W/P. What is it that they "understand?"
They learn the same exact strategies, tactics, and doctrines from each other.
Have you looked ACTUALLY LOOKED at Gen Stan McCrystalball's record??? I doubt you have. How in the world is he comanding an ARMY of 100,000 soldiers? Totally unqualified for such an assignment.
He has been running a "Black Ops" force of 500 soldiers for 6 years. Wake up about these "Hollywood" generals.
Counterinsurgency that you refer to is the same failed, futile policy we tried in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's. Where we learned nothing then or since!
Please have some of these armchair Generals go every night to Dover to welcome home our dead soldiers like Obama has. I will bet you that there are less than 5 who have ever gone to Dover in 8 years to pay their respects to their victums.
I said this was going to be Viet Nam all over again when we went into Afghanistan. I seemed to know more than Pres. Bush and I'm just a citizen.
When will Americans realize that we can't go to war just on a whim, no matter how many carriers, tanks, jets, etc. we have. And wars cost money and have bankrupted many countries many times. And we are almost bankrupt. Yes, this is just like Viet Nam. They are even talking about the 'domino theory' again. Wake up, people.
And before Vietnam, there was Korea. MacArthur wanted to "win" that one and got himself fired by Truman. Everyone sort of settled for half a loaf, and now we're still stuck with North Korea as a continuing enemy.
camfield: But at least we avoided World War III - a nuclear war with China and the USSR.
You do remember that MacArthur wanted to use nukes on China, don't you?
Firing MacArthur was one of Truman's best decisions.
McArthur wanted to go into China and use nuclear weapons!! Thank God for President Truman. We are still in Korea to defend the South Koreans from invasion from the North. I'll buy that one.
crymeariver: People who ignore history often repeat previous mistakes.
If George W. Bush had paid a little more attention to the lessons of Vietnam, we might not be in two unwinnable wars right now.
so you'd prefer Saddam Hussein's power, constant costly flyovers, sanctions that didn't work and built Saddam's palaces? AND you'd prefer that al Qaeda and Taliban remain in full force in Afghanistan building nukes and whatever else weapons they want? with no action, just say 9/11 too bad....we're just non-reactive, helpless Americans....
AlanD2: The idiot in the White House allowed the Iraqi army and security service to be disbanded, after he had assured the Saudis they would be kept intact to prevent civil war.
Guess what Alan, there are TONS of other wars and battles that have been fought outside of Vietnam. If you DON'T learn history AND you are lazy, you stick to comparing EVERY war to only Vietnam. Most people writing these articles are completely ignorant of military history.
Well, let's get honest. We helped create Saddam Hussein's rise to power when we supported him with tons of cash during the Iraq-Iran war. That was the first Bush under Reagan. We were for him before we were against him. We helped create al Qaeda and the Taliban when we paid them to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero financed by the USA.
Could somebody who truly understands the dynamics of Afghanistan
explain to those of us who TRULY DON"T KNOW, how will this time
be any different than the British, or Soviet Union ?
Thanks.
sophia5: The British learned from painful experience it was essential not to have British armed forces stationed in Afghanistan, year after year. The US increasingly is seen as the occupier and thus as the enemy, and putting in more US troops will even make the situation worse.
Sophia,
How would leaving prevent Al-Qaida from coming back to build a base in Afghanistan? Take the time to look at the war from various points of views and you will gain more complexity for the war. You can listen to daily news from the BBC, Christian Amapour, or Fareed Zakaria's weekly podcast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/03/000000_newshour.shtml
http://www.theworld.org/
http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/amanpour/?eref=amanpour-video
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/
crymeariver: Since Iran is trying to prevent the Taliban from returning to power in Kabul, why is the US failing to engage with Iran on this issue?
Sorenson's comparisons to Vietnam are valid. Your attempts to indicate that we compare everything to Vietnam ('the economy is Vietnam') are not. There are 30 Million people in Afghanistan, around that many in Pakistan. America doesn't have a big enough Army to keep the peace there, and they will bleed until they leave. We know the Taliban are brutal and you could position the mission is noble but that's not the point.
President Obama does not have a clue what to do. He inherited his dilemma, but that is not an excuse and in the event Obama decides to pull out we will lose a generation of children who will be turned into heroin addicts from the dollar a dose heroin available in our streets that began as opium poppy in Afghanistan as far as the eye can see..
This is the Afghanistan Solution, the strategy we need to make Afghanistan a favored nation and great trading partner; what we should do, how to do it, and why.
I am an independent candidate for president. Regardless what Obama does, this is what I am going to do, to settle this issue upon election to our highest office, an electoral happenstance that cannot be ruled out.
The American people are liable to agree with every thing written here as this proposal is nonpartisan approach to "win" the war with minimal loss of life!
We must adopt this opium poppy strategy, explained below, or risk another terrorist attack in America, greater than the 9 / 11 attack. White House officials involved in the ongoing Afghanistan deliberations should ignore my candidacy for president, instead of attempting to suppress it, and consider this clearly stated, well thought out solution!
The key to winning Afghanistan and Pakistan, to dissolving al Qaeda and Taliban, is Afghanistan's home grown opium.
On good ship Mother Urf, opium is the big papa, the Holy Father over all opiates. Morphine, and codeine are manufactured from heroin which is distilled from opium.
That dirt-cheap heroin readily bought on the streets Kabul, by the gates to where our troops are billeted, and on the streets of Manhattan and Washington DC began a sleepy Pashtun poppy, milked in Afghanistan, oceans away.
That hardly cut heroin bag; available on select street corners in every major city in the western world, started out an opium poppy grown in Afghanistan. You first saw the richly crowded Afghanistan poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz.
93% of the world's opium is grown and refined into heroin right on the Afghani farms! They are not such a backward unsophisticated country as rigid status quo bureaucrats paint them. The farmers grow the highest quality most potent opium that yields the most heroin, world wide!
Bill Gates must marvel at Afghanistan opium / heroin market share. Monopoly! Irreplaceable, worldwide; a blessing for all sides, especially us, because controlling the opium poppy fields means we will have taken over the main source of income for all the barbarian Taliban, the terrorist al Qaeda operations in all the neighboring countries, and all of the Western Hemisphere cartels and subtle European drug dealerships.
The key to the heroin smuggling and financial life blood of all these illegal forces is the opium poppy growing in Afghanistan.
The heroin lifeblood for terrorists and drug cartels is smuggled throughout Europe, with tons, tons going by plane and ship to South America where, repackaged, its origin is disguised so no one gets wise; and from there, routed to Mexican cartels, and from Mexico, into our country, to be sold in our ghettos, suburban streets and school yards.
For the Columbian and Mexican cartels this wholesale heroin represents billions of dollars in USA retail distributorship business. Billions of underground criminal, and terrorist dollars!
The key to disbursing Taliban and al Qaeda, eradicating all of their corruption of Afghanistan, is to choke the supply of opium the Afghan farmers are world wide famous for; choke the supply which would wipe out the opium / heroin smuggling trade; and choke their criminal customers on our side of the sea, in the Western Hemisphere.
We don't have 68,000 troops in uniform, stationed in South America, chopping down the Columbian jungle to get at the cocaine plantations. That is not happening, and won't. But we do have 68,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, with the needed more possibly on the way. The opium poppy strategy carefully explained here will SAVE MOST OF THEIR LIVES.
One of the prob limbs is our troops are under order to stand down when convoys carrying a couple tons of heroin are passing bye. Whoever instigated that order is a fascist in our uniform who must pay with court martial and sentenced for the attempted murder of one million American kids in public schools being tempted every day to try the white powder.
Surely, you, the reader, besides, hopefully a White House official involved in the deliberations over what and how to proceed in Afghanistan do not want to see any more American blood shed, especially blood shed over here from a military failure to act over there.
The Taliban's and al Qaeda's end in the opium/heroin trade nets them many millions of dollars, yet peanuts in the big picture, falafel on the table for Taliban's "freedom fighters," living over the border, in Pakistan; and money for the families of al Qaeda's suicide bombers throughout the region.
But without the opium / heroin trade, al Qaeda and Taliban would be decimated. The Western Hemisphere drug cartels would lose hundreds of millions of dollars and be facing their own recession. Illegals, all over United States building networks of street dealers for their heroin would get laid off and have to sign up for unemployment insurance.
All of the illegal heroin in the United States would dry up as the pipeline for the heroin would be destroyed! That is exactly what we want, a take down of the heroin pipe line.
In Iraq, whoever is running the roads, wins. In Afghanistan, the opium dollar is fueling both the war and the Taliban structure, enabling them to strike! Afghanistan is a poor country with a rich culture. Whoever controls the opium harvest will have battled for that right. The hardy farmers get only enough to live decently and plant their fresh poppy.
The Taliban "freedom fighters" would leave for home in a heartbeat, were they not getting fed and allowed to while away their days smoking the black Afghani hashish. No food no money no fight go home. The newly chosen Taliban "leader" has a payroll he must meet. The opium proceeds cover that payroll!
President Obama is our Commander-in-Chief, the civilian boss in charge of our ribbon shirts, but his military bureaucrats, and the retired cable news talking heads are all misreading and misleading the war.
The Wall Street Journal recently in an article:
"White House officials familiar with deliberations said that while some elements of the Taliban were inclined to harbor al Qaeda, which operated freely in Afghanistan through 2001, other members were focused on Afghanistan's internal politics and much less likely to support the international terror group."
Oh! The Taliban is more interested in securing seats on the local neighbor hooded school boards. Get reel.
The Taliban differs from al Qaeda in one respect. Taliban are criminal drug dealers hiding behind religion and oppressing the local people they believe is the key to continuing success in controlling the opium / heroin, whereas Al Qaeda smuggles heroin to fund senseless political attacks throughout their region, and to plan another 9/11 which they cannot accomplish without millions of dollars swapped with Goldman Sachs Laundromat.
A few years ago a Taliban leader, Mullah Omar came to Texas. The official reason for the "trip" was to meet with Texas oil barons to discuss an oil or gas pipe line. That was the cover. The real reason was to have lengthy conversations on throw away cell phones purchased in WalMart, with Mexican and Columbian Cartel officials about the details for shipping refined heroin over here instead of tell tale smelly opium, and paying a higher price. The Columbian Cartels got into the act because the Mexicans felt no one would suspect that heroin originating in far a way Afghanistan would be round-about smuggled into South America.
In fact, Fascist Bureaucracy Ink taps every telephone in America, but those conversations, on throw away cell phones were missed!
We don't need to build an Afghanistan army. The unaligned unofficial Afghani militias know how to fight.
With a little structure and dollar support at the bottom, at the farm level, the Afghani's will protect themselves. Abraham Lincoln established a sea embargo to win the Civil War. Without supplies by ship from Europe, the Confederate Army was doomed.
Our troops get killed on border patrols between Pakistan and Afghanistan to protect our way of life across the ocean. Yet a stone's throw away, Mother Nature's opium is grown for the criminal and international terrorist's gain? How can our military be so dumb as to allow this to go on, creating millions of terrorist jihad dollars?
The only thing going across that Pakistan / Afghanistan border are paid fighters and convoys of drug smugglers hauling their cargo. The Afghan opium trade is key to everything happening there!
We own the opium and that country is ours to develop as another favored nation and great trading partner from that part of the world. Opium control means renegade Taliban, al Qaeda terrorists, and warlords are on the road again. Skedaddled or killed.
(I like the idea of not killing anybody.)
The White House failure to respond to this openly published letter will lead to loss of American lives, and seal the possibility of Barack Obama being reelected to a 2nd term in our Highest office. As the person who created the Vehicle for World Peace, I can promise The White House that much. My presidential candidacy is not the issue here, winning Afghanistan is.
The opium production and our clear ability to control that opium, is the only issue.
Our guys must begin digging foxholes in every opium field, making CIA Cash In Advance deals with the Afghanis that we are purchasing their opium crop for top dollar, in raw opium form. The farmers don't have to brew the black opium milked from the plants into a dangerous snowy heroin powder, so they are poppy plentiful, an ounce or two for the house, compliments of us.
Raw opium isn't dangerous. You won't kill yourself smoking opium the way you can so easily overdose from a heroin syringe, so we want their whole crop raw, just like unrefined brown sugar, and we will pay the refined opium heroin price which is similar to tacking on an additional 65 cents to a bushel of Iowa corn.
The war momentum will immediately shift! Instead of Taliban's "freedom fighters" picking us off every other day as we patrol the dangerous Afghanistan border, we will occupy the opium poppy fields and wait for Taliban to show up, our invited, come-and-get-us guests.
The key to Afghan quality of life for Taliban, thugs without a country when we defeat them, to them shipping their kids off to the Ivy League is based on who gets to stash the cash from Afghanistan's opium crop.
Would Karzai and his drug dealing family in Kabul be participants? How could they not be in for a slice of the action. The Afghanistan drug lords have lobbyists.
At the same time, on the diplomatic front we ought to push to reunite Pakistan with India. This will initiate a total eviction of Taliban by the Pakistani people. For Pakistan, rejoining India means freedom, food, jobs, education, and a better life. Only their military bureaucrats are opposed to this idea, and their minds could be changed with a passport, an SUV, and forty acre guarantee in Montana.
Instead of knee jerk reactions to my "Hunt For The Red October" reference to "Montana," just get creative and plant that idea in their newspapers above the fold! Now is the time to wag the Pakistan India dog!
Sad, these policies, purchasing Afghanistan's opium, piecing off the Pak military, and reuniting Pakistan with India may be too progressive for president Obama, and for his Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintstone, but maybe not.
Certainly wagging this Pakistan-India dog will be incentive for the Paks to evict the Taliban and that is what we want! The Paks have nothing going for them under the Taliban gun.
Don't you know originally Taliban bribed the Pak military for long-term safe journey with the opium money. That is how Taliban established their foothold in Pakistan! Opium money! President Obama is surrounded by bureaucrats who wouldn't know the scent of an opium house were they standing at the door.
Many Taliban soldiers will change colors of their turbans and meld into the crowd as soon as they understand the opium harvest has been taken away from them. It isn't about religion, or the neighbor hooded school board, or how many times a day you pray to Big Al (Allah to you), it is about the opium / heroin and millions of dollars in cash! You can eat three hot meals a day in the streets of Mumbai for total 60 - 75 cents plus 25 cents for a couple hookahs full. One million dollars = one million days divided by x number of Taliban soldiers.
In Afghanistan, we need to get busy, prepare the fields, create comfortable foxholes on every poppy acre, booby trap the brush surrounding with a wide safe swath to the farmhouse, and make it clear to the farmers, by CIA shelling out Cash In Advance, we are purchasing their whole raw opium crop but paying top refined heroin price, so the farmers are with us! This is a super incentive for the farmers. Less work more money.
Taliban, Al Qaeda and warlords will have to exit their caves and cross the poppy fields instead of picking us off with remotely detonated roadside attacks. Retired military will be opposed to this poppy war, but hard pressed to tell you why because they support that opium trade just the way it is.
We are purchasing the Afghanistan poppy crop, and negotiating fair and square and in advance how much sticky black sap can be extrapolated from each plant. CIA stands for Cash In Advance but these cash negotiations are a job for our enlisted soldiers in the field - to negotiate with the farms where they are dug in, not a job for CIA officers who are from Kabul.
The CIA role is to safely deliver the money!
The plants, ripening by day, are the draw for Taliban, al Qaeda and warlords to show, the only way for them to go, taking on our troops in the poppy fields where we will defeat them!
When they come down the yellow brick Afghanistan trails we can sting them from above. A couple drone attacks will turn them all around in their tracks. No opium harvest for them no paychecks.
The extra virgin first milk is scheduled to start the day after tomorrow. Our enemies know that. The farmers are out of the picture as they are already paid in advance. At 4:00 a.m. we begin snipping every plant two inches above ground with two handle bush trimmers, chop chop, just like that. At dawn, we start stuffing wood chippers and spread the soil with the chopped up results to fertilize next year's crop.
So good-bye Taliban grunt, and don't step on any land mines going home.
A couple million heroin addicts in Europe will be going cold turkey! The Mexican and Columbian drug cartels will be out of heroin, and lose hundreds of millions of criminal dollars in projected sales.
Regardless the Washington DC bureaucrats will be viciously against this operation. The status quo is how the rigid government's bureaucrats want to go.
But with a cash infusion at the farm level, Afghanistan will begin to flourish. The Afghan people will start rebuilding their own country, without corruption from above, roads and schools decided by tribal leaders in the farm districts, with a helping hand from us.
We must also purchase their whole marijuana and hashish crop, and bring each of the harvests to USA, to California and other states where medicinal marijuana is legal for medicinal purposes, else we run the risk that that crop, too becomes an income for the terrorists. Afghanistan marijuana is the most potent in the world, best for relief of anxiety, besides chemotherapy's side effects.
Regardless what the president's surrounding bureaucrat advisers say, we occupy the opium fields, purchase the whole crop, and all the heroin sold every day in our country will dry up! Young kids in poor neighborhoods will not become addicted to heroin.
Don't we want that? The opium / heroin dry up is guaranteed because all of the other countries where opium grows, they only have planted enough for their own home land and neighboring clientele.
The opium pays al Qaeda's world salary. But who controls the opium wins the terrorist war, world wide! The poppy strategy expressed on this page will accomplish our mission! Those opposed want things the way they are. Follow the money. In the event we ignore the terrorist's cash cow, and leave, al Qaeda, opium rich, will have the funds to execute all of their murderous plans. Wasn't the twin towers brought down and their Pentagon attack enough! Obama inherited that issue! The opium trade paid for the 9/11 tragedy, not bin Laden's personal millions! We cannot risk allowing 9 / 11 to repeat. We cannot!
Ignoring what I say guarantees Obama is a one term president.
michaelslevinson.com
I've already refuted this argument. SOLDIERS ARE NOT NEGOTIATORS! IT'S THE PREMIUM ON ILLEGAL POPPIES THAT PROVIDES TERRORIST WITH THIER MONEY. YOU CANNOT IRRADICATE A PLANT!
On a side note Afganny Marijuana is not the most potent in the world.
Now quit playing this one note song and get a job!
Any one who has ever gone to a flea market or a foreign country and negotiated a price is capable of negotiating. It's a simple back and forth. To raise your voice, screaming, is boring.
Once more: The farmer grows a crop. When the crop is ready for harvest the farmer harvests the crop. Someone comes along and offers to purchase the crop, whether an orchard of apples, by the bushel, or the milking of an opium poppy, by the kilo.
Someone has to purchase that crop, and certainly from farmer to farmer there are variations in the price. GI's in every war, in every country have always negotiated wine, food, and female companionship. It is the human condition. You don't have to get a degree from "NEGOTIATOR" school.
It's very old fashioned. You shake hands. You make a deal.
My program is to occupy the miles of poppy as far as the eye can sea. (It seethes your outrage that i refer to a see of poppies as a 'sea' of poppies.) The farmer's end in Afghanistan is approximately 1.3 billion dollars.
The terrorists make the purchase and smuggle the drugs out of the country, or the smugglers pay the terrorists for safe passage. Who ever controls the roads and the bridges gets money.
The terrorists, also known as al Qaeda and Taliban rake a number of billion dollars middling the deal. I have not suggested otherwize, so what are you screaming about? Nor have i suggested we irradicate the opium poppy, but i have said we should reverse our stupid law prohibiting heroin as a controlled drug that can be prescribed for pain.
Opium is a pain elimination miracle that comes from Mother Nature.
From marijuana, comes hashish. The farmer slices the plant with a scythe. The sap gets on the scythe. The farmer / harvester wipes the scythe on his leather apron. When the apron is dirty with the wipings, the farmer scrapes his leather apron and puts the scraping in his apron pouch.
That scraping is hashish, and Afghani hashish is the strongest hashish in the world.
Therefore, my statement that Afgnaistan Marijuana is the most potent. Were you to eat a chunk of that Afghanistan hash instead of smoking it, you run the risk of burning synopsis in your brain and getting tremors. Eating Afghani hashish is dangerous.
Suffice to say that Afgnani black hashish beats the mellow gold geen Moroccan hashish and the gold Lebanese from the becca valley that sells on the streets of Tel Aviv. The Afghan pot sells for top dollar in Amsterdam.
The Afghanistan opium crop is sold in Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, The United Kingdom, and by the ton arrives in Columbia where the columbian cartels repackage the "product" and it goes from there, to the Mexican cartels.
The Mexican cartels are sending their ("factory") representatives to every city, neighborhood territory, suburb and town in USA. It is a giant growing network. The "illegals" from south of the border are developing mini-networks of street corner unemployed kids - teens - to market their "product," to other kids in the school yards, and older people, fronted the "skag" (an old street name for heroin), to also market the heroin by stop and go gas stations, etc.
For an unemployed kid with no future in sight, getting fronted $2, $5, and $10 bags of realluy top shelf heroin is a great way to pay for those $80 Nike shoes! getting caught isn't so bad either. because you are a teen you might get thrown into a program and get a $100 a month in food stamps.
The total illegal criminal proceeds from the opium are between five and six hundred billion dollars. In the event Goldman Sachs runs their laundrymat for 1%, well there is a billion dollars.
Within the next year we are going to have more than one million pre-teen and teen age kids addicted to Afghanistan heroin. What we know about tobacco addiction is that when you start smoking aat age ten, or eleven, twelve, or early teen years, the habit is doubly hard to break. It is much easier if you don't start until your post adolescent years.
So these one or two million potential fresh addicts will have a life time prob limb. Junkies are not lazy. They get up in the a.m. and they know they have to "fix" by nightfall or they will be sick. So they rob, steal and whore - commit mayhem to feed their habit.
The solution is to make deals with the farmers. The source. Purchase the whole criop. Once we do that all hell will break loose! "Hi farmer Omar. Peace be with you. How much for the whole field? Ten thousand dollars? (Bank roll of 100 dollar bills comes out of pocket) . We are digging in on the edge of the field, to protect you. We pay for the opium. All of it. You keep one quarter kilo for home use. Is that enough, or do you waant more? We pay top dollar, and protect you.
Without an "opium product" to smugge and sell, whether wholesale or retail, all of the drug cartels will be, at least temporarily demolished. Taliban and al Qaeda will not have any income. They cannot operate without the money from the opium.
The military bureaucracy and CIA (cash in advance) is against my policy because some of that 500-600 billion dollars ands in their hands. Corruption amongst police, regardless of uniform, is not a new deal. It is happening. And the souls of a couple million kids are in the mix.
It is called negotiating.
I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks. I am a candidate for president. I plan a giant independent convention, and to renew, at least show the way for all the independently minded American people to renew our politics and protect the First Amendment Rights of the American people. That is my plan. The post toastie censors here are truly a bore.
michaelslevinson.com
Click, the porcelain tip
Whistle of air in the bowl
How many times my
Mouth upon / the pipe
To make a habit.
Opiums a mellow poison
Sliding down the throat.
1966
Why is this idiot allowed to repeatedly cut and paste his stupid diatribe into "comments" about various articles here? It's the same interminable crap, which interferes with everyone's search for meaningful comments. Why doesn't TDB impose a limit on the length of comments, and a monitor should refuse to post repeated postings of the same text.
See above
michaelslevinson.com
I agree, too wordy.
God, oliverecker, stop with the diatribes everyday. Just comments, please.
Ditto
michaelslevinson.com
Diatribe, a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something is not your humple prophetic poet.
I do apologize for my SHOUTYness.
However...
A 2009 UN estimate of the total Afghan population is 28,150,000. Roughly 8 ethnic groups with 30 languages. At 249,984 sq mi (647,500 km²), Afghanistan is the world's 41st-largest country.
How many soldiers we got?
Even if all of our soldiers had been to "NEGOTIATOR" school(side note, I'm willing to bet theres a school for it somewhere), there's no way to do it. Maybe if we hadn't gone and played war in thier country for 8 years, AND! they approved of having our military there (funny, how they got a problem with that, huh) it could almost not fail completly.
As I argued previously, the US cannot irradicate marijuana grown in the US let alone the prolific bulb of the east, I believe the sq. mileage previously mentioned will indicate the logistical problem of buying it all.
We are unwelcome in this country. No one will negotiate that for now. Not for all the money and all the opium in the world.
Heroin and cocaine remain the most heavily trafficed illegal substances due to their relative cost and wieght to profit ratio (Premium!). Most drug cartels sneak workers into the US to grow pot here to increase the ease of delivery, it also helps avoid selling "brick weed", or cheap compressed low potency buds.
Marijuana grown indoors and prefered by enthusists will knock your d*#k in the dirt compared to anything grown anywhere outdoors. It's something I know. The resulting hashish is a golden or amber oil, about the cosistincy of snot. A dab 'ill do ya.
To everybody else, I know, I know. I'll quit now.
Apology accepted.
With all of our focus primarily on the countryside where the poppy grows as in The Wizard of Oz, far as the eye can see, we have enough troops to do the job. A leather pouch packed with C notes can do wonders!
Our privates in uniform negotiators should also have a picture of a Toyota Tundra quad cab truck, to seal the deal.
I like the idea of leaving the poppy standing as a draw to get Taliban and al Qaeda to come down from the mountains and attack, but in fact, once the farmer is paid and the money changes hands, time to march out into the middle of the field with old fashioned brush cutters and chop the plant from 2 inches above ground, then with a tree mulcher like the unit I saw in the movie, "Fargo" mulch the crop and fertilize the soil.
Done right, before Taliban and al Qaeda knew what hit them, the souce of all their money ie payrolls, egg rolls and falaffels would be gone!
We need to move a thousand back hoes over there to dig the necessary fox holes to occupy the poppy fields if we go that route. They need to be dug a certain way to protect against grenade launch attack. Even with the crop cut down and the soil mulched, robbers will want to steal the farmer's largesse and we don't want that either.
We want them to replant! Mother Nature created an amazing plant that has a pain killing substance. This is a blessing for the elimination of pain, so a reversal of our stupid drug prohibition makes Afghanistan potentially a prosperous country. Good!
With our focus on just that - the opium poppy fields - the British will participate because the heroin in United Kingdom also comes from Afghanistan. The Russians might also want to join us, and why not!
A government will take hold from the bottom up. "Peace be with you, farmer Omar. I called on my cell phone and a helicopter will be here in 20 minutes with your $49,000 for the fifty acre field. What color do you want the Toyota truck?"
michaelslevinson.com
Mania
Replys should be of limited length - certainly not longer than the orginal article! Huff Post should do something to limit these diatribes.
Diatribe, a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something.
Who is bitter? who is attacking? This is not Huff Post. Go back to sleep and let your dreams be censored.
michaelslevinson.com
One way to NOT win hearts and minds is to destroy the wealth of the moneyed class in any society. That's what your plan does. That's why no one in their right mind does it. In fact, what we should do is exactly what we're doing with Karzai's brother. Pay him to do nothing. The only problem is, we don't pay him enough. But we could.
The people living off money from drugs that poison the souls of teen and preteen kids do not have any class.
michaelslevinson.com
Oliverecker, you are ruining TDB with you 'book' length essays.
Please, TWB, stop printing this drivel.
These Vietnam analogies are so nonsensical that you'd think serious people would stop making them. Sorenson doesn't bother to mention al Qaeda until his last paragraph, because he knows (or should know) that bin Laden and Mullah Omar are joined at the hip. Bin Laden swore allegiance to Omar (not the other way around) as the "Emir" of "the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." A US withdrawal would bring Omar back to his headquarters in Khandahar in a matter of days, and al Qaeda would again have the free run of millions of square miles of rugged Afghan territory to build training camps and plan strikes against the US and the west at leisure. Pakistan could also come under greater threat from its own Taliban who would not have to worry about US forces to their west -- but that's not the central concern; a reversion to Taliban-al Qaeda control of Afghanistan is.
Whatever else you can say about Ho Chi Minh, he did not plot with terrorists to kill thousands of Americans. A Communist Vietnam was neither here nor there as a major factor in US security or our ability to deal with the USSR and China. So the US national interest in defeating Ho was essentially derivative -- how much did we want or need to support anti-Communists in the south in order to fulfill obligations to them undertaken since 1956 and to buck up the morale and determination of allies in the region. One could argue at the time (as I did) that the limit of our real interests was exceeded by Kennedy when he dispatched thousands of "trainers" in the form of Special Forces troops and Marine helicopter crews who, as Sorenson well knows, joined in combat and suffered many casualties long before LBJ assumed the Presidency. Be that as it may, whatever we did or did not do, we could rest secure in the knowledge that Vietnam would never serve as a base for mass casualty attacks on the United States.
In sharp contrast, ourt national interest in Afghanistan was vividly illustrated on 9/11/01 when airplanes came crashing into the World Trade Center.
There are a myriad of other differences: for one, the American Vietnam war, contrary to our own folklore, was largelya fight against North Vietnamese regular troops, not peasant guerrillas.
Vietnam was a disaster in many ways, one of which was that the Democratic Party -- my party -- became forever after timid about the use of military force. The thing is that Sorenson and company should have been a bit more timid in 1961. Now, the issues are vastly different and it's essential that they get over it.
"...bin Laden and Mullah Omar are joined at the hip"
Everyone said that about Ho Chi Minh and Mao, and they were wrong. The above is less wrong, but it's highly unlikely that even if the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, which would be difficult if we continue to support the opposition warlords, the Taliban would not risk another pounding by the U.S. by allowing al-Qaeda to launch attacks against the West from Afghanistan. As Matt Hoh, the State Dept staffer who just resigned, said, al-Qaeda doesn't need to have a base in Afghanistan; they can launch their attacks against the West from anywhere, and have been doing so despite being excluded from Afghanistan (Britain, Spain, etc.). Much of the recruitment and training occurs in Europe after all.
Nobody absolutely no one anywhere has ever suggested that Ho Chi Minh and Mao were joined at the hip. The Vietnamese people don't even like the Chinese and have always felt threatened by the shiny Cheyenne-Easy.
In Saigon, the Chinese and Veit / Chinese all lived in Cholong, sort of segregated, amongst themselves.
Wherever al Qaeda is, the money to pay their bureaucrats and operatives derives from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. When we control the poppy fields, to protect the crop we are (or should be) paying in advance for, all of these terrorist organizations will wilt on their own vine.
There are a lot of bad branches
on the tree of life.
Some die off on their own given time.
michaelslevinson.com
Stop with the idea that they will hit us again if we withdraw from Afghanistan.
Let them fight it out with their own people, instead of having our men/women die for their cause. What makes you think we can't fight terrorism in our own country??Hmm?? You people are so fearful.
Wow, you really don't get it do you? They aren't fighting amongst themselves, they attacked us on 9/11 remember? That wasn't about some internal political battle, that was war. If we leave now, the Afghanis will fall prey to the Taliban again and we WILL be attacked again. Our men and women aren't fighting and dying for their 'cause', they are there to erradicate our enemy, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Only al-Qaeda is our enemy. The Taliban is not our enemy. They are a gnat on the fly of a dog who is fighting an elephant who is being ignored by a dragon. We should not even deign to acknowledge the Taliban because we elevate their status.
It is having the same effect on the American people and we feel on our men and women fighting for a lost cause. I am for all people to have freedom. The problem is it has been going on too long without a end in sight. We can help another country for so long and they must step up and fight the fight.
For one thing, the mission isn't clear and we are not going to stand by and see eighteen caskets come home without standing up for what we believe.
Our country is in need of so much attention. We can spend our taxes here and maybe for once make some huge changes that will improve our lives. I am very much in favor of helping my fellow man, but I am seeing too much pain in my fellow Americans now. The caskets will be a constant reminder.
Swamprat, we were attacked by 15 SAUDIS and 3 EGYPTIANS, not Taliban or Al Quaida. Bush didn't dare attack Saudi Arabia because of oil and they are our 'ALLIES'.
I know if we leave Afghanistan, the people will fight amongst themselves to see who will rule. The same in Iraq. But no matter when we leave, today or 10 years from now, they will have to sort out their own governments themselves. We have our own problems. And I am not afraid that 'they' will attack us again.
The people who attacked us on 9/11 were Saudis and came here from Germany so having ignored Afghanistan for 7 years while Al Qaeda spread across the globe whining about 9/11 makes no sense. It is time that we get honest with ourselves about 9/11. We were not attacked by masterminds using state of the art weapons. We were attacked by young men from a third world country using our own aircraft and box cutters. Had we not ignored the intelligence provided to the Bush administration, we probably could have avoided 9/11? Since we did ignore it, 9/11 tragically put a bright light on our incompetency and poor security.
Anyone who thinks that the War in Viet Nam was against regular Vietnamese troops failed American history. Viet nam was jungle guerrilla warfare for which we were poorly prepared and at which we failed.
There is absolutely no evidence that the Taliban in Afghanistan had any involvement whatsoever with 9/11. The Taliban has never been known to pose an international threat nor were they a threat to the other Afghans until we showed up uninvited and invaded their country. Trying to pretend we have a moral purpose to remain in Afghanistan is just pretending.
Bravo, Xintcat.
xlntcat.. Well said..
Mattew Hoh, in his resignation earlier this week, that "Jihad is a cottage industry in Afghanistan".
Jihad is used against neighboring tribes in the next valley, it is used against the central government from those very same tribes when they unite against a common foe etc etc. Once we leave, they will begin using it again against one another.
This concept of "if we leave we will embolden the terrorist" is just another way of promoting some false bravado.
It's just another way of saying the domino theory is alive an well
We are involved in war because it makes money..We have shifted trillions of tax payer dollars to the war machine in the last 8 years with what favorable outcome and to who?
I agree. But as long as we are there, by occupying the poppy fields, we can put all of the underworld drug cartels out of business. That we must do!
michaelslevinson.com
and I guess Osama bin Laden lives in Manhattan and did nothing to build a terrorist network?
Time to rid ourselves of the neo-con fantasies and stop this madness. We can survive Obama's liberal domestic fantasies, but getting bogged down in a land war in asia just plays to our enemies hand, and will bleed us as a nation.
Signed
a true conservative
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Dear Mr. Sorensen: You have served your country well as an advisor to President Kennedy. Now shut up. It was the disasterous policies of President Johnson and the military mistakes of Gen. Westmoreland that made the US lose heart and leave and forsake our friends in Vietnam. War is hell. Afghanistan is not Vietnam. We are now in the 21st Century with a new set of problems. Get over it, please. George Patton
In 1963 JFK and Sorrenson supported the coup of Pres Diem, who was a card carrying anti-communist. It seems the U.S. has a hard time supporting the right leader in these situations.
They didn't "support" the coup. They realized they were powerless to stop it. Saying Kennedy supported the coup of Diem is like saying Woodrow Wilson supported the overthrow of Nicholas II. Read about the last person Diem called, then get back to us.
It is not often that editorial opinions such as this and the one yesterday as expressed by Mr. Buckley cause me to re-think an issue. While the lessons of history can often be over applied- Vietnam does not serve as a template for every protracted U.S.involvement any more than Munich provides absolute guidance on how to deal with a belligerent- they should not be ignored either. Sadly, the window of opportunity for the United States to acheive its original goal in Afghanistan probably ended when Bin Laden was holed up in Bora Bora as Cheney, Rumsfeld et al plotted their entrance strategy into Iraq. Guidance in times like these from a giant voice of the past should be taken seriously.
Absolutely right!
I hate the Vietnam analogies but its apt for Afghanistan. The majority of Afghani's view us as foreign occupiers propping up a corrupt government. I read about that somewhere before, hmm ... Al Qaeda left for other poor Muslim countries after we invaded. Will we occupy everyone of those too? We're bleeding lives and resources in a country where the majority of people don't want us and the government only exists to steal and pillage American generosity.
The last thing I want to see on TV are Taliban/Pashtun yahoos celebrating a US withdrawal but like Tom Friedman said in the NYT: "In the Middle East, all politics - everything that matters - happens the morning after the morning after." "And the morning after the morning after, the Taliban factions will start fighting each other, the Pakistani Army will have to destroy their Taliban, or be destroyed by them, Afghanistan's warlords will carve up the country, and, if bin Laden comes out of his cave, he'll get zapped by a drone." This may be best possible outcome we have.
It's a waste of time to compare Afghanistan to Vietnam. Two different problems.
We will not win, nor will we make headway, in Afghanistan because WE (the USA) are the invaders.
The Afghans/Taliban are only fighting the invaders, and those who support them. Who can blame them?
Wouldn't we fight against anyone or any country that invaded the USA?
Oh I'm sorry, I thought that was why we went to Afghanistan, because they attacked the U.S.A.
No. We were attacked by some Saudis and Egyptians, not Afghanis. Get your facts right and stop listening to conservative propaganda.
Sorensen needs to back up a pace and his initial facts straight. BILL CLINTON was the president who abandoned Afghanistan -- not Bush. I can't even read the article because the first sentence is so clearly biased!
Cliffsmom, that's not fair. You refer to the US pulling away after the Mujahadeen defeated Soviet Russia in the 1990s. (See the movie "Charlie's War.") Mr. Sorensen exaggerates but only a bit when he says that in 2003 the US put Afghanistan on the back burner to take on Iraq.
Sorenson makes no mention of the fact that JFK increased the number of Americans in South Vietnam from 600 advisers to 16,000 troops, more than a 25 fold increase. I wonder why that is?
so true, consider the source here. He's a partisan hack with his own agenda.
Wait we are thinking of sending 11/2 billion dollars to the Karzai brothers.!!I think it should be 2 billion. Because nothing we send ever reaches the people of anywhere.Just get out. We are not wanted, we are not appreciated, we have no purpose,the purpose was to get Ben Ladden. that was the purpose. Not to rebuild,fight Talibans, fight Iraquians, Fight Pakistanians. they will continue to blow themselves up. Ofcourse I wish we could help all the masses,and give to all the people, but this is a joke.The only way to stop an attack in the Us in the future is the world knowing "if you attack us, we fly the next mornign. with our airplanes, and there will be a price to pay."Really what price has been paid,what did we teach the world when we were attacked."!War is ugly inhumane, awfull,murdering, but they themselves, explode their own bodies,their own children,their own wives,parents,hide among schools and lts,temples,churches,,we must be THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. If you attack us, we will retaliate. Not come in and rebuild your country your infrastructure,loose our soldiers,our children our husbands,and wives, our parents.And our dollars cannot continue to be thrown out at these governments.Like Arafats,what money did he give to the Palestinians.his wife and daughter lived in Marseilles,can you all imagine the swiss bank accounts, of the Karzai brothers.?Mushariff,I dont know enough about Malaki.All the congress the senate the government yacking away,and they go home at night.Bring our soldiers home give them free mortgages,and jobs. BUT if our soldiers, are going to fight, Then nothing but the best armor, manpower,money for them,weapons,should be yesterday,at their disposel.You either fight to win,swift,strong bold,or you get out.Thank You US soldiers and your families.
Thank you amapola101. That was the most sensible thing I've read here tonight.
I think that we as a country need to clear our collective mental slate and completely rethink our role in military conflict wherever it exists on the planet. We still wear this WWII mindset forged on the tennets of 1) All wars can be "won" 2) the USA is the world's police force and must lead the charge to right all that is wrong by gearing up and shipping out...and 3) that all things that threaten our security will surely grow larger and more uncontrolable with out a US military response.
These three things, if they were ever true, and surely not true anymore. Times have changed, yet we still are using the same buggywhip, and the results have been not only ineffective, but in many cases harmful to our interests both domestically and abroad.
Conventional warfare is a contradiction in terms. Today's rebels, be it in Afganistan, Somalia, or Mexico, dont subscribe to the Geneva Convention rules of engagement. They are animals. They hide their leaders in orphanages or hospitals to avoid attack, detonate explosives that their own followers in order to kill their enemies. These countries have decentralized leaderships, warring factions, and a fair amount of popular support / fear of the rebels, so there will be no signing of armistice papers ending a war. The US and other nations that have some moral compass, cannot play by these rules, so the construct of a "winnable" war by 1940's standards is ludacris.
The US is not in any financial shape to commit to one or more long-term military occupations abroad, but even if we werent mired in the worst recession in 75 years, one can argue that it's time that we demand that other democratic industrialized nations step up to the plate and do their share when terrorists states pose a threat and basic human rights are ignored. Why is it "the United States PLUS" the support of other G8 nations? Why must we always shoulder the heaviest load of troup presence, expense and lost lives in the name of world stability and democracy?
Lastly, it's unfortunate but true that political and religious extremism is here to stay. But instead of accepting this fact, we continue to run around the worldwith our very expensive bucket of water, putting out a thousand fires across the world that will always burn, with or without our "help". We have to stop trying to "fix" everyone who does not think like we do and understand, that some percentage of the world will always be broken and only fixable when local populations want to fix it.
I know many who read this post will point to the attacks of 9/11 and call blesphemy. But our justifiable military response to that day, along with it's clearly defined mission is a million miles away from our current undefined and shifting strategy. We have drifted from a retaliation to nation-building and regime change in a part of the world that is ready for neither.
Now is the time on rebuilding America, not Afganistan. It's a time to focus on the domestic agendas of healthcare, financial reform, and infrastructure here in our own backyard, not perpetual occupation in a region where "winning" is best defined by not being there at all.
I have to agree with oliverckerr. The reason we all went to Afghanistan was the Taliban, who attacked us - ' The West". If we leave the war un-won, they will treat that as an enormous ideological victory over us.
The fact that G.W got distracted and attacked another country as well, is beside the point. the smart thing to do would be to pull out of Iraq (where we have no business being) and finish the job we started in Afghanistan.
I have to wonder after Korea, Viet-Nam and now Afghanistan, if the U.S.A. has forgotten how to win wars!
That might be true if we lived in a world where money didn't matter. It's a terrible thing to say, but the mighty America does not have the resources to fight this war. We're past the "why" stage of deciding to fight this war. The question now is "how" and the unfortunate answer is "we can't." So everyone should stop their preaching about 9/11 or whatever else. We simply can't finance this war as long as it would take to achieve "victory." The truth hurts but we've got to look in the mirror on this before it's too late.
The wars in the Middle East? Like Vietnam? Yes. But this time there's OIL ! Will that be affecting decisions and pressure not to pull out? What do you think?
GOT HISTORY?
Oh My God! it's the American Revolution all over again! A group of terrorists fighting to take over a country because they want to run it their way
... well from the Bristish point of view that's what happened during the American revolution.
Also, nobody under 50 remembers Vietnam or any wars for that matter (except perhaps the war on drugs). Blame the decline in the education system.
My God, it's the war on drugs all over again! Bunch of terrorists are trying to convert a native population to their way of life (drug use) which could destroy ours.
I give up! You guys don't seem to have a clue. No wonder you're losing the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban (who BTW ARE your enemies).
This is the same rhetoric that lost us the war in Viet-Nam, people not being able to decide if they want to win and losing sight of their objectives. It''s a pity the U.S. hasn't learned from it's past mistakes. Let the generals fight the wars and let the politicians fight the elections!
Simple history 101:
- Al-Qaeda got lucky with the help of the Taliban government of Afghanistan.
- Al Qaeda, planned and executed an attack on U.S. soil which resulted in the murders of almost 3,000 people.
- The U.S. quickly identified and retaliated against their enemy, with support from my country and others.
- The U.S. lost sight of it's objective in Afghanistan when a new and shiney Iraqi 'enemy' appeared.
- the U.S. got distracted and failed to finish the job against Al-Qaeda, which gave them time to regroup and reorganise.
- The U.S. can't now make up it's mind what it really wants and would prefer to just go home and have a deep fried twinky on the couch, in front of the telly.
Perhaps you deserve to lose but ther rest of us who got into this with you, would prefer to do what we do best - WIN!
If Presidents would live by your credo of "generals fight the wars" George B. McClellan would have been the last President of the United States before the federal system was disbanded.
But, hey, what ever makes your d*ck look bigger in your own hands. Most people prefer to drive sports cars or buy their girlfriend fake t*ts, but, hey, whatever does it for you.
Obama said he'd listen to his generals. He put McChrystal in, and now Obama's not listening. Oh...sorry. He's DELIBERATING.
Remember...Obama, forever down on Iraq (though finally forced to admit that the surge worked), said that the war in Afghanistan was a necessary war. "Was," because he certainly doesn't think so now...else he wouldn't be dithering.
The Obama White House, whose stock in trade was...and remains...Kool Aid, suffers from a total lack of true grit.
Never has there been a sorrier excuse for a president than Barack Hussein Obama. NEVER.
Listening and obeying are two completely different things. But, moral subtlety was never the strong point of conservatives.
Jack Davis, your idea of true grit is war and be damned. It doesn't matter if it was started by us for a 'good' reason', keep fighting because it is MANLY to do so. Warmongers make me sick. They just love death and destruction, especially when they can sit at home and drink a beer while someone else is fighting and dying.
How soon the Repugnants forget their own sorry ass excuses for a president. BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The illusion that the US can have it's way in the new world paradigm is folly.Obama must break with past and reshape policy to match realistic clearly defined goals.Afganistan is a black hole for foreigners.His time and credibility are running out .
This is so very sad. I have been overwhelmed with thoughts about a family member and 2 friends who are now dust thanks to LBJ, &"Generals know best...Westmoreland et al." Face it .Bush screwed up at Tora Bora and sadly a new generation of family and friends will be as haunted as I am.
Very fine piece by Sorenson. Let's hope Obama reads it several times.
@250
Kennedy and his administration felt the Diem government was not backed by the Vietnamese people and it had to be replaced, that is a fact. Kennedy used the CIA under the tooledge of Henry Cabot Lodge to create the coup. The funny thing about it is we ended up with a more corrupt President than before. Does President Karzai's current troubles ring any bells? Watch what happens to him.
Sorenson is very wrong on critical points.
There was no porous border between North and south Vietnam for the simple reason that the border was a figment of the colonial imagination.
The Vietnamese had a strong sense of who they were as a people and did not see themselves in terms of North and South. This was our political construct.
They also had the great good fortune to have a remarkable leader in Ho Chi Min. When the Americans withdrew the reuniting of Vietnam was remarkably quick and successful due to his pragmatic leadership.
It may be that Sorenson can't reason this out because it would imply the total bankrupcy of American policy. It was bankrupt and we never seem to learn.
The situation in Afghanistan is that there is no leader and there are Muslim fundamentalists - many of whom are foreign fighters. Pakistan is a nuclear power on the verge of chaos. The warlords run the show and it's an inchoate one.
I don't know the answers here but I will restate that comparing it to Vietnam is far to facile. We should be so lucky. There is no one to clean up this mess for us.
Saying you don't know the answers here puts you 'way ahead of the other posters.
Thank you.
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