It's time to admit it...Karzai is the Obama Administrations's Thieu

[Ken Burch]

Like the last South Vietnamese leader, Karzai has buffaloed the U.S. into killing to keep him in power even though the U.S. knows Karzai has no real support.

Like Thieu, Karzai is the candidate of the ruling kleptocracy.

Like Thieu, Karzai has never done and is never going to be capable of doing anything positive for the peoples of Afghanistan.

Like Thieu, Karzai is driving people to back a horrible alternative because it's the only alternative that the U.S. war machine allows them.

It's time to learn from this...admit Karzai is a dead loss...admit that we can do nothing positive at all for Afghanistan...and end the nightmare before it does to President Obama what Thieu did to Lyndon Johnson.

Learn from history, folks. End it now.

[pscot]

1. If we pull the American security forces protecting him

and leave him to the tender mercies of his Afghan guards, he'll be gone within 90 days. And we, like Pontius Pilate, will have clean hands.

[Ken Burch]

2. If Karzai was Jesus, you'd have a valid analogy.

I suppose we could put him on a plane to Zurich. Karzai has undoubtably taken everything in the Afghan national treasury.

The problem is, Karzai is yet ANOTHER example of the sort of leader we always seem to end up sending our troops in to defend.

like these guys:









He's no different from any of the above. And he's just as doomed to permanent unpopularity and uselessness as they were.

Why should we ever take that path again?

[AllentownJake]

4. Amazing how similar we are to Anciet Rome

Invading countries than putting puppet locals in charge.

[AllentownJake]

3. The more apt comparison is Herod if your going to go biblical

Karzai being Herod and America being Rome.

[Vidar]

5. Hell yes.

[Vattel]

6. Karzai is a disaster.

There is simply no solution in Afghanistan that doesn't involve effectively addressing political corruption, and Karzai is corrupt. The problem is partly the absence of unified opposition to Karzai; so not all the blame can be put on the U.S. I think Obama would have loved to have seen Karzai defeated by a strong opposition figure that would fight corruption.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. *yawn* Another Afghanistan=Vietnam OP

n/t

[Ken Burch]

8. Well, it's because it's true.

You can't honestly think that Afghanistan isn't Vietnam or that we serve any positive purpose by staying in there. The place is lost and we(unlike the Afghan people themselves)can never defeat the Taliban. Why not just admit it?

After all, every European power that's ever gone to war there has been driven out in humiliating defeat. It can't be any different for us.

[Vattel]

10. I think that if the government were better

then in principle we could serve a positive purpose by staying there. But I don't see much hope anymore. War is almost never a cost-effective way to make the world a better place, and I see no reason to think Afghanistan is one of the few exceptions.

[Ken Burch]

11. No war can save a failed state.

Why the hell didn't we learn that in 1975?

[Vattel]

12. I think with better leaders, Afghanistan would not be a failed state.

But I agree with you that as things stand, things look pretty grim.

[create.peace]

13. short 'poem' from a friend of mine about just that:

http://e-blast.squarespace.com/journal/2009/8/31/vol-2912.html

[Ken Burch]

14. That's almost a paraphrase of "The Slithergadee", by Shel Silverstein

"The Slithergadee has crawled out of the sea.
He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me.
No you won't catch me, old Slithergadee,
You may catch all the others, but you wo--- "

[create.peace]

17. well, i doubt it was what influenced ben, more likely the 'those who don't learn from history' meme.

the situation in pipelinestan nearly writes it's own poetry....

google him, he is a dear friend of mine, with a very interesting life.

ADRIFT in AFGHANISTAN

MORE TROOPS.

& so the British thought

before defeat.

MORE TROOPS.

& so the Soviets thought

before defeat.

MORE TROOPS ?

ben morea

[Ken Burch]

19. I guess I saw in both the issues of overconfidence and its consequences

And, to me, The Slithergadee was a wonderful dissection, whether it meant to be or not, of the "American Exceptionalism" mindset.

I meant the comparison as a compliment to your friends poem, btw.

[create.peace]

23. I thought you might ;-) - my sweet dad gave me 'uncle shelby's

ABZ book' http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/childrens/uncle-shelbys-abz-book when I was really too young! just like when my grandma took a friend and me to Dr. Strangelove, because it was a Peter Seller's movie! Uncle Shelby, Mad Magazine (allowed by my mom) and Soupy Sales, probably were together a great influence on my irreverent attitude.

Did you google him, btw?

[Ken Burch]

30. I checked for the accuracy ot the text of the poem, but I've know Silverstein's work for forty years

Ever since I was a kid.

[create.peace]

36. i meant ben! i could tell you knew silverstein's work. it's about 50 years for me! and my kids

of course had all his books that actually were for kids, and their parents. the giving tree was a favorite as an early readaloud book, then the others they read and nearly wore out!

[Ken Burch]

38. Er no, you meant Ken. Ben Burch hasn't posted in this thread.

And as far as I know, I'm not related to the guy.

[create.peace]

39. i meant ben morea! did you google him, the friend of mine who wrote the poem

which started this offtopic convo?

[Ken Burch]

42. Oh, sorry. I misunderstood.

I saw your words "Oh I meant ben" and thought for a moment you thought I was the other guy. Enough about that.

[lunatica]

9. What's wrong with that?

[polichick]

40. It's not boring for the people stuck in that hell. We have to get them out. nt

[TomCADem]

15. Vietnam Harbored Terrorists Who Launched An Attack On The U.S.?

Learn something new each day.

[Ken Burch]

16. The civilian population of Afghanistan, almost none of whom want us there,

are not responsible for the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. You can't be arguing that 9/11, which was almost a decade ago, justifies a relentless ground war in Afghanistan NOW.

[boppers]

18. Civilians are not responsible for their government?

Huh. I can see a few arguments, in a few directions, about that.

Interesting comparison, though....

How many Americans have been drafted so far?
What other nations are flooding in opposing support?
What are the differences in combat styles?
Are we doing cross-border missions to control the theater?
Does the conflict have clear geographic battle lines?

There are a lot of similarities, and a lot of differences. Certainly worth the time to think about, though, so thanks for the OP.

[Ken Burch]

20. When that government is a religious dictatorship, then no, civilians are NOT responsible for it

It's not as if the Taliban won a free election.

[boppers]

21. Saddam "won" a lot of "free" elections...

Chavez too, along with Castro, Kim Jong Il, Reagan, etc.

Like I said, it's good food for thought, especially when one has to consider what makes an election "free", and when the civilians of a nation are to be held responsible for those "elected".

[Ken Burch]

22. Chavez is a legitimate democratic leader. You can't compare him to Castro and Lil' Ol' Kim

That's a cheap shot and it's Republican propaganda.

[boppers]

24. I also compared Chavez to Reagan.

There's a reason for that: A compliant people being told that their lives are being made better because of their leader's policies tend to believe it, regardless of any longer-term considerations.

Both Chavez and Reagan were freely (?) re-elected in fairly large numbers, despite the fact that both were hell-bent on trashing the longer-term future of their peoples and their country in the name of their shorter-term ideologies.

[Ken Burch]

27. What are you saying Venezuelans should have done, elected the right wing exstremist Moralies?

That would have meant massive cuts in social benefits and the shut down of the community councils. It would have meant the poor would have lost everything. And for what? Your notion of democratic purity?

What you're basically saying is that Chavez has no RIGHT to be popular and that the people of Venezuela have no right to want what they want. Kindly tell me how that viewpoint isn't imperialist.

[boppers]

28. Binary thinking is stupid.

Thanks for the demonstration.

[Ken Burch]

31. There was only one opposition candidate in the Venezuelan elections

There was nobody who represented the progressive yet democratic purity you think you personally embody.

And you demonstrated binary thinking in arguing that Chavez essentially had no right to retain his popularity and be reelected. It's not your country down there and it's not your place to say who they have the right to support. And Chavez is not exactly the antichrist.

[boppers]

33. Like I said:

Thank you for the demonstration.

[Ken Burch]

34. You just admitted you have no valid response to what I said

If there'd been any other option for Venezuelans, you'd have mentioned it.

They only had a binary choice.

I didn't "demonstrate" anything that proved you were right.

[Ken Burch]

43. note: That should have been Rosales, not Morales

Morales was the coup victim in Honduras.

[TomCADem]

25. I Don't Understand, I Thought Your Point Was That Vietnam Was A Terrorist Hotbed

Just like Afganistan and Iraq. Did I misunderstand the point of your comparison?

[Ken Burch]

29. Vietnam didn't need to be a terrorist hotbed for my comparison with Afghanistan to hold

The point is, the situation is hopeless and American force, as in Vietnam, can do nothing to change that. You know that is true.

This war will destroy President Obama if he escalates it, which is what he is proposing to do.

There can never BE a justified use of American force in the Arab or Islamic countries, since no one in those countries will ever accept either the governments we are trying to impose nor the presence of our troops. Just as was the case in Vietnam. Got that?

[TomCADem]

45. So, Ho Chi Minh Was Or Was Not A Terrorist Like Osama Bin Ladin?

Isn't that the point of your comparison? I can see the parallel and your argument that Ho Chi Minh was as great a threat to U.S. security as Osama bin Ladin, and was responsible for attacks on U.S. interests, thus the U.S. invaded Vietnam. It would help if you list the commonalities between Vietnam and Afganistan in a chart with each historical similarity noted. I think such a chart would be devastating.

[Ken Burch]

46. Didn't LBJ once claim that if we pulled the troops out, the VC would be in Kansas City in a week?

(Of course, he could've just meant they'd drop by Arthur Bryant's for some ribs, but still...)

[TomCADem]

48. Exactly! Ho Chi Minh = Osama bin Ladin and Maybe Even RWingers Will Agree

The right wing was making the argument you noted, so why not just roll with it, and argue that Osama bin Ladin and Ho Chi Minh represent the same threat to U.S. security? You might then even get the Fox News types to embrace your comparison.

[David Zephyr]

26. He's a former Unocal employee. He's actually Bush's Thieu, but your OP is

As an old anti-Vietnam organizer, I can tell you that your points are spot on and the analogy is solid.

[Ken Burch]

32. Thanks for the support. It means a lot coming from someone like you.

With your historical experience, don't you find it scary that a lot of people who think of themselves as Obama loyalists on this board sound like they'd have voted for the Johnson war plank if they'd been convention delegates in Chicago in '68?

[Sebastian Doyle]

35. Hell, some of them would have been outside

..cheering on Daley's fascist thugs as they beat the shit out of people. :evilfrown:

[David Zephyr]

37. Hi Ken. Actually, your analogy is a good one.

And it's one that had escaped me. And on the subject of LBJ and Viet Nam and Obama, here's a little poem in hopes that Obama might do the right thing. I hope you like it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8630587. :hi:

[leftofthedial]

41. We have no reason to be in Afghanistan.

Let Unocal provide their own pipeline security.

[IndianaGreen]

44. No, Karzai is Obama's Diem

Don't get them confused.

[Ken Burch]

47. Well, like Diem, Karzai is all about the costumes

(btw, who's picture is in your icon NOW?)