Helen Thomas: Afghanistan Now is Obama's War

[tekisui]

Source: SF Gate

I had an historical flashback recently when I read a Washington Post news story about how the U.S. commander in Afghanistan thinks he may need many thousands more troops to win the war.

Shades of Vietnam. Do we ever learn?

It brought back memories of the late Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Southeast Asia, who kept escalating the troop numbers after the 1967 Tet offensive in Vietnam. His strategy produced a debacle for us.

When the besieged Westmoreland asked for 240,000 more troops, President Lyndon B. Johnson was shocked. The command in Vietnam had been giving him rosy reports about U.S. military progress that he wanted to believe.

Johnson had been preparing to run for reelection in 1968. But after the devastating Westmoreland request, Johnson threw in the towel and made the electrifying announcement that he would not seek another term.

Fast forward to Afghanistan, 2009.

Seven years into the war there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is in the middle of a 60-day assessment of the war, due next month. But the Washington Post article says he has been giving Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates weekly updates about the need to bolster the size of the Afghan army and police force and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. trainers and advisers.

The present Pentagon plan calls for about 68,000 U.S. troops to be in Afghanistan by late this year.

Afghanistan, which once harbored Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda training camps, has been on Obama's agenda since his presidential campaign. Now it's his war -- big time -- even as it takes on the appearance of another quagmire for U.S. forces in their effort to quell the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=43676#ixzz0LMeA1rOl&C

[elehhhhna]

1. well...yeah.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[maxsolomon]

3. can we get through the summer before we start the hand wringing?

in the campaign, obama said this was where the effort should have been made all along.

keeping a medieval, misogynist death cult from controlling afganistan still seems like a sensible goal.

[tekisui]

8. We haven't benefited the women, children of men of Afghanistan by

being there. Even where the Taliban has been removed, the police and the tribal warlords who replace them are no better. Added to that the people live in a state of war.

It is time to get out of Afghanistan.

[maxsolomon]

29. you really think the warlords are 'no better' than the taliban?

kids couldn't fly KITES under the taliban. the bamiyan buddha statues lasted 1500 years UNTIL the taliban. MUSIC was banned.

certainly, afganistan is a misogynist culture, but prior to the taliban, women had the ability to work to support their families, to leave the house, to go to school. under the taliban they did not.

[OllieLotte]

10. This is a tough one, with a nuclear Pakistan next door.

I think it's worth a shot though. The surge worked pretty well in Iraq. This seems to be a similar strategy. I'd say the real encouraging news is that the Pakistan Army has been actively working on going after the Taliban next door. That gives them fewer places to hide. How long should we give it? I have no idea.

[kiva]

12. NO! Because by fall it will be

"But it's too early to tell if the ? thousand more troops are making a difference."

In January, "He's only been in office for a year, give his strategy time to work."

By summer, the midterm election campaigns will be kicking off, and "We can't give the Republicans any fodder by saying we're losing, we must wait until the election!"

Yeh, some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh,

-John Fogerty, 1969

[crickets]

15. +1 -nt

[maxsolomon]

31. i see your point, however

controlling the opium producing region through the harvest is a specific goal with a finite end. the poppies are harvested, the smugglers take the product out through taliban territory. if we intercede INTELLIGENTLY, will they taliban be able to tax the opium production and use it to re-arm and re-supply?

if not, if a key component ($) of their ability to fight is removed, what is the effect? would baitullah meshud negotiate? would mullah omar? will our improved intelligence in pakistan allow us to kill one or both so that the point is moot?

the russians fought against the mujaheddin, trained by US, equipped by US, supplied by US, and funded by US. if the ISI quit looking the other way (or actively supporting), there is no equivalent support network the taliban have.

what would a concerted, multi-national, multi-front effort to secure & re-build afganistan look like? it sure as fuck wouldn't look like the last 8 years of half-hearted, half-assed effort. bush et al conducted a massively incompetent fight in afganistan because he wanted iraq's oil.

the taliban aren't supermen.

[DebbieCDC]

4. K&R

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it

[MellowDem]

5. Wasn't everyone saying the same thing about Iraq...

Just another Vietnam, blah blah blah? Helen Thomas is pretty shortsighted if that's the case. Each conflict is very unique, she should know that by now.

[tekisui]

9. Damn, I must have missed when we got out of Iraq.

It doesn't have to be as bad as Vietnam to be wrong.

[MellowDem]

21. Well, few public figures are complaining anymore about it...

After all, why is Helen Thomas only talking about Afghanistan and not Iraq? It shows the point of view that Iraq has been "won", that we finally can go home.

If she wants to point out Afghanistan is morally wrong, comparing it to Vietnam is probably not the best strategy. After all, 9/11 is a much more compelling case for war than the Gulf of Tonkin was. If she just thinks the war is strategically wrong, again, Vietnam is a bad example to compare it to.

[tekisui]

22. Iraq is no more won than Afghanistan.

The public has sufficiently soured on Iraq to the point that steps are finally being made to get out. We aren't out, and over 100 US soldiers have died there in 2009. We will still be operating a city-embassy. Troops and contractors will remain for years to come. But, it has been swept under the rug, not won.

Afghanistan needs the same scrutiny, same attention. It is a quagmire, just as Iraq is. Until we are out, we are at war in these two countries. There is no win, only an exit. Now is time for an exit from each.

[MellowDem]

23. That's what the "quotation marks" were for...

And the public perception is that the surge "worked" and we have sufficiently met our goals for victory so we can go home now. The exit from Afghanistan will only come after something similar to what happened in Iraq. A "surge" followed by a reduction in violence so that we can claim "victory".

I do believe the war in Afghanistan is widely seen by Americans as more just though, so maybe their patience for it will be greater too. In all honesty, Afghanistan is head and shoulders above Iraq in terms of the justification for war and the necessity of the war, though still not enough for many.

[Auggie]

6. Afghanistan is our war. We need to get the hell out of there.

It's un-winnable. Doesn't anyone learn from history?

[sam sarrha]

7. we should get the hell out of there. Bu$h43 totally Fuck'd everything up there,corrupted everything

[polmaven]

13. Yeah,

so - now that we screwed everything up we should just get the hell out and leave the mess for the wimmins there to do what they are supposed to do....clean up other peoples messes!

[kiva]

17. Or we could stay and make even more of a mess.

I don't see any indication that our presence (much less even more troops) is going to fix Afghanistan; I do, however, see more Afghans and U.S. and alliance troops dying.

[sam sarrha]

19. it's tragic.. but we will make it worse if we stay, Pakistan is going to fall into 3 partitioned

2 will be Talaban.. the third probably wont last long. they will organize and over run our troops and kill all who wont accept islam. that is how islam spread in the Beginning, i am sure they are already sharpening their swords for the big event... Obama will be a Praia, the GOP Cult will take over and we will wish they were the Talaban.

no good can come from staying there. we cant supply Afganistan.. we cant do it by air and they can easly control the roads.. remember they bankrupted AND DESTROYED the USSR,

[tekisui]

20. We aren't helping the women or anyone else in Afghanistan, for

that matter. The largest beneficiaries of our occupation are the private contractors and the extremists who have an easy recruitment tool. US.

[Mari333]

11. yes it is, Helen, yes it is. knr

[G_j]

14. and all of us who voting for him

like it or not....

[earth mom]

16. Go Helen! Speak the truth! The wars in the Middle East are GENOCIDE!!! nt

[tekisui]

18. The buck now stops with Obama.

The buck now stops with Obama, who is making a big deal about how he doesn't want to look back at past mistakes. He could end up repeating those mistakes.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=43676#ixzz0LMpCSJMO&C

[kiva]

24. Kick n/t

[Lagomorph]

25. You can't "win" a foreign war.

The days of colonialism are over.

All you can do is go into a country and put an end to something more horrible than it would be if you didn't.

The catch is, "horrible for who?" Or, "more horrible than what?"

Either way, when we do, we come out with innocent blood on our hands, we're a lot poorer and there are decades of infighting in the years after.

The idea that we pacify areas that are more peaceful than some of our own cities is startling.

I can understand where people object.

[chill_wind]

26. And here is what it is costing.

Cost of War.

http://www.costofwar.com/

See the Trade-Offs

to your community, your state, this nation.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

[timeforpeace]

27. I missed Obama's promise to increase the war effort in Afghanistan and bomb Pakistan. I actually had

the notion that he would end the wars, not enlarge them. I thought McCain would be the warmonger.

[chill_wind]

28. I didn't. But we should know at what price this comes.

If elected, Obama says, he would immediately withdraw thousands of ground troops from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan to help undermanned US forces defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

"It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan," Obama said in a speech last week. "It is time to go after the Al Qaeda leadership where it actually exists."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/06/obama_mccain_split_over_afghan_strategy/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Oh, well. That Helen Thomas is nuthin' but a loudmouth leftist troublemaker.

As are all the other people who don't support our glorious efforts to "spread democracy", "protect America", "catch Osama Bin Laden", "save the women of Afghanistan" and all the other PR reasons for killing.

[mdmc]

32. USA! USA!

Kick their ass, take their gas!

[dysfunctional press]

33. the soviets couldn't win there- and it was on their border...

we have to take all our troops and equipment halfway around the world.
it's a no-win situation for us, and we should learn that lesson from ALL the countries that have fought there and eventually left unvictorious.