[Peace-discuss] Re: Obama on "War on Terror"

[C. G. Estabrook]

Comparisons between Vietnam and AfPak have come thick and fast since Obama's
(really Clinton's) Man on the Scene, Richard Holbrooke, said (in the journal
Foreign Policy last fall) that "Americans should be told the truth: [the war in
Afghanistan] will last a long time -- longer than the United States' longest war
to date, the 14-year conflict (1961-75) in Vietnam."

We should be careful of those comparisons. The situations are quite different.
For one thing, SW Asia (because of energy resources) is far more important to
the USG than SE Asia ever was -- and so far we've only killed in the former a
fraction of the number of people we killed in the latter. Our leaders think
there's a huge upside to the deaths we can cause.

Nevertheless the comparisons are instructive, if we get the history right.
E.g., remember that the SE Asia war was against SOUTH Vietnam -- we dropped
roughly three time the ordnance there that we did in the North (several times
what was used in all of WWII).  And why? Because the South Vietnamese didn't
have the good grace to accept the government that we'd picked out for them.

So we destroyed their country (and hence won the war, even if we didn't achieve
our maximum war aims).  This generation should take the lesson.  (E.g., Hamid
Karzai looks a lot like Ngo Dinh Diem to me; look him up if you're not as old as
I.)  --CGE


John W. wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 9:37 PM, Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu 
> <mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>> wrote:
> 
> The reports I've seen were recent. There could well have been a change… Or
> they may have overstated. --mkb
> 
> 
> Unfortunately Carl seems to be right on this one.  I just got done watching
> Bill Moyers.  Half of the show was devoted to a discussion of Obama's
> perspective on the "War on Terror"; the recent (continuation of) bombing of
> civilians in Pakistan by drones since he took office; a comparison of
> McNamara's advice to LBJ about "bombing the North Vietnamese into submission"
> with the current strategy in AfPak; the obvious historical fallacy/folly of
> trying to impose a military solution on a political problem; etc.  It's very
> discouraging.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 30, 2009, at 8:26 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
> Friday , September 05, 2008
> 
> O'REILLY: OK. Let's start with national security. Do you believe we're in the
> middle of a War on Terror?
> 
> OBAMA: Absolutely.
> 
> O'REILLY: Who's the enemy?
> 
> OBAMA: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on 
> attacking America, who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the 
> faith of Islam, and so we have to go after them.
> 
> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,417563,00.html
> 
> 
> 
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