[Peace-discuss] Vietnam and Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

 From <http://www.truthout.org/remembering-fascism-learning-from-past58724>:


...liberals applauded when [Ambassador Adlai] Stevenson said at the UN that we 
have to defend Vietnam from "internal aggression," from the "assault from 
within," as President Kennedy put it. Words that we hear again today, for 
example, last Sunday, in The New York Times, where we read that after the 
conquest of Marja in Helmand Province, the Marines have collided with a Taliban 
identity so dominant that the movement appears more akin to the only political 
organization in a one-party town, with an influence that touches everyone. 
"We've got to re-evaluate our definition of the word 'enemy,'" said Brig. Gen. 
Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand 
Province. "Most people here identify themselves as Taliban ... We have to 
readjust our thinking so we're not trying to chase the Taliban out of Marja, 
we're trying to chase the enemy out," he said.

A problem that has always bedeviled conquerors, very familiar to the US from 
Vietnam, where the leading US government scholar in a widely praised book 
lamented that the enemy within was the only "truly mass-based political party in 
South Vietnam" and any effort of ours to compete with it politically would be 
like a conflict between a minnow and a whale, so we had to overcome their 
political force by using our comparative advantage, violence - as we did. Others 
have faced similar problems: for example, the Russians in Afghanistan in the 
1980s, an invasion that also elicited the outrage that we muster up for the 
crimes of enemies. Middle East specialist William Polk reminds us that the 
Russians "won many military victories and through their civic action programs 
they actually won over many of the villages" - and in fact, as we know from 
reliable sources, created substantial freedom in Kabul, particularly for women. 
But, to go on with Polk, "over the decade of their involvement, the Russians won 
almost every battle and occupied at one time or another virtually every inch of 
the country, but they lost ... the war. When they gave up and left, the Afghans 
resumed their traditional way of life."

The dilemmas faced by Obama and McChrystal are not quite the same. The enemy 
whom the Marines are trying to chase out of their villages have virtually no 
outside support. The Russian invaders, in sharp contrast, were facing a 
resistance that received vital support from the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, 
who were rounding up the most extreme radical Islamic fundamentalists they could 
find - including those terrorizing women in Kabul - and were arming them with 
advanced weapons, while also carrying forward the program of radical 
Islamization of Pakistan, yet another one of Reagan's gifts to the world, along 
with Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The goal of these US operations was not to 
defend Afghanistan. It was explained frankly by the CIA station chief in 
Islamabad, who was running the operations. The goal was to "kill Soviet 
Soldiers." He boasted that he "loved" this "noble goal," making it very clear, 
in his words, that "the mission was not to liberate Afghanistan," which he 
didn't care about. You're familiar I'm sure with Zbigniew Brzezinski's somewhat 
similar boasts.

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.