Kerry warns on Vietnam parallels

[Forkboy]

Senator John F. Kerry, who came to national prominence when he testified before Congress as a Vietnam war hero turned antiwar activist, is now warning against those who are pushing for a troop buildup in Afghanistan by asserting that more forces could have turned the tide in Vietnam.

“Let me be clear: More than 58,000 American troops died because they were sent into battle based on false assumptions, flawed goals, and faulty strategies. Yes, we adopted smarter tactics near the end, but by then the die was cast,’’ Kerry, who is now chairman of the same committee he addressed in 1971, writes in the Nov. 16 issue of Newsweek magazine.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who is among those cautioning President Obama against sending the full force of 40,000 additional US troops sought by the top commander in Afghanistan, says while there are some similarities with Vietnam, it is dangerous to draw too many parallels with Afghanistan, a “very different country . . . in a different era.’’

“The main lesson that Obama must absorb from Vietnam is the necessity to explain our goals in Afghanistan, and to choose clear and realistic strategies to meet them,’’ Kerry adds.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/11/11/kerry_warns_on_vietnam_parallels/

This story is from yesterday, before the story that Obama was rejecting any current war options, but until we know for sure what Obama plans to do I feel it's still relevant.

[karynnj]

1. If you look at the issue of Newsweek, the cover story is that theVietnam War could have been won

Here is the cover:


The revisionist history, that we could have won, is the lead cover story. This is in spite of things like MacNamara's effort in the 1990s to unambiguously speak the truth he failed to speak for decades.

Kerry's willingness to speak the truth on Vietnam here is incredibly important. The revisionists are implicitly denying that the US did not have the power to "win" a civil war for a side that did not have the support of the country. It is scary that what had been a minority view in the 1970s and 1980s, is threatening to become a majority view. A NYT oped spoke of the books that the military and the administration were reading on Vietnam. The one the military was reading had as a belief that we had won by the late 1960s, but lost when we stopped funding Vietnam in the 1970s. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

One difference Senator Kerry sees in the two situations seem to be that there was a national security reason to start a war here, that did not exist in Vietnam. It is interesting that, unlike in either war with Iraq, he has never spoken of the possibility of either more diplomacy with the Taliban or whether something short of war could have worked. This was a war that seems to have passed the test of last resort. That he brings this up 9 years later, has to mean that he believes that the danger would return with a full scale return to power of the Tabiban.

The other difference that the Viet Cong had popular support and the Taliban has little suggests a "good enough" government could gain the support of people. In the SFRC hearings, many experts spoke of the Taliban being hated and there seems very good reason to hate them as they were very oppressive. But, a skeptical part of me, knows that the witnesses to the committee were not randomly selected and in the 1960s, there would have been many Saigon area Vietnamese (especially the Catholics) who honestly would have answered in the same way about the Viet Cong.

No two situations are ever exactly comparable, but I can't help but wonder whether the observed popular support of the Viet Cong was not at least partly based on nationalism where the VC was seen as the force fighting an outside power occupying their country. In addition, it was also the strongest force opposing a very corrupt government in power. Kerry has in the past spoken of having only a small window to get things right. The real question is whether Kerry was right then and the opportunity was lost years ago. Can Karzai change and if he can, are Afghans still able to change their opinion on his government or are they too deeply formed?

Clearly, Kerry has not reached the point that MacNamara did on Vietnam that it could not be won - but compared to most of DC, he appears to be getting close to that. I completely trust his honesty, but I wonder if his innate optimism, that is reinforced by the same optimism from many people, who spoke at the SFRC and who are doing good work in Afghanstan, might keep him from reaching the conclusion that many others could make from his excellent analysis. It may be that long term, no one can win a civil war for a corrupt government. Kerry has said that there is no military solution that can win by itself. It may be the next step is that Kerry has to look deeper at the social/government side and make an analysis that is as clear eyed as his 1971 analysis on Vietnam as to whether Karzai and the people around him really have the desire or ability to raise above the level of corruption they have and provide good governance. (This might be much harder (and I assume 1971 was tough) for Kerry because of his deep belief in being able to help countries by helping their governments make life better for them.)

[Overseas]

2. K&R /eom