Fascinating op-ed on Afghanistan vs Vietnam

[karynnj]

The must interesting part is an account by a man, who was in Vietnam from the 1950s to the early 1960s with the CIA (who went to Yale). He just spent several weeks in Aghanistan where he celebrated his 80th birthday. He recently wrote a book called "Why Vietnam matters"

An email of his on Afghanistan is quoted:

"I’m afraid the President, who seems like a supremely rational being, is trying to find the most rational policy option on Afghanistan, without thinking about whether it is feasible given political conditions on the ground, as well as who is going to implement it and how. What seems the most rational option here could be likely unworkable over there.

<snip>


My Afghan friends tell me as soon as he is confirmed, Karzai is going to launch a big initiative on talks with the Taliban, which are not likely to go anywhere if he leads them. Are we thinking that if we cede territory to the Taliban because they promise not to let Al Qaeda back, we will be able to hold an imaginary line, including Kabul, with the Afghan and international forces we will have? What will that tell the Afghan people, except to signal ultimate abandonment? And how will that affect their support for the Taliban to avoid being killed or severely punished?

I just have an uneasy feeling that this is too similar to the policy discussions Johnson went through, except those were mainly out of public view and these are not. The whole notion that we can speed up the training of the Afghan armed forces and this will do the job is unrealistic — another numbers game. I guess not being in the meetings puncturing balloons is what is really frustrating me. That and the fact that nobody seems to factor in our moral obligation to the Afghan people. We abandoned them twice. Will this be the third time? What does that say about us? It seems more convenient to equate Karzai with the Afghan people. Maybe it will all come out for the best — but the process, and what I see from the outside being discussed so far, doesn’t pass my gut check.

The outcome of the Afghan struggle is ultimately going to be determined not by our unilateral actions or geopolitical moves, but by whom the Afghan people wind up supporting, even reluctantly. Vietnam — Lesson One.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/the-vietnam-war-guide-to-afghanistan/

The scariest part is that our general are mostly reading a book that claims we had "won" Vietnam by 1970, but lost when Congress cut funding in 1974 to the South Vietnamese. Reading Philip's email made me glad that John Kerry has Obama's ear and makes me undertand why he is going to Afghanistan. (It also makes me wish that he were in those meetings.) The last paragraph sounds exactly what Kerry has said of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.