After eleven days in office, Newsweek puts Obama in Vietnam

[BigBearJohn]

That's the year then-President Lyndon Johnson officially expanded America's involvement in Vietnam, expanding the number of US troops from 3,500 in March to 200,000 by December.

Newsweek invites the comparison with a bold cover, titled, "OBAMA'S VIETNAM," going to press less than two weeks after Obama takes office. Johnson, like Obama, inherited a troubled US conflict from his predecessor.

"A wave of reports, official and unofficial, from American and foreign (including Afghan) diplomats and soldiers, present and former, all seem to agree: the situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse," the magazine's Evan Thomas and John Barry write, in a news story that accompanies an opinion piece by Fahreed Zakaria. "Some four decades ago, American presidents became accustomed to hearing gloomy reports like that from Vietnam, although the public pronouncements were usually rosier. John F. Kennedy worried to his dying day about getting stuck in a land war in Asia; LBJ was haunted by nightmares about "Uncle Ho." In the military, now as then, there are a growing number of doubters. But the default switch for senior officers in the U.S. military is "can do, sir!" and that seems to be the light blinking now. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, when in doubt, escalate. There are now about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration appear to agree that the number should be twice that a year or so from now."

Johnson escalated the Vietnam conflict after a purported attack on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. A declassified NSA intercept, however, revealed that there was no attack at all. In the following year, America's involvement soared.

http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=14140

[anonymous171]

1. Bush: 6 years Obama: 2 weeks.

And the press wonders why circulation is down.

[Radical Activist]

2. you know

I have the same concerns about this escalation. But the double standard by the press still pisses me off royally.

[Selatius]

3. Regardless of what Newscrap prints, I do fear that Afghanistan may indeed be unwinnable.

Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of superpowers. The British Empire was twice driven out of the area by homegrown resistance, and the armies of the Czars never ventured deep into the Afghani mountains. Later, the Soviet Union was worn down in those mountains fighting the Mujahadeen.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Afghanistan is unwinnable, when you try to conquer them.

I think a different strategy will be applied there now.

[Selatius]

6. The problem is you cannot hold Afghanistan unless you make nice with the local warlords.

Hamid Karzai has little practical power outside Kabul. In the countryside, the local warlords who run their little fiefdoms have more influence. Most of Afghanistan is divided up into these fiefdoms, which are patrolled by militia groups owned by those warlords. That leaves us with very unattractive options as far as allies go.

In the 1980s, the CIA buddied up with some very unsavory elements inside Afghanistan in a bid to give the USSR its own version of Viet Nam. The only problem is some of these elements we trained to be more effective killers turned against us on 9/11. I don't think Obama is going to make the same mistake, but at the same time, he should also avoid illusions that we can solve the Afghanistan situation by crushing every warlord who doesn't believe in the idea of democracy in a region of the world where democracy is an alien idea.

[anonymous171]

7. Yes. I don't think Obama is going to try and "conquer" them.

He might try to install some kind of government, which would probably fail. The main goal should be finding and eliminating any remaining Al-Qaeda threat in the region.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. I think Al-Qaeda is the "Keyser Soze" of "terrorism."

Obama said he would go into Afghanistan to go after the people behind 9/11, right? I don't think he said anything about "Al-Qaeda."

I think I'm remembering that correctly.

Nonetheless, I don't recall him saying he was going to conquer them or turn them into a democracy.

[Chulanowa]

9. There's no question about that

Military action in Afghanistan will fail. Military action in Afghanistan has ALWAYS failed. It also doesn't help that the enemy we're looking at is way too small to warrant a military endeavor. Yes, the Taliban and Osama's leftover mujahedin are nasty guys. But there's what, 500 of them, max? Sorry, you don't use the .50 Cal to kill a cockroach, and you don't use the US military to smack around cultists.

The only way to beat the Taliban is to fight them on their own battlefield - ideology, politics, and economy.

Want to stop the opium funding? Free seed and open markets to farmers - buy the food from them, and then use American transport to carry it to other portions of the country to feed the needy.

Encourage public works to rebuild what the Russians destroyed, the Taliban ignored, and the Americans pulverized.

Try to unite the clans and tribes into a national framework - a Federate of Semi-autonomous states, after the current Russian model, rather than making another strongman state named 'Stan.

Obama's America needs to be a friend, not a stern and abusive father.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Gain their trust and trust that they know what's best for them.

Help them when you can and stop killing poverty-stricken farmers.

A New American Policy.

[Chulanowa]

12. Well, I hate to sound paternalist...

But there are certain aspects of society where htye don't actually know what's best for them.

We shouldn't force our ideas for what's better on them, of course. But we should provide it as a well-argued option.

Sorry, there's just no way that a feudal theocracy that bars half the population from an education in more than spreading legs can be considered "in their best interests". I wouldn't shoot at 'em to amend their ways, but I'd definately present viable alternatives!

[ColbertWatcher]

13. "a well-argued option." Yes, that's what I meant.

And, you said it so well, I'm going to steal it from now on!

Thank you!

[MagickMuffin]

5. Well if Evan Thomas says it then it MUST be true

:eyes:



The same Evan Thomas who said in 2006

reporting in Newsweek that “most intelligence experts” say torture is ineffective:

In recent interviews with NEWSWEEK reporters, U.S. intelligence officers say they have little—if any—evidence that useful intelligence has been obtained using techniques generally understood to be torture.

But just this month stated: In Newsweek’s cover story this week, Evan Thomas and Stuart Taylor, Jr., argue that President-elect Barack Obama should embrace Vice President Dick Cheney’s movement for the expansion of executive power. They conclude that Cheney’s work, especially with respect to torture, may be a necessary evil:

The issue of torture is more complicated than it seems. America brought untold shame on itself with the abuses at Abu Ghraib. It’s likely that the take-the-gloves-off attitude of Cheney and his allies filtered down through the ranks, until untrained prison guards with sadistic tendencies were making sport with electric shock. But no direct link has been reported. ....It is a liberal shibboleth that torture doesn’t work—that suspects will say anything, including lies, to stop the pain. But the reality is perhaps less clear.

Evan Thomas is a Right Wing Shill/Toadie.

[EFerrari]

10. I know most of you won't like this, but I'd rather have the flag go up now

and not in five years or even in one year. Yeah, the whore media is pulling the usual but, even so.