Reply #8: Wonderful and very insightful analysis Karynnj!

[TayTay]

Lots to chew on in this. The revisionists have been fighting over Vietnam ever since 1975. They see the loss in that misbegotten war as a political event, not a military one, and blame people like Kerry and others for the loss of the political will of the American people. (McCain held this view, though he moderated his view of certain people like Kerry. The idea that the war was betrayed on the civilian and political side has fueled the neocon side ever since. I think it's why Colin Powell, among others, was so uncomfortable with the neocons and they with him.)

The neocon view has not gone away, it has changed semantics. It still sees a grand and noble cause in trying to remake countries with overwhelming force. They believe the very negative side of American exceptionalism that says since America is so special in world history we can make our own moral rules in terms of how we treat other countries. The Bush Doctrine, as it were, called for preemptive war and basically justified the means by the ends desired. The neocons had a dangerous utopian vision of remaking the world in America's image. Anyone who didn't agree was violating their view of the special rights of America and doubting the national myth that anything "we" did was inherently right because "we" were doing it and we were the exceptional country, acting when no other country could. (The amount of hubris in this is just, ah, stunning. That this argument has merely changed clothes and is now flying under another banner is also, ah, stunning.)

Sen. Kerry is, in a way, reminding us again that this neocon idea is a version of the Emperor's New Clothes, an idea unclothed in logic or reality. There is no grand plan that can succeed in Afghanistan without the willing acceptance of the Afghan people. We have to be realists about that. It didn't work in Vietnam, the proxy game failed. The Vietnamese didn't buy the grand plan that Vietnam was a mere proxy in the cold war. The Afghanis also believe a war in Afghanistan is about, well, them. Ah, well, it is, isn't it?

Again, I love the good Senator's logic. His point is so important. Which side will Obama listen to, those who say that "we" can win a "long war" without the people of Afghanistan or those who say that we can only assist Afghanistan in overcoming it's own problems and be international police in helping to curb terrorism and prevent Al Qaeda from getting a comfy spot to settle into in that area.