Afghanistan a New Vietnam?

Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks in America, the United States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 43 told the American people that the US strikes were "... designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime ... As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan ..."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan." This approach was taken in order to placate the anti-Iraq war contingent of the American electorate on the left while not leaving candidate Obama vulnerable to the "soft on defense" hawkish argument from the right. As a campaign tactic, this proved to be successful. As American foreign policy, this is proving to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama has made. Could Afghanistan become President Obama's Vietnam?

President Obama has taken ownership of this war and now calls this a "war of necessity" that is fundamental to the "defense of our people." In order to convince the American people that more troops are necessary to achieve the desired result, the president says as President Bush 43 said, the mission is to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies".

What may really be at play here is an attempt to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, thereby providing stability in the region that in the long run could provide stability for its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan. A destabilized Afghanistan that leads to an unstable nuclear Pakistan could have grave results in India and other countries as well. Attacking "al-Qaeda and its extremist allies" is an easier sell to the American people than nation building and the longer term geopolitical strategy of establishing stability in Central Asia.

The problem with this logic or plan is that it does not appear to be working. The increase of American and coalition forces seems to be inciting resistance in many areas of this region, not quelling it. Many Afghan's view the American and coalition forces as invaders and are compelled on a tribal and nationalist level to resist. A combination of organized resistance by Taliban forces coupled with a growing nationalist/tribal resistance will only make defeating the opposition more difficult.

According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, the situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan, "... is serious and it is deteriorating ... the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, and more sophisticated, in their tactics ..." To this end, August has been the deadliest month to date for American troops, with 51 dead. According to the Defense Department, 800 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The top American commander in the region, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, continues to work on a major war strategy review and has yet to request additional troops above those already added by President Obama. There is speculation that thousands more troops will soon be added. Since taking office, President Obama has sent an additional 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan for a total of 68,000 in country, well below what the commanders need to "win in Afghanistan."

So far, because so many Americans have been focused on the economy, health care, and other domestic issues, Afghanistan has not been the focal point of their interest. This is slowly beginning to change as more conservatives and progressives alike are beginning to compare the military escalation in Afghanistan with the failure in Vietnam.

The similarities between Afghanistan and Vietnam may be more perceived than real, but the hearts and minds of the people can prove to be more powerful than military realities. Col. Henry Summers, a military historian, once said to a Vietnamese counterpart, "You never defeated the US in the field." To which the counterpart replied, "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."

In his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence", Dr. King called the Vietnam War an "enemy of the poor." It drained precious financial and human capital away from important poverty and other social programs. In this time of catastrophic global economic recession, the Obama administration has requested $65 billion to fight the war in Afghanistan in the FY 2010 budget. Total annual spending in Afghanistan will soon eclipse that of Iraq, draining precious financial and human capital away from unemployment, education, and other social programs needed today.

As with the Vietnam government of President Diem, the Afghan government of President Karzai is viewed by many of its own citizens as corrupt. By his own admission, President Karzai has said, "The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen." Providing foreign aid to a country where the resources are stolen and mismanaged is becoming more difficult to justify....