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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Obama's Afghanistan dilemma fuels comparisons with Johnson and Vietnam in '64 [ and on Stage Right, cue "conscription" or in Obumski Speak "National Volunteer Service" ?] WASHINGTON — It's a decision that is clearly the most difficult of Barack Obama's young presidency - whether to heed the pleas of top military officials to send more troops to Afghanistan in a conflict some fear could become his Vietnam. The president's dilemma has drawn parallels to Lyndon Johnson's deliberations about Vietnam 45 years ago as Obama grows noticeably thinner and confesses to skipping meals as he ponders the risks of escalating the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Like Johnson, Obama came to power with an ambitious domestic agenda as a controversial war raged overseas. His presidency hasn't yet been hijacked by an enormous U.S. casualty rate in a faraway land against a stealthy enemy, but his closest advisers worry that it could be. "The lesson of Vietnam surely is how can you get a nation engaged in it? It seems hard to imagine that Afghanistan is ever going to be a popular war," said Stephen Hess, who worked for Richard Nixon as the Republican president dealt with "Johnson's war" after his 1968 election. "The public is already against it, and if you're bucking that, you have to be sure that you're awfully determined. You can't have any reservations. You have to be incredibly thick-skinned to be willing to send U.S. troops to their possible deaths, so we're going to learn a lot about him both as a man and as a president throughout this process." In a book on Johnson, "Flawed Giant," the Texan president confides in an aide about his own time spent agonizing over whether to send U.S. ground troops to Vietnam and escalate the conflict started by his late predecessor, John F. Kennedy. "The more I stayed awake last night thinking about this thing, the more a it looks like to me we're getting in to another Korea," the book's author, Robert Dallek, quotes Johnson as saying in May of 1964. "And I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out." Of course, Johnson ended up sending combat units, and the conflict defined the following four years of his presidency. Almost 60,000 U.S. soldiers died in a war that still stands out as a searingly painful chapter in American history. Obama is not blind to the similarities, nor are his closest confidantes. His vice-president, Joe Biden, and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, are reportedly opposed to a troop buildup, at odds with the top military commanders pushing the president for more soldiers. As Obama mulls over the correct course, he's reportedly ordered his closest advisers to look back in history - particularly the war in Vietnam. Historian Gordon Goldstein's book on the conflict, "Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam," is on the president's required reading list. The book chronicles how Bundy, one of the key architects of Vietnam, came to regret America's involvement in the conflict. Obama is clearly keen to avoid Johnson's fate, but he's also reportedly pointed out to those in his inner circle some crucial differences between the two conflicts: chiefly, that the Vietnamese communists wanted to unite their country, while al Qaida's primary aim is America's destruction. North Korea, as well, served little strategic purpose to the United States except as a chess piece in its Cold War maneuverings. "Our quest in Afghanistan, on the other hand, is entwined with the interests of our ally, Pakistan, a nuclear nation and a crucial security interest of the United States," Goldstein wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday. And yet, there are striking similarities, Goldstein added. In 1961, Goldstein wrote, Maj. Gen. Edward Lansdale reported to Kennedy that "Vietnam is in critical condition . . . requiring emergency treatment." Lansdale warned the president that without drastic action, the government would be overthrown in in months. Kennedy dismissed the assessment. Incidentally, Lansdale later became the subject of a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory when the longtime CIA operative was allegedly spotted at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on the day Kennedy was slain. Like Lansdale, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has also predicted that without more troops and resources, the war in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure" within a year, Goldstein pointed out. "Although Vietnam and Afghanistan are disparate wars separated by decades and different national interests, the core questions the commander-in-chief must resolve remain remarkably similar," Goldstein wrote. Hess points out the unenviable positions both Nixon and Obama were placed in as reluctant wartime presidents. "Once you're in them, these are exceedingly difficult wars to get out of, and ego tends to get involved," said Hess, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "Nixon campaigned on his intention to get out of Vietnam, but he also didn't want to be known as the first president to lose a war. You can be sure those sorts of thoughts are also occurring right now to people in the White House." And yet Obama would apparently have the support of many Americans if he opted against sending more troops to Afghanistan. A new Gallup poll suggests 51 per cent of Americans oppose sending new troops, including 44 per cent who said it's time to start winding down the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Earlier this week, Obama rejected the options that his so-called war council presented to him and has asked for revisions over the next few weeks. The news comes in the wake of a warning by the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, a former commander in the country. Eikenberry urged Obama against a buildup until the country's president, Hamid Karzai, proves he's serious about tackling the government corruption that has fuelled the rise of the Taliban. More U.S. troops, Eikenberry has cautioned Obama, will simply serve to prop up a weak and corruption-plagued government. Karzai reportedly contacted the ambassador's office on Thursday in response to his warning. At the war council meeting, Obama also reportedly wanted an exit strategy - a road map detailing how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. He's considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government's inadequate and ill-equipped fighting forces to prepare to take over.
Poster Comment: Warning, warning to any parents with draft age males! Is the other Obumski "servitude for the bourgoisie" shoe poised to drop? National Volunteer Service coming Americans' way to fight Obama's War in Afghanistan? ...Robert Dallek, quotes Johnson as saying in May of 1964. "And I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out." Of course, Johnson ended up sending combat units, and the conflict defined the following four years of his presidency. Almost 60,000 U.S. soldiers died in a war that still stands out as a searingly painful chapter in American history. Obama is not blind to the similarities, nor are his closest confidantes....
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#1. To: randge, IndieTX, ghostdogtxn, christine, Jethro Tull, All (#0)
Obumski is spending $ on stateside entitlements like a drunken sailor. Obumski simply cannot afford sending 40,000 more troops [ or mercenaries, take your pick] to a war theater or even a smaller 20,000 contingent. The economy has him on the ropes, but he refuses to cut back on butter[entitlements] or guns[wars, US foreign bases]. As we know based on events in recent history, conscription is "cheap", in the eyes of Dem Presidents. Be vigilante about the welfare of your kiddies and grandchildren. Obumski's highly vaunted Greater Good National Volunteer Service may rear its ugly head in the New Year. From another news source: www.guardian.co.uk/commen...fghanistan-obama-strategy ...As one key advisor – former CIA officer Bruce Riedel – reportedly told the president earlier this year, each US soldier in Afghanistan carries a $250,000 yearly price tag...
It's all eerily familiar to me - all this hot talk about the war. Back then it was the war on communism, the fake Tonkin Gulf incident, the futility of supporting a largely corrupt ally and hammering a foe from the air and thus creating even more enemies. And there were the atrocities and the tiger cages. There were even fanatics who brought the war home with bombings and other terror events. All of these phenomena have their analogues today. I was just a young punk back then, but I could read a damned newspaper and sometimes it seems like yesterday. What I remember most is how most Americans sleepwalked through the war and seemed to spend whatever energy they had left over in rationalizing what we were doing in SE Asia in way that allowed them to believe that this was still a reasonable nation, a country embarked on a violent but necessary exercise of power. They repeated the mantras supplied them by their betters over and over when confronted with ugly news and ugly facts so that they could sleep at night. The more things change . . . Hell, I have a rapidly dwindling store of sympathy for my fellow citizens. They walked right into this one, and they will all come to regret it the way we came to rue the last big crusade. They should have had the benefit of hindsight, but they can see neither what is behind them nor what is in front of them. God help us.
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