Exclusive: President Obama is keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting an unwinnable war for fear of the political consequences if he faces reality and admits defeat, an echo of Vietnam, writes Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
Historians still debate whether President John F. Kennedy would have withdrawn U.S. troops from Vietnam had he lived to win re-election in 1964. Since President Barack Obama recently announced his intention to keep at least 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan through the end of his presidency, the only debate will be over why he never withdrew but chose instead to bequeath an unwinnable war — the longest in U.S. history — to his successor.
The U.S. war in Afghanistan will officially pass the 15-year mark in a few months. But like Vietnam, where the United States began aiding French colonial forces in the late 1940s, Afghanistan has been the target of Washington’s war-making for more than three-and-a-half decades.
President Barack Obama arriving in Afghanistan on a May 1, 2012, trip to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. (White House photo by Pete Souza)
On July 3, 1979, President Carter first authorized the secret provision of aid to armed opponents of the leftist regime in Kabul. A senior Pentagon official advocated the aid to “suck the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire.”
When Moscow took the bait and sent troops that December to support the Afghan government against a growing rural insurgency, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski gleefully wrote President Carter, “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.”
Call it blowback, or just an irony of history, but Afghanistan has turned instead into America’s second Vietnam War. The Soviets finally had the good sense to pull out after being bloodied for a decade. The Obama administration envisions staying there indefinitely. Under the Bilateral Security Agreement that President Obama got Kabul to sign in 2014, U.S. troops may remain in Afghanistan “until the end of 2024 and beyond.”
President Obama explicitly rejected any analogy to Vietnam in a speech nearly seven years ago. But like Vietnam, our ongoing conflict in Afghanistan has become a hopeless quagmire, marked by official lies, atrocities, pervasive corruption and poorly led government forces who survive in the field thanks mainly to U.S. bombing. Like Vietnam, Afghanistan represents a staggering waste of lives (more than 300,000 direct casualties through early 2015) and resources (more than two trillion dollars).
Even more than Vietnam, it is a conflict for which no one in Washington bothers to offer any strategic rationale. The best that President Obama could come up with in his July 6 statement on Afghanistan, was “I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest — especially after all the blood and treasure we’ve invested in Afghanistan over the years — that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed.”
The same logic is what keeps gamblers coming back to Sheldon Adelson’s casinos year after year to lose more money.
‘Precarious’ or Unwinnable?
In Vietnam, the United States couldn’t win with more than half a million troops. In Afghanistan, the United States couldn’t beat the Taliban with 100,000 troops. Obama doesn’t really think he can win with a mere 8,400 troops — especially with the Taliban making steady gains.
U.S. Marines leaving a compound at night in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. (Defense Department photo)
“The security situation remains precarious,” he admitted. “Even as they improve, Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be. The Taliban remains a threat. They’ve gained ground in some cases.”
As in Vietnam, however, ambitious military officers and armchair civilian warriors claim confidently that victory requires just a modest degree of escalation. Sounding just like Vietnam-era hawks, Retired Gen. David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings — previously a cheerleader for invading Iraq — accused the administration of making “U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan operate with one hand tied behind their backs.” To win the war, they declared, “We should unleash our airpower in support of our Afghan partners.”
In Indochina, of course, all of our furious bombing, which unleashed three times the tonnage dropped in World War II, only hardened enemy resistance. Recent studies confirm that the bombing was ineffective and drove civilians into the arms of the Viet Cong, just as U.S. bombs, drones and night raids build support for the Taliban.
President Richard Nixon knew it at the time, though he insisted publicly that American bombing was “very, very effective.” As he wrote despairingly in a note to Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, “We have had 10 years of total control of the air in Laos and V.Nam. The result = Zilch. There is something wrong with the strategy or the Air Force.”
Massive bombing could not make up for the unwillingness of South Vietnamese troops to risk their lives for corrupt leaders. As in Vietnam, which became known as the “dirty war,” Afghan officials have pocketed tens of billions of dollars earmarked for infrastructure and institution building. They also encourage rampant trafficking in opium and heroin, as do the Taliban.
The Taliban, however, use their profits to finance their insurgency, rather than siphoning them off to Dubai, where the families of leading Afghan officials maintain fat bank accounts and luxury villas.
Much of Afghanistan’s army consists of “ghost” soldiers and officers, who draw pay that enriches corrupt Army leaders. In some provinces, nearly half of all police are ghost employees as well.
Meanwhile, real soldiers are busy selling tens of thousands of U.S. weapons to the Taliban. Others fire their weapons at no one in particular so they can sell copper ammunition casings on the black market.
Pakistani Bases
Highly motivated Taliban forces are particularly tough to beat because they get refreshed and resupplied from bases in Pakistan, where their leaders reside. One of the key lessons of the Vietnam War was the near impossibility of defeating a determined insurgency that enjoys neighboring sanctuaries.
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai exchange copies of the security agreement signed May 1, 2012, (White House photo by Pete Souza)
In Vietnam, at least, U.S. leaders pursued negotiations with the enemy to end the conflict. In Afghanistan, no one is sitting at the peace table, and the U.S. drone strike that killed Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in May was hardly a welcoming invitation from Washington.
Pakistan blames Afghanistan for the failure of the peace process to go anywhere. A spokeswoman for the Pakistani government cited the “absence of a national consensus in support of the reconciliation process,” as well as the “worsening security situation, corruption and other administrative problems.”
The Taliban and their unyielding allies are to blame as well. In June, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of one militant Islamist faction, demanded that the Kabul government send all foreign troops home and disband itself. Ironically, he was America’s (and Pakistan’s) primary ally during the war against the Soviet Union, despite (or because of) his reputation for pathological brutality and leadership of Afghanistan’s drug trade. So much for grateful allies.
So why doesn’t Obama just get out? That worked in Vietnam, which Washington today is courting as an ally. But like many CEOs today, Presidents think far more about the immediate future than about outcomes long after they leave office.
Again, Vietnam is instructive. President Lyndon Johnson heard plenty of warnings that the war was unwinnable, but remembered all too well how Republicans clobbered the Truman administration after the “fall” of China. As LBJ told Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge in late 1963, “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.”
Similarly, President Nixon — who built his career in Congress by playing the anti-communist card to the hilt — said he was not going to be “the first President of the United States to lose a war.”
President Obama knows full well that the Republican attack machine will go after him and other Democrats if he “loses” Afghanistan or Iraq, despite public ambivalence about both wars. So his calculated decision to keep fighting, at minimal cost and without any real hope of winning, makes political sense.
But his policy is also cowardly and immoral. President Obama — and his current secretary of state — should recall the testimony of former Navy Lt. John Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
Citing President Nixon’s vow not to be the first president to “lose a war,” Kerry asked, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Jonathan Marshall is author or co-author of five books on international affairs, including The Lebanese Connection: Corruption, Civil War and the International Drug Traffic (Stanford University Press, 2012). Some of his previous articles for Consortiumnews were “Risky Blowback from Russian Sanctions”; “Neocons Want Regime Change in Iran”; “Saudi Cash Wins France’s Favor”; “The Saudis’ Hurt Feelings”; “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Bluster”; “The US Hand in the Syrian Mess”; and “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War.” ]
The linked article about “ghost soldiers” is about Iraq, with no mention of Afghanistan. Same concept, of course, but not direct support for the assertion here.
who knows if kerry meant what he said when he said it? the country was firmly against the viet nam war when he uttered those words.
and now? kerry is a war monger. a filthy rich one at that. his wife is heir to the heinz fortune. sweeeeeeeeet.
the rich start wars that the poor have to fight.
soldiers die.
but the war-makers live to make more war.
is this a great country or what?
You contradict yourself:
You cited the incident that a Taliban leader visiting Pakistan on US invitation for peace talks was extra judicially assassinated by “U.S. drone strike that killed Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour”
Despite what you write just before that: “Highly motivated Taliban forces are particularly tough to beat because they get refreshed and resupplied from bases in Pakistan, where their leaders reside.”
The question to ask is, “”How do you ask a man to be the next man to die for a mistake?”.
Our “betters” in DC truly don’t give a sh*t about the next man, or the last man.
justa few ponts .JFK WOULD HAVE NOT CONTINUED THE ADVISORY ACTION IN VEIT NAM AS IT TOOK THE TONCIN BAY EPISODE TO GET THE CONGESS AND PUBLIC BEHIND THAT FALSE FLAG THAT LBJ USED.THE MANIAC MILITARY GENERAL CHIEF OF STAFFS WERE PUSHING JFK FOR WAR AND SO IT WAS EASY FOR THEM WITH LBJ WHO WAS INVOLVED WITH JFK ASSASSINATION.ALL PARTS OF THE PUZZLEFIT TOGETHER.
Obama also in love with the greatness of america and just like each president had been and will be for some time longer.
And/or to prove [or at least show] to the world and americans that the two or three top dictatorial classes are inerrant.
That’s the holy of holies; and along the fact that the ‘lower’ classes [after priestly, elite, and rich people classes] never have a say in who runs and how is america run.
Once you know this, you’d know it all as far politics go!
It’s the US military and adjuncts that benefit from endless war, not presidents and not citizens of usa.
See JFK AND VIETNAM, John M. Newman.
America CAN win the Afghanistan war. Not by fighting the Taliban, but by joining forces with them. The deal should be for the American military to promise withdrawal and money to be poured into infrastructural arrangements by way of NGOs working ALONGSIDE the Taliban. Then aim to link Afganistan with Iran’a Chabahar port, even while standing in support of the CPEC which leads to Gwadur in Pakistan. This would kill two birds with one stone. It’s complicated, but “when there’s a will there’s a way”.
In some venues Obama has actually said ….No !…. to the Brzezinski / Wolfowitz doctrine of “Mass Destruction”…..It will be full steam ahead for Mrs. Clinton and if Mr. Trump is elected he will be disposed of……The Brzezinski / Wolfowitz doctrine is of the same spirit as the spirit who massacred the North American Indians and all since then…….Many may not understand this statement.
It was when Obama engaged in his major escalation in Afghanistan in 2010 that I took off my Obama bumper sticker. From that point on I recognized that he was a neocon fraud.
Great comments, Realist, and the article itself is excellent. What would I do without Consortium, since so much its information is NOT in my local paper???- Nor, I gather in the MSM at all! Which is totally disgusting. Just finished Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative – also great for all the detail about Iran-Contra, etc.
I look forward to a Vietnam-like ending to this mindless butchery, when the Taliban swarm the last American redoubt and the evacuating helicopters are denied passage through Russian airspace which they generously provide us and then get spit in the face by our warmongering government. Let the invaders crawl out through Pakistan on their knees. Then try Dubya, Obomber and Hitlery for war crimes in the International Court. The World has had enough of American hubris and hegemony. It needs to extirpate the infection and cauterize the wound.
Some people make money off of war (lots of money) whether they win or lose the war.
The U.S. hasn’t “won” a war since 1945, no matter how many veterans today run around with their veteran hats on.
The US military did “win” three “wars” since WW2: They defeated a couple hundred Grenadians during the Reagan era, beat the hell our of the pipsqueak Panamanian “army” and ended the Vietnam syndrome with the turkey shoot along the Kuwait-Iraq border. The latter two came courtesy of GHW Bush.
With the revisionist history of the Vietnam war being written at the Pentagon that will eventually make four wars “won” by the US military since WW2.
From one ex-Navy guy to the next, I must tell you, that anytime I’m in a large retail outlet, and I see garments made in Vietnam, I think why was there even a war. It totally amazes me how this could be. Why did we ever fight a war in Vietnam in the first place? Were America’s retail outlet buyers to busy at that time, so instead we sacrificed American lives, not to mention the millions of Vietnamese who loss their life over that senseless war? Today it is clear to see that Vietnam was nothing but an excuse for the MIC to profit from. Damn these politicians and business executives who for the sake of a dollar ruined so many innocent lives. There should be a price to pay for this, but in America no one is ever held accountable, and that is this country’s biggest downfall.
The power of the great lies we are endlessly told in this country by our “leaders” and our sycophantic media never fails to amaze me. At the time, they told us it was all about dominoes falling and how the sacrifices were well worth it because otherwise we’d all be speaking Russian or Mandarin Chinese in 2016. Sixty thousand of my birth cohort dead and how many tens of thousands more maimed in sacrifice upon that altar of hubris and hegemony, purportedly carried out to prevent an invasion of America that was never coming and, in fact, was (and still is) quite impossible? Why is it that none of the butchery ever made me feel more “free” but has always made me feel more guilty to be a citizen of a country which perpetrates such injustice all for the sake of raw, naked power and lots of money? Russia and China are not suicidal, and will never attack America even if they did covet our riches. Unlike America, they know their limits. They are not stupid or crazy with avarice.
All these nickel and dime local authoritarian countries that we regularly devastate “to keep America free” don’t even have the reach (even if they had the will) to conquer their neighbors, let alone America. Did Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen ever try? Well, upon American instigation, Iran and Iraq mixed it up but fought to a stalemate, while we sold military aid to both sides and kept the pot stirred. And, America basically invited Iraq to invade Kuwait in response to blatant Kuwaiti theft of Iraqi oil, all to set them up for Bushdaddy’s Gulf War I and “kicking the Vietnam syndrome.” Those exceptions were OUR doing. They would not have happened but for American meddling which intended to create chaos and turmoil there so we could expand our military influence. And, thank god we stopped Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, and Haiti in their tracks before their marines could hit the beaches in Boca Raton and enslave freedom-loving Americans and Cuban ex-pats, like the loco parents of Little Marco and Big Bad Ted. Finally, we should all hope that Cuba has finally learned a lesson sixty years in the making under an American embargo because they had the audacity to want to be free of servitude to the American government and the American Mafia. Finally, they will, er may, have some sanctions lifted when, er if, we feel like getting around to keeping the empty promises Obomber made to them when he wanted to show the Russians just how influential he is as a world leader. We are such a noble people. Give yourself a big round of applause if you are an American citizen… because FREEDOM!! USA, USA, USA… (rinse and repeat until your eyeballs fall out the back of your head).
Reminds me of when Reagan told us Nicaragua was only X hours flying time from the USA, or Y days driving time from Texas.
Obama can’t leave because of the gold that flows from Afghanistan. That money flow was shut down by the Taliban and would get shut down again. Coincidentally, similar flows came out of the Golden Triangle. That loot supports the Western banking system. Hence, the Narconomy dictates that it must keep flowing.
The second issue is the gigantic mineral deposits there.The extractors would in an ideal world, like to take it out. Since they really can’t they want to prevent others from having it.
This war was lost 15 years ago. One would think in this age of “communications” the announcement would have been noted by now. First there was Nixon the Peace President who actually got more people killed in Viet Nam than Johnson. Now we have Obama the Nobel Peace President, like Nixon, preening his ego! Maybe I misread, but didn’t I glimpse an internet blip that Obama was on the verge of declaring himself the best President …..ever????
the war on Vietnam by the u.s. is often called a blunder. the atrocities committed are well documented. at the time good Americans were ashamed of the war, and men were pressed into the conflict or face prison.
now the war is remembered with fondness …
look at the amount of bumper stickers while driving down the highway in the u.s.a., and count how many car owners claim Vietnam veteran status.
i blame it on hollywood and especially that t.v. show, “tour of duty.”
in the u.s.a. the best way to up one’s worth as an American is to put a bumper sticker on one’s car claiming veteran status, or wearing a hat that proclaims veteran status.
i would like to see a sticker stating, “FORMERLY IMPRISONED CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR.”
to those brave men, i remove my hat.
Common Later: Far from all of America’s Viet Nam War veterans are proud of what they did there. My big takeaway from 27 months of involuntary servitude there “winning the hearts and minds” of the VIetnamese people is: ” When you find yourself part of an invading force in a foreign land fighting patriots, it’s time for a reality check on your world view.”
My own view of Barack Obama’s moral cowardice in kicking the political decision down the road to another president is here in my essay entitled, “Vietnamization 2.0.” http://relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/2015/10/vietnamization-20.html
Personally, I find the “thank you for your service” propaganda meme highly offensive and normally those who play it back to me find themselves engaged in an unexpected discussion of precisely why it is such an offensive (and inane) thing to say to a Viet Nam War veteran.
And should Hillary be that successor, she’ll likely accept her role as war chief with gusto. Not sure how Trump would handle it, but most likely will follow Wall Street’s lead. Obama wants to “look and sound tough” for his political legacy. Anyway continuous war brings munition’s profits. Peace? Ugh! Where’s the profit in that?
All the expensive bombs and weapons of the world find it impossible to defeat, and separate the indigenous people from their land. The Taliban and Viet Cong are proof of this impossibly. To make matters worst American drone strikes often kill many innocents, which in turn provides ample cause for blowback. So, while America pours billions of taxpayer dollars into this bottomless pit, whole badly needed infrastructure projects go undone. How could such smart people make so many dumb decisions, is beyond comprehension.
The decisions are dumb to us but without knowing their true motives we cant say they are dumb moves for “them ” v, i.e. the global elite running the show in the background.
But his policy is also cowardly and immoral. President Obama — and his current secretary of state — should recall the testimony of former Navy Lt. John Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
But it is not only Obama who should be in the dock. US military leaders and their overseers at the Pentagon and in Congress should also be charged in a manner similar to the Nazi leadership and their allies at Nuremberg. Copying and pasting charges from Nuremberg would suffice in many cases. Just change the names, dates and places.
However, Afghanistan will be like Vietnam in another way. The guilty psychopaths and incompetents will walk free.
But let us not stop there. Our good and exceptional Americans are as guilty as the “good Germans” who sang “Deutschland uber alles” in the 1930s and 1940s.
Well said. The list of war criminals in America’s Ruling Class is sickeningly long. The gallows is probably to good for these scum.
“In Indochina, of course, all of our furious bombing, which unleashed three times the tonnage dropped in World War II, only hardened enemy resistance.” A rather cruel depiction of the devastation of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and the present state of Vietnam, “a US ally” with no real rights and a very low standard of living.
As for the “Viet Cong”, the word was used to mean “the commies” but nobody really knew who was a “friend”.
I just dont think there are ANY true friends to be had if you invade and take-over a country. Most people just want to see the back of you and to expect gratitude is churlish beyond belief. Do you remember when Bush 2 told his people to find a leader in Iraq who would publicly thank him for invading the country….lol…they did find someone but he had been living in the West for the past 30 years . They made him prime minister of the Green Zone for a couple of years as a reward….lol…
The US went into Afghanistan based upon the monsterous lie and deception that was 9/11. The plans to invade Afghanistan pre-dated 9/11 and 9/11 was the pretext to allow them to do it. They went in never intending to leave. So this was was never meant to be won.
If you read Zbignew Brezinski’s 1996 book The Grand Chessboard: Americia’s Primacy and it’s GeoStrategic Imperatives you can begin to understand what these psychopaths are really up to. He describes Afghanistan as a ‘”GeoStrategic Pivot” because it lies at the intersection of China to the west, Russia to the north, the Indian subcontinent to the south and the middle east to the west. It is the crossroads to everywhere. It is the buffer between China and Russia and 60% of the worlds hydrcarbons in the middleeast.
9/11 gave them licenese to do what was otherwise not doable. 9/11 is the biggest lie of your lifetime.
If you want to understand what these bastards are really up to, you have to read what they wrote!
well said, George Orwell. I agree with you entirely. Brezinski states in his book ‘The Grand Chessboard’, that the US wants to control the land mass that exists from the eastern Atlantic coast to western Pacific coast. my guess is they had not calculated China’s rise to be as rapid as it has been. that upset their calculations. I recommend that you also read Daniel Yergins two books ‘The Prize’ and ‘The Quest’.
I agree with you and how downright evil it is what has been made to happen on the lie that is 9 / 11. I have always said that unless and until ” the world ” gets to grips with who actually planned and carried out 9 / 11 these wars and take overs of countries will just continue. I think it safe to say that Bin Laden did not “do” the twin towers catastrophe but mainly down to the mainstream media , owned 90% by you know who , we are no closer , 15 years later , who was responsible.
it is appalling to think that under three presidents the USA has continued wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan ( and Iraq come to think of it ) so that the president of the day ( Johnson, Nixon and now Obama ) were not held responsible for losing. These people , if that`s what they are , care NOTHING for human lives and are even comparable to the nazis and fascists of the last century and should therefore also be labelled as war criminals.
“These people, if that’s what they are, care NOTHING for human lives and are even comparable to the nazis and fascists of the last century and therefore also be labelled as war criminals”
Sounds like the same people the US is supporting in USA/UKRAINE. (ie Right Sektor, Azov Battalion, Svoboda party etc,etc) who are murdering their own population in the eastern part of the country because they won’t accept the new INSTALLED regime of “Porky” Petroshenko.
Afghanistan: President Obama’s Vietnam
As seen in the light of USSR’s bankruptcy,
both projects by, of and for Zibig Brzezinski.
Brzezinski was facilitator involved in Mr. Clinton’s
Balkan War violent destruct of Yugoslavia
politically legalizing the term, Balkanization.
The destruction of previously
harmonious communities
and peoples, and commerce-
that’s balkanization.
balkanization is Opening Markets (by coercion or force).
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/OpenFire_OpenMarkets.html
You are one of the few Americans who see the destruction of Yugoslavia as a crime, however, I would like to add the invention of Islamic terrorism as a weapon by Zib Brjenski should be considered the most evil contemporary policy of the USA. Speaking of evil policies, the unwillingness of Nixon to FORCE Israel to return the Sinai back to Egypt peaceful has resulted in the Arab oil embargo, which opened the floodgates of wealth on the Saudis who are spreading the hate cult of Wahhabism, and Islamic terror all over the world.
This is a perfectly accurate summation, but it’s incomplete. After reading first Mr. McGovern’s essay, then this one, I feel “ignorant” and “arrogant” ought to be slipped in as well.
This has been said before:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/08/20/saigon-2009/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/12/10/obamas-indecent-interval/
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091231_art004.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/03/should-the-us-leave-afghanistan-now/learn-the-lessons-of-vietnam-out-now