Peter Preston: Afghanistan ... Vietnam, minus the jungle
[Peter Preston is a columnist for the Guardian and the Observer.]
There is, said the American secretary of defence, no certainty "that a conventional military victory, as commonly defined, can be achieved here … We seem to have gotten caught in a sinkhole." He's talking about Afghanistan surely, as the thousandth US military death is recorded and coalition losses creep towards 2,000? No: that was Clark Clifford in 1968. And the sinkhole that finally cost more than 200,000 American dead and wounded was Vietnam.
It's not a grisly comparison anyone wishes to make, of course. The scale of the casualties doesn't equate, for one thing. The Afghan terrain is rocky and bare, not steaming, sapping jungle. But pause and shiver a little as some parallels grow. For Vietnamisation, as Richard Nixon's last desperate excuse for calling the boys home, read Afghanisation. For President Thieu, illegitimate, distrusted, desperate, read President Karzai. For Vietcong troops operating across a fatally porous border, read the Pakistan-based Taliban (currently beginning their summer offensive). And as for "conventional military victory", forget it. Just remember how Lyndon Johnson, towards the end, effed and blinded about staking so much on a no-account country far away.
He'd followed his generals, who had a plan. Send in hundreds of thousands more troops to "finish the job". Drop many more bombs. Win hearts and minds (where applicable) or at least dish out zillions of extra dollars. But the dreadful truth for LBJ, as for General Westmoreland, was that once the cigarette smoke in the planning rooms cleared, no one was really in control. There wasn't a plan, let alone a strategy.The top brass couldn't counsel retreat, because that would mean their own defeat. The president couldn't give up, because that would be letting his gallant troops down. So the bombing and killing rumbled haplessly on. Ashes to ashes.
Meanwhile, back in 2010, David Cameron and his generals are having a country awayday this week to see what (apart from British deaths rising, too) comes next in Afghanistan. US forces prepare for another supposedly make-or-break operation, this time around Kandahar. American missions to Islamabad grow ever more outspoken about Pakistan's failure to clamp down in north Waziristan, where the man who failed to blow up Times Square got his rather duff training. What lessons work now across four barren decades?..
Read entire article at Observer
There is, said the American secretary of defence, no certainty "that a conventional military victory, as commonly defined, can be achieved here … We seem to have gotten caught in a sinkhole." He's talking about Afghanistan surely, as the thousandth US military death is recorded and coalition losses creep towards 2,000? No: that was Clark Clifford in 1968. And the sinkhole that finally cost more than 200,000 American dead and wounded was Vietnam.
It's not a grisly comparison anyone wishes to make, of course. The scale of the casualties doesn't equate, for one thing. The Afghan terrain is rocky and bare, not steaming, sapping jungle. But pause and shiver a little as some parallels grow. For Vietnamisation, as Richard Nixon's last desperate excuse for calling the boys home, read Afghanisation. For President Thieu, illegitimate, distrusted, desperate, read President Karzai. For Vietcong troops operating across a fatally porous border, read the Pakistan-based Taliban (currently beginning their summer offensive). And as for "conventional military victory", forget it. Just remember how Lyndon Johnson, towards the end, effed and blinded about staking so much on a no-account country far away.
He'd followed his generals, who had a plan. Send in hundreds of thousands more troops to "finish the job". Drop many more bombs. Win hearts and minds (where applicable) or at least dish out zillions of extra dollars. But the dreadful truth for LBJ, as for General Westmoreland, was that once the cigarette smoke in the planning rooms cleared, no one was really in control. There wasn't a plan, let alone a strategy.The top brass couldn't counsel retreat, because that would mean their own defeat. The president couldn't give up, because that would be letting his gallant troops down. So the bombing and killing rumbled haplessly on. Ashes to ashes.
Meanwhile, back in 2010, David Cameron and his generals are having a country awayday this week to see what (apart from British deaths rising, too) comes next in Afghanistan. US forces prepare for another supposedly make-or-break operation, this time around Kandahar. American missions to Islamabad grow ever more outspoken about Pakistan's failure to clamp down in north Waziristan, where the man who failed to blow up Times Square got his rather duff training. What lessons work now across four barren decades?..