Why are we still in 'Vietghanistan?'

Now, I am as conservative as the day is long and as pro-military as they come; give this a read... I moved to the States with my folks at age 6 and had many neighbourhood fathers who were Marine veterans of Vietnam, and in reading this I could hear the same logic coming from them. I know this is not a black and white topic, and that there is no simple solution. Have a read, and if you feel so inclined, add your own on-topic thoughts on the matter... If at all possible, polite and respectful.

Mmm.

I’m not knocking this guys views. He was a draftee. Some of the statements are a bit simplistic and naive though and don’t really compare to Vietnam to Afghanistan in suitably equitable way.

On Afghanistan. I’ve thought that we were on the wrong track on this for a while.

Personally I don’t think Afghanistan is worth ‘saving’ or worth any more of our young men’s blood. It remains a corrupt, feudal and misogynistic society despite ten years of occupation.

We had noble aims that didn’t take into account the immovability of the stone-age society that Afghanistan and the bordering regions of Pakistan remain.

As comrades in arms have mentioned in this forum on many previous occasions, the West doesn’t have the moral fortitude to conduct war in a savage enough way to defeat the Taliban.

If our politicians can’t stomach the reality of the situation, they should stop wasting our guys lives and our tax monies on a futile half-war.

Bring the boys back home.

I agree with you, but I don't even know how 'savage' we'd have to be to actually win in Afghanistan, the Russians were plenty savage enough during the 80s and they still lost.

Savagery won't defeat the Taliban. We suppressed them no problem with superior military power. But the Afghan people aren't behind us, so we'll never be able to defeat what the Taliban represent. And there's always plenty more in Pakistan to fill the ranks. It was the same in Vietnam - the people weren't fighting the war, it was mostly the US propping up a corrupt regime for he US' global aims, not for the people of Vietnam.

I just watched the movie "A Bright Shining Lie" about John Paul Vann's experience in Vietnam. What he realized is that what the Vietnamese peasants care about is rice. Ho Chi Min had promised the peasants that he would return control of their rice to them(from cartels and corruption). Vann realized to get the peasants on side, the US had to demonstrate they would do the same. But the US military of course, saw this as a conventional war, to be won with superior military force. At least in Vietnam, the US was battling a conventional country with a conventional army. If they had been willing to be savage enough, bomb the shit out of North Vietnam, I'm sure they could have pacified the country for a while and allow the corrupt South Vietnamese govt to continue. For a while. In Astan, I don't know what the equivalent would be of "giving the people back their rice." And then there's Astan's hatred of foreigners and radical religion. Astan seems even less possible to win than Vietnam did.

Here's one similarity with Vietnam - the military brass bullshitting the politicians. This is from the Gwynn Dyer thread:

No agreement with this, 2 world wars were both utile and moral.
Korea as well.


One thing I can agree with; the US has displayed once again the unwillingness to win,
just like Vietnam.

What would a win in Afghanistan look like? That is part of the problem. The original mission was to defeat Al Qaeda in Astan and get Bin Laden. When that was accomplished, what was the new mission? How will we know when we've won?

I agree with you, but I don't even know how 'savage' we'd have to be to actually win in Afghanistan, the Russians were plenty savage enough during the 80s and they still lost

Indeed. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Afghani's have to choose and it seems that their choice is fairly clear. The best we could hope for would be to prop up Kabul(sp) or some other part of the country, keep it relatively safe, help develop a stable and reasonable Government/Legal/Economic system, then sit back and hope that the rest of the country comes to realize the benefits of it. That would require us to have a constant presence and be constantly at war with the Taliban or others as they won't give up any time soon.

Who would be in this reasonable government? Karzai is as corrupt as they come, and under he control of he warlords. That's the problem in Astan - there's no reasonable faction to support. You'd have to prop up your little safe refuge for a generation or two, and hope the idea of stable and reasonable govt takes off. Do we really want to do that? Why?

I'm not sure you can call WWI "utile". More like mass suicide in the name of foolish nationalism. That's one tussle we would have been better to have sat out.

Not really on both counts. North Vietnamese conventional forces didn't make much of an appearance until after the US withdrawal in 1973, culminating in the famous footage of Communist tanks crashing through the fences of the evacuated US Embassy in 1975. North Vietnamese main force units generally fought using the same sort of irregular ambush/hit-and-run tactics that the more classically-guerrilla Viet Cong did, and that's because whenever they attempted to engage the US out in the open in conventional combat they usually lost and suffered massive amounts of casualties. The air war in the north was the only place where what we generally consider to be conventional battle was fought, with northern fighter and ground missile defenses attempting to shoot down as many US planes as they possible could. And the US did bomb the shit out of North Vietnam, with it not making much of a difference as the northerners turned out to be massively more stubborn and resilient than the planners in the Pentagon were willing to give them credit for. In the end this is about the only valid comparison between Vietnam and Afghanistan, in that the locals are turning out to be a lot tougher than most others wanted to believe.

Vietnam at the very least supplied the Viet Cong. If the US had bombed N Vietnam the way they bombed Germany, they would not have been able to continue to resist. The Tet offensive certainly included the NVA - and as you say they actually lost. One of Vann's strategies was to pull out the NV general leading the NVA into a conventional assault and then hammer him. He got a big commendation for that one. I don't think just the VC could have defeated South Vietnam with US backing, at least in the short run. But for what - to prop up a corrupt regime for a few years more? Crazy.

But the main similarity between Vietnam and Astan is that the people we're supposedly fighting for are not behind us or appreciative of the effort. In Vietnam, Vann showed a strategy that would have put the people behind the US, but it was not adopted. In Astan I can't think of any approach that would make the mass of Astanis grateful for the NATO effort and willing to do their part.

I'm not sure you can call WWI "utile". More like mass suicide in the name of foolish nationalism. That's one tussle we would have been better to have sat out.
Not really sure how great WW2 worked out either considering parts of Europe simply got to trade the rule of one despotic asshole for another.
I get the feeling if you asked the people of Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and The Baltics to name a few, they would probably disagree with martin's assessment of WW2 being utile and/or moral.

I'm not sure you can call WWI "utile". More like mass suicide in the name of foolish nationalism. That's one tussle we would have been better to have sat out.


Aren't all wars some form of 'foolish' nationialsm ?

Correct and Indeed. I'm not suggesting we do it, I just think that's the only reasonable way it could be done. Complete independence and willingness for constant war and death is culturally instilled in Afghani's. You can't conquer that Militarily, in fact that just reinforces their world view. They must be convinced to fundamentally change their world view.