Gulf of Tonkin Redux

President Obama' s speech reminded me of the political positioning LBJ took when approaching the Vietnam war and to me the lessons of history provide us with three crucial reasons for why this new escalation in the conflict will waste more American money, American prestige, and above all else American lives on a strategy that will simply not work. It is time that President Obama stops playing politics with the lives of our soldiers and begin a more cohesive and immediate exit-strategy.

There are three glaring problems with the speech as outlined:


1) This was a foreign policy speech guided by domestic politics

I think it is deplorable when lives on the line to triangulate on issues of war and peace, life and death. Clearly the President is reading the polls, he had a lot to say to those of us skeptical of continuing the war, mainly his lines that this was not Vietnam and that we are not there to occupy or nation build. Yet he also knows that he needs to do something and that being hawkish is generally a better political posture to take than being dovish. So the hawks want 45k, the doves want to leave 10k and eventually leave, he meets everyone in the middle by saying 30k and creating a timetable. The problem is the 'something for everyone' strategy is a great way to win support for domestic issues but a horrible way to win a war as I will elucidate later with my third point.

Second he gave this speech to a domestic audience, when a truly effective speech would have been to an international one. Since it was geared towards the American people it made very selfish assumptions about our allies sticking with us, abandoned promises to the Afghan people as "costing too much for American taxpayers' and ended with a bizarre logic that we are a great nation not because we have great ideals we want to spread around the world but because our economy gives us great power. An awful connotation if you ask me, and Obama forgot that the Afghan people whose future he just said 'isnt worth the cost to American taxpayers' and the allies who he is committing to our effort without their consent also have CNN and heard these words. It was very much an example of American exceptionalism but lacking the ideals that make even that dangerous fairy tale ideology so seducing. Basically he argued that we are powerful and will do what we want because we are powerful, whereas at least Bush said we will do what is right because we are powerful. Both wrong headed and unilateral statements, but ironically Bush's sounds a lot more progressive and idealistic.

2) Terrible talking points

He stated basically that Afghanistan attacked us, equated the Taliban with Al Qaeda, argued the Afghan people want us there and don't want the Taliban there, assumed our allies would stick with us, and gave up the humanitarian justifications for continued involvement. All of these statements are terrible errors.

AQ attacked us from Afghanistan, Afghanistan never attacked us. Second the Taliban is not a threat to the external security of the US homeland, only to our troops occupying their country, AQ is a threat and one that we should focus on. The Afghan people don't want us there and many of them like the Taliban, our presence has increased its recruitment levels, and it is fast becoming a 'catch all' opposition to the corrupt Karzai regime and the horrific war lords that back it. Frankly neither the Taliban nor the government we are backing can claim legitimacy as the one the people actually want, or any moral legitimacy as good governments for the people either. So why take sides in their civil war? Also our allies, especially the UK and NATO want to get out fast and will likely leave before we do leaving us to carry the burden alone like in Iraq and Vietnam. Also the humanitarian justifications are basically the only tools we have to win the war, in the sense of defeating the Taliban. Offering the Afghani's a democracy and a government free from the corruption of Karzai and the theocratic oppression of the Taliban is the only way to conceivably win over the people and Obama gave up that leverage because he gave a very selfish speech geared to war weary Americans that specifically argued that trying to rebuild their nation is a waste of our time and money.

3) Moderate Escalation is the Worst Kind

Basically Bush gave Obama a pretty bad deck of cards at the poker table when it comes to Afghanistan, the only real solution is to go all in and hope that scares/defeats your opponents or to fold and keep what you have. Instead Obama is following the strategy of making sizable, but in the short term feasible raises that make him feel proactive yet responsible while really sucking him deeper and deeper into the hole. So he will keep raising and raising until there is nothing left to do but go all in or fold, and at that point he has already gambled so much it will be even harder for him to fold even though he knows he will lose. And in the end when he finally makes that decision it leaves him with fewer chips than he had before.

LBJ made the same strategy in Vietnam. Moderate escalation which eventually created a situation where the US did not seize the initiative when it had victories and it made it incredibly hard to pull out when it was clear we were headed for defeat-the logic being we have put so much in already why not keep putting more in.


In closing:

So I would argue that this solution will only waste American lives and delay the inevitable pull-out. Obama hopes it will allow America to save face, but the reality is we would be in a much better position now to declare victory and go home then we will be after another 3,000 dead and 38 billion dollars down the hole with no more signs of victory than when we started this new strategy.

It is high time that we learn the mistakes of Korea, Vietnam, the second Iraq war, and other efforts in Afghanistan. From now one commanders and President's should commit to the Powell doctrine. Go in with overwhelming force. Get an international coalition to back you. Have the UN sanction the military action. And having done these things make damn well sure the war is worth fighting. Had we committed to fighting a truly total war in Afghanistan after 9/11 we might have won that conflict. The American people no longer have the will to wage a successful campaign in Afghanistan, short of waging a total war and committing hundreds of thousands of more troops I see no reason why this surge will do anything other than prolong the stalemate further and simply waste American blood and treasure.

Furthermore our military commanders have already shown that the terrorists that actually caused 9/11 have been conclusively defeated militarily in Afghanistan so the real question to ask is why are American lives being sacrificed to back an illegitimate corrupt government in its civil war? How many more Americans must die to protect Hahmed Karzai and his corrupt government?

President Obama once claimed he would be willing to change strategies on the basis of new facts on the ground and new information but thus far he is as stubborn as his predecessor when it comes to changing his mind on the conduct of this war. The President did not start this war but the way he ends it could determine his political fate and if the example of LBJ is any indication this doesn't look good.