The United States’ legacy there will be distinguished either by a terminally wounded national pride as American forces beat a hasty retreat in defeat (following the Russian precedent in Afghanistan), or by thousands of American soldiers being lost in Afghanistan’s ‘graveyard of empires’ as they continue fighting this unwinnable war (following America’s own precedent in Vietnam). More troops only mean more sitting ducks for Taliban fighters…
Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and run ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to ‘disrupt and dismantle’ Taliban and al-Qaeda operations there.
(“‘Without (or even with) more forces, failure in Afghanistan is likely,’” The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2009)
I have written many commentaries lamenting the way the United States is doggedly repeating in Afghanistan all of the mistakes of Vietnam – including committing battlefield atrocities that make U.S. soldiers look even more barbaric than the barbarians they were/are purportedly fighting to civilize (i.e., democratize).
Therefore, it is hardly surprising that I now have just cause to draw damning comparisons between the recent massacre of unarmed civilians by a U.S. soldier in Panjwai, Afghanistan and the infamous massacre by U.S. soldiers of unarmed civilians in My Lai, Vietnam.
For just as My Lai exposed how the never-ending quagmire and folly of that war caused such fatigue and (dis)stress that soldiers started going berserk; Panjwai has now done the same. Moreover, just as My Lai proved to be the tipping point – not just when Americans began calling in earnest for the troops to come home but even when America’s Vietnamese allies began demanding they go home; Panjwai is proving to be the very same tipping point.
In the meantime, nothing demonstrates how much this war has wounded American’s national pride quite like Marines being forced last week to disarm before entering a tent to hear a pep talk from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
There’s no denying the irony, lunacy, and insult inherent in U.S. officials (political and military) fearing that, because one soldier went berserk and killed a bunch of Afghans, another might and kill the secretary. (Reports are that a commander on the ground issued the disarm order. But he clearly issued it to ease the anxieties of visiting political dignitaries like Panetta.)
But every soldier must have resented the realization that this stupid and unwinnable war has so alienated them from “home sweet home” that their own commanders do not trust them any more than they trust Taliban fighters.
Indeed, just imagine the untenable spectacle of U.S. military commanders now being so spooked by the specter of PTSD that the commander in chief, President Obama, can no longer risk greeting his own troops in the hermetically sealed confines of a U.S. army base if they are armed.
Mind you these are the same troops Obama orders to risk their lives every day patrolling villages like Panjwai, where every kid with a smile on his face can be a Taliban decoy for the roadside bomb that has been set to blow them to smithereens.
This folks is just one of the shameful legacies of the war in Afghanistan.
I believe I have fairly well established in commentaries dating back to October 2006 that nobody has been and remains a more ardent supporter of Barack Obama than I. This is why it pains me to assert that his decision to escalate this war will prove as grave a military blunder as George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
Related commentaries:
U.S. soldier goes postal…
* This commentary was originally published on Sunday, March 18, at 9:42 am