Advice on Afghan Strategy

For my recent post on the Cuba embargo I looked up the Vietnam War on Wikipedia to see what the death toll was (or what it was reported to be). I could not resist skipping down to a section near the end called Effect on the United States. Almost the entire section is composed of quotations from senior US Commanders about the lessons of Vietnam. It's a shame that they did not refer back to Wikipedia for advice before heading to Afghanistan, they might have remembered saying these kinds of things and avoided the temptation of the 'dangerous illusion' (emphasis mine). Decide for yourself:

"As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted "first, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean war, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous."^[182][183]

Some have suggested that "the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress..."^[184] Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that "tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The... Vietnam War('s)... legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military... Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam."[185]

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."^[186] Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion."[187]

Trust Deficit

According to the NY Times, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother Ahmed has been on the CIA payroll for the last 8 years. The article notes that he is considered a central figure in their opium trade, but doesn't discuss any relation between the CIA and widespread voter fraud in the elections. If you can't beat'em...

Cuba shame!

Once again the world has condemned the US Trade Embargo against Cuba... once again over only three objections, coming from the US (obviously) as well as their key Caribbean allies Israel and Palau, for a score of 187-3.

You don't have to like the "Communists" to see that the embargo is the main cause of the suffering of the Cuban people. Opinions on Fidel, his government (now his brother's), and Human Rights in Cuba are also, frankly, irrelevant. The US maintains friendly relations with many countries with a worse record, and the new administration is willing to come to the table and have substantial negotiations even with Iran and North Korea. This view - that you catch more flies with honey - is in my view inarguably the correct view and must certainly apply more to Cuba than to Cambodia or Saudi Arabia, say.

To put things in perspective, almost 60,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam through 1975; Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations 20 years later in 1995. In Cuba, no major US war was fought and the losses to the US in the Cuban revolution amounted to one puppet dictator and some corporate properties nationalized. After more than 45 years, this insult is still apparently unforgivable. Or perhaps it is the US embargo that is unforgivable.

What does Obama's Peace Prize tell us about the Nobel Committee and about the world's view of American leadership?

a) That the Nobel Committee does not sufficiently understand US domestic politics to realize that the award was a hindrance and not a help; and
b) That at this point even an aspirational change in American leadership is more precious than water.

Who wants a million bucks?

With all this talk about who deserves what, or doesn't, and why, I think everyone is missing the real story here: How is Obama going to spend his $1.5 million??