The Vietnam Scenario: Generals Always Want More

It is somehow all so very déjà vu. Just like that other American adventure that thankfully ended in total defeat even if the price was too high, this one also began with military advisers. Then the trickle became a flood until at the height of it all 500,000 American soldiers, including draftees, were serving there.

58,000 of them never returned, not to mention all the Vietnamese victims, civilian as well as military. Regardless of what revisionists claim, the revolt of the 1968ers would have never been so strong as it was had it not been for the criminal war in Vietnam for which Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were responsible.

But the military never learns. Put fires out with gasoline and if the fire burns more fiercely, throw on more gasoline. General Stanley McChrystal may be counted as one of the more levelheaded of his breed, but the report he just gave Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is explosive. It is a single indictment of the Bush administration’s Afghanistan policies but also, therefore, the policies of America’s allies. If one recalls with what naïveté decisions were apparently made here in Germany – former Defense Minister Peter Struck, for example, predicted our mission in Afghanistan would be completed within two to three years and we would be out – one never ceases to be amazed. Now we find there will be hell to pay: when McChrystal asks for 42,000 additional American soldiers while simultaneously complaining about the lack of aggressiveness among NATO ISAF troops, it is not really difficult to figure out what is coming. And that is exactly the intent.

But Afghanistan cannot be conquered. The insurgents may all be Islamists to varying degrees, but that is the case everywhere. Trying to force a Western-style democracy (or, as the inimitable Renate Künast* puts it, “human rights”) on Afghanistan is just plain nonsense and even worse, it is dangerous. One should not count on the insights of German politicians who are looking mainly to polish their international images. The last line of defense is with President Obama, who thus far is hesitating to commit additional troops. He apparently sees the risks involved, not to mention the fact that the war is financially ruinous to the United States, and he also apparently senses that one cannot create a nation using government personnel you have literally brought along with you.

This is the conventional wisdom: the Afghan government was formed in Bonn. Think again: we got into Afghanistan at the invitation of elected Afghan officials. At their behest, a government was formed and it turned out to be a government too stupid even to rig an election. Perhaps Obama can help in that he could be convinced to get out of Afghanistan – regardless of what Americans think. Spain might serve as a model; they are getting out of Kosovo where it is admittedly not as risky. But it might be time to explain to the American government that they may soon be fighting single-handedly unless they get down to business and begin negotiating. Foreign troops out, and right now; perhaps bring in a temporary force of Islamic-Arab troops until the Grand Council, the Loya Jirga, has created a new national constitution. Then create new governmental institutions. There is still time.

* [Trans. Note: Renate Künast is co-chair of the Green party in the German Parliament]