#217 IrAfPak: Obama's Fatal Vision III--Troops and People

I know ... this is My Lai. But the parallels between Vietnam and IrAfPak get stronger every day, and that's no easy thing, considering that they were well-nigh INDISPUTABLE from the beginning! It's baffling, frankly, why Obama has stepped full-booted into this quagmire, and taken now a majority of Congress and the American people (by a slim margin lately) mucking along behind him. After all, Wasn't he a scholar/teacher (who should know better) before he became a politician?--oops ... I just answered my own question. Besides, I forgot that every U.S. President since WWII but Jimmy Carter has gotten foreign blood on their hands. It gets in their blood somehow, and they've killed foreigners so well, and in so many lovely countries.

This is why it's axiomatic, I guess, that "The United States of America does not quit, once it starts on something [like its very favorite] ... We will prevail." Or so saith President Johnson--oops again ... Obama--to his contract-killers at Bagram. More to arrive soon. And BE killed ... it's only fair. From the same AP report (here) cited in last post:

In total, 57 U.S. troops were killed here during the first two months of 2010, compared with 28 in January and February of last year, an increase of more than 100 percent, according to Pentagon figures ... at least 20 American service members have been killed so far in March, an average of about 0.8 per day [eight-tenths of a human-being on the general's clipboard--love it], compared to 13, or 0.4 per day a year ago [not counting the winged and wounded, maimed, and mangled, due to the spike in roadside sniper-attacks and IEDs].

That's the good news; here's the bad:

U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to RISE EVEN FURTHER as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban's [read: those "other" Pashtuns] home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected [or maybe not?] in the coming months.

"WE MUST STEEL OURSELVES, no matter how successful we are on any given day, FOR HARDER DAYS YET TO COME" [who is this retro-jingoist?] Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing last month.

The rhetoric is bone-chillingly THE SAME that we heard forty-odd years ago about Vietnam. Listen to this language:

... the Taliban [Viet-Cong] continue to plant bombs [we do it by air] at night and intimidate the locals, and the hardest part of the operation is yet to come: building an effective local government that can WIN OVER THE LOYALTY [insert "hearts and minds" here, in the Viet-speak of LBJ/McNamara] OF THE PEOPLE.

But there's "light at the end of the tunnel"--

The goal of both operations is to put enough PRESSURE on the Taliban [who live and die for it] to FORCE THEM TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE [how about in Paris?] to work out a POLITICAL SETTLEMENT to end the war ... "Until they [the opposition, but Afghans just the same] transition to that mode, then we will have fighters ready to take shots at us and plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices), said Lt. Col. Calvert Worth Jr., commanding officer of the 1st battalion, 6th Marines Regiment in central Marjah.

Translation: they're winning. As insurgents always will. Point is ... no matter the outcome, EVERY DAY IS A DEFEAT in an unjust war. Eight-tenths of an American soldier per day are eight too many tenths. And might even prove fatal. Meanwhile, innocent civilians are dying by the whole numbers. (more)
************