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Two, Many Vietnams?

By W.D. Ehrhart

Lately there has been a lot of talk about whether or not our current undertaking in Afghanistan will turn into another Vietnam. And though Iraq is less in the headlines than Afghanistan recently, that war too is hardly over. But are either of these wars "another Vietnam?" Does either have the potential to become another? The fact is that historical analogies never hold up under examination. Our present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan neither resemble each other nor the late war in Vietnam. The differences are almost too myriad to enumerate.

Nevertheless, there are some similarities worth pondering. Each war seems to have been entered into by powerful leaders acting on unexamined assumptions about their own righteousness and infallibility. Each war seems to have been justified on the basis of what at best could be called "misleading" information. Each involves a staggering ignorance of the history and culture of the countries against whom we were going to war.

Consider the Bush administration's insistence that the secularist Saddam Hussein was in league with the radical religionist Osama bin Laden, and then recall that American leaders insisted Ho Chi Minh was only doing the bidding of the Soviet Union and China. Consider the Bush administration's insistence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction he could use within forty minutes, and then recall Lyndon Johnson's insistence that our ships had been attacked, unprovoked in international waters, in the Gulf of Tonkin. Consider the recent elections in Afghanistan, and then recall the repeated and transparently bogus elections held in South Vietnam. Consider President Obama's latest commitment of 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, and then recall the incremental escalations of the Westmoreland years in Vietnam.

Have you ever heard of Scott Ritter, the former Marine officer and UN weapons inspector who tried to tell the American people that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction? Have you read journalist Thomas Ricks's account of the Iraq War, which he titled Fiasco? Have you read former Marine Clint Van Winkle's Iraq War memoir Soft Spots?

Historical analogies, as I said, are suspect at best. Iraq-with its three major factions: Sunni, Shiite and Kurd-looks almost simple compared to Afghanistan with its dozens of competing tribal, religious and political factions, and neither looks like Vietnam. The people of Vietnam, for the most part, share a common culture and identity. Iraq is the invention of post-World War I British and French diplomats, and Afghanistan is an all but ungovernable illusion of cartography. If you don't believe me, ask the British. Or the Russians.

But whatever vast differences separate the Vietnam War from our present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are two fundamental-and insurmountable-similarities. Firstly, in all three cases, the US military has been tasked with achieving goals that are simply and utterly unattainable-certainly not by force of arms and probably not at all. Secondly, when you send heavily armed frightened young soldiers into an alien world they cannot understand, nothing good will result.

I hope that I am wrong about the prospects for success in our current wars. But after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan and almost seven years of fighting in Iraq, I do not see much reason to feel encouraged. Calls for more troops, training the Iraqis and Afghans to defend themselves, giving them the breathing space to create viable democratic government-we've heard all this before.

Meanwhile, to a degree unimaginable even during the Vietnam War, the blood burden of military service falls ever more unfairly on a smaller and smaller segment of our citizenry. How long can our armed forces sustain the unrelenting stress? How long will the young men and women on the pointy end of the stick be willing to go back and back and back?

During the Vietnam War, proud and powerful leaders relinquished their fantastical illusions only when the political cost of continuing that war finally came to outweigh the political cost of disengaging. That tipping point was reached only after 58,000 Americans had come home dead. What will be the tipping point in Iraq, where the American death toll is currently under 4,400? What will be the tipping point in Afghanistan, where the American death toll is currently under 800? In each of these wars, we have a long way to go before we reach 58,000 dead Americans. Will the death toll finally climb that high? Will our current leadership exercise humility and wisdom in place of arrogance and righteousness before that awful tipping point is reached? Or will these wars end in triumph and victory, our goals achieved, our policies vindicated? Anyone taking bets?