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May 21, 2013
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 The Afghan SyndromePosted on Apr 11, 2012
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch (Page 2) Afghanistan is, in fact, only longer than Vietnam if you decide to date the start of the American war there to 1964, when Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (in place of an actual declaration of war), or 1965, when American “combat troops” first arrived in South Vietnam. By then, however, there were already 16,000 armed American “advisors” there, Green Berets fighting there, American helicopters flying there. It would be far more reasonable to date America’s war in Vietnam to 1961, the year of its first official battlefield casualty and the moment when the Kennedy administration sent in 3,000 military advisors to join the 900 already there from the Eisenhower years. (The date of the first American death on the Vietnam Wall, however, is 1956, and the first American military man to die in Vietnam—an American lieutenant colonel mistaken by Vietnamese guerrillas for a French officer—was killed in Saigon in 1945.) Of course, massive U.S. support for the French version of the Vietnam War in the early 1950s could drive that date back further. Similarly, if you wanted to add in America’s first Afghan War, the CIA-financed anti-Soviet war of the mujahideen from 1980 to 1989, you might once again have a “longest war” competition. The essential problem in dating wars these days is that we no longer declare them, so they just tend to creep up on us. In addition, because undeclared war has melded into something like permanent war on the American scene, we might well be setting records every day on the Eurasian mainland—if, for instance, you care to include the First Gulf War and the continued military actions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq which, after 2001, blended into the Bush administration’s Global War on Terror, its invasion of Afghanistan, and then, of course, Iraq (again). For those who want a definitive “longest,” however, the latest news is promising. Obama administration negotiations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government are reportedly close to complete. The two sides are expected to arrive at a “strategic partnership” agreement leaving U.S. forces (trainers, advisors, special operations troops, and undoubtedly scads of private contractors) ensconced on bases in Afghanistan well beyond 2014. If such official desire becomes reality, then the Vietnam record might indeed be at an end. Advertisement Now, skip ahead almost two years and consider what’s missing in action today. After all, dealing with the Afghan War in Vietnam-analogy terms right now would be like lining up ducks at a shooting gallery. Just take a run through the essential Vietnam War checklist: there’s “quagmire” (check!); dropping the idea of winning “hearts and minds” (check!); the fact that we’ve entered the “Afghanization phase” of the war, with endless rosy prognostications about, followed by grim reports on, the training of the Afghan army to replace U.S. combat troops (check!). There are those sagging public opinion polls about the war, dropping steadily into late-Vietnam territory (check!); the continued insistence of American military officials that “progress” is being made in the face of disaster and disintegration (not quite “light at the end of the tunnel” territory, but nonetheless a check! for sure). There are those bomb-able, or in our era drone-able, “sanctuaries” across the border (check!); American massacre stories, most recently a one-man version of My Lai (check!); a prickly leader who irritates his American counterparts and is seen as an obstacle to success (check!), and so on—and on and on. While the Afghan War has always had its many non-Vietnam aspects—geographical, historical, geopolitical, and in terms of casualties—anyone could have had a Vietnam field day with the present situation. At almost any previous moment in the last decades, many undoubtedly would have, and yet what’s striking is that this time around no one has. Unlike any administration since the Nixon years, nobody in Obama’s crowd now seems to have Vietnam obsessively on the brain.
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By blogdog, April 12, 2012 at 11:24 pm Link to this comment
THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS
Report thisThe Odysseys of Homer, vol. 1. 1857
Chapman, George, trans. (1559?–1634)
Of human frailty, that to see a man
Could so revive from death, yet no way can
Defend from death, his own quick powers it made
Feel there death’s horrors, and he felt life fade
In tears his feeling brain swet; for, in things
That move past utterance, tears ope all their springs.
Nor are there in the powers that all life bears
More true interpreters of all than tears.
By Anarcissie, April 12, 2012 at 7:37 am Link to this comment
There’s one of those ugly MIA flags, mostly black, flying in the park opposite my front door so, no, Vietnam isn’t over.
I approve. Every day it reminds people of the costs of empire.
People remember some wars for a long time. In recent years we have frequently heard about Munich, Pearl Harbor, the mushroom cloud, and the benefits of American occupation as it was practiced on Germany and Japan, and did not work out so well in Iraq.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as tragedy. The gods people have worshiped visit us, and are in no hurry to depart.
Report thisBy heterochromatic, April 12, 2012 at 7:02 am Link to this comment
crandall——- aces.
Report thisBy john crandell, April 11, 2012 at 11:08 pm Link to this comment
Mister Englehardt seems to know a lot about the Vietnam War.
On second thought, we’ve heard this thesis before - and I truly doubt that if they
Report thiswere still with us, that such persons as Gloria Emerson or David Halberstam would
agree whatsoever. As would Frances Fitzgerald or Neil Sheehan or Michael Herr or
Ron Glasser or Peter Arnett or Bernard Fall or Stanley Karnow or John Laurence or
Larry Burrows or Horst Faas or Macolm Browne or Tim Page or Robert Capa or Ray
Herndon or Charley Mohr or Homer Bigart or John Mecklin or Lucien Conein or
John Paul Vann or Francois Sully or Mert and Darlene Perry or Morley Safer or
William Tuohy or Don Becker or Sean Flynn or even Graham Greene.
By heterochromatic, April 11, 2012 at 6:48 pm Link to this comment
jimmmmmmmmmmmmmy—- you ain’t all wrong at all….. we wasted a hell of a
lot of our good people in Iraq.
Report thisnot as many died as in Viet, but a whole hell of a lot were wounded, 10,000 of
them severely.
By jimmmmmy, April 11, 2012 at 6:24 pm Link to this comment
I realize even though we use a common language our perspectives and word definitions are different in most instances. I make the mistake a lot of times when I post by assuming facts in evidence when that may not be so. I simply meant that we have wasted many soldiers in various shitholes killing people since 1950.None of these people were ant threat to us. 50 thousand dead in Korea 60 thousand dead in Vietnam 20 or so thousand dead in the middle east and Afghanistan so far This isn’t including the unreported deaths in various small actions like the hunt down of Che [ several chopper crashes with loss of life ] .Panama . Nicaragua, Honduras . Chile, Grenada , Lebanon, and on and on. “War is a racket” Smedley Butler.
Report thisBy heterochromatic, April 11, 2012 at 6:19 pm Link to this comment
PH—- we’ve been there so long there’s a syndrome named after it.—-
Report thiswait till we occupy China again.
By PatrickHenry, April 11, 2012 at 4:59 pm Link to this comment
Great, we’ve been there so long there’s a syndrome named after it.
Report thisBy heterochromatic, April 11, 2012 at 3:21 pm Link to this comment
jimmmmmmmmmmmmmmy——you think that we’ve used
soldiers up in Afghanistan same as in Viet-nam?
you don’t really mean that, d’ya? I’m just not reading
Report thisya right. Right?
By jimmmmmy, April 11, 2012 at 3:06 pm Link to this comment
As a Vietnam vet I thought the article was thoughtful and made its point. This empire is using up its soldiers stupidly and quickly in historical terms. Its well known that they put something in the soda pop in the U.S. to ensure memory loss.lol
Report thisBy heterochromatic, April 11, 2012 at 2:24 pm Link to this comment
prisdilemia——-No it’s not ove…...
was it over when the germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, April 11, 2012 at 1:29 pm Link to this comment
No it’s not over… because Vietnam would set the pattern for decaders and generations
to come.. The lies, the misdirections, the disinformaiton, and the enormous profits of the
military industrial complex, that had the government by the balls.
Then there are the rows and rows of flag draped coffins we are no longer allowed to
see, and the families, who suffer and continue to suffer trying to fill the empty spaces in
their life, with the tin ornaments of a false patriotism that was used as a justification for
the sacrifice of so much.
The better question, is when will we learn?
When will we learn?
No Vietnam is not over… Nor is Iraq, and Afganistan… or the other countless atrocities
we have committed in the name of Freedom, while granting precious little freedom to
any of those we allegedly fought for. No is it over as long as anyone of our service men
and women bear the pain of the wounds they received, from our so called leaders. As
long as their families members wonder if their sacrifice was worth it.
As long as our leaders lie, and tell tall tales, about what we have done over there,
Report thisVietnam is not over. Nor will it ever be.
By heterochromatic, April 11, 2012 at 12:26 pm Link to this comment
Tom Englehardt is no fool.
He just plays one on the internet.
He could have done a hell of a lot better comparing and
Report thiscontrasting if he wasn’t tied to pushing an agenda.