Copyright by John T. Reed

Will Afghanistan be Obama’s Vietnam?

Yes.

Obama is actually opposed to all wars and defense spending in general. But he lied about that during the campaign because he thought it might make him look too soft on defense and the war or terror.

During the campaign, he said Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. Afghanistan, with its far lower casualties back then, became “The Official War of the Democrat Party.” They really oppose everything military, but they refuse to be truthful about that.

Guess what. The Iraq war seems to be mainly over in terms of U.S. casualties. We paid the Sunnis protection money to get them to stop shooting us.

I doubt they will be adding a line to the Marine Corps Hymn about that. Indeed, they may need to remove the line about “to the shores of Tripoli.” Marines went to Tripoli because barbary pirates were extorting money from us to stop capturing our merchant ships. In other words, the Tripoli pirates demanded protection money. We refused to pay it. Now, 200 years later, we are back to paying it. Only this time it’s to allow our soldiers to occupy the country, not so we can use the Mediterranean for merchant shipping. It would be a lot cheaper to leave Iraq and spend the money and lives saved dealing with the economic crisis here.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have recently become far more successful at killing Americans and other NATO soldiers. The casualty rate in Afghanistan is way up and way higher than the current Iraq casualty rate. Obama is now sending tens of thousands of U.S. troops to Afghanistan and promises to send tens of thousands more after those.

Will many of them die there? No question.

Why? So Obama won’t have to admit he was lying during the campaign about the Afghanistan war being a good idea.

The main reason for the deaths of 5,000 troops in Iraq is probably Bush being unwilling to admit he was wrong to invade.

Dying to save lying politicians from having to admit prior lies or mistakes is probably the main cause of death of U.S. military personnel in Vietnam and in the twenty-first century and Barack “Change you can believe in” Obama is no different from the presidents who played that same game and thereby presided over thousands of U.S. military deaths in Vietnam and Iraq.

Memo to prospective U.S. military personnel. Get a civilian job instead.

So will “Obama’s Vietnam” bring down his presidency? Nope. It would if that was all that was going on. Obama doesn’t need a Vietnam to bring down his presidency. He has a depression. His leading us into another Great Depresion through protectionism and off-a-cliff deficit spending and increased government interference in the marketplace will be so much of a bigger mistake than Afghanistan that people will not even remember the quagmire there.

John T. Reed, West Point Class of 1968, airborne ranger Vietnam veteran

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions. If there are any errors or omissions in my facts or logic, please tell me about them. If you are correct, I will fix the item in question. If you wish, I will give you credit. Where appropriate, I will apologize for the error. To date, I have been surprised at how few such corrections I have had to make.