Please call and ask him for a clarification or an apology. This opportunist needs to go back to school. Amazing that he gets a Top Secret clearance for his committee work.
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politics/2009/09/09/congressman-smith-afghanistan-not-another-vietnam/
Congressman Smith: Afghanistan not another Vietnam
Posted By John Henrikson on September 9, 2009 at 3:28 pm
This just in from D.C. correspondent Les Blumenthal.
WASHINGTON - After returning from a three-day trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma., said Wednesday the United States needs to remain engaged in that part of the world.
"This is ground zero for al-Qaida," Smith said. "They are still there, they are still plotting against the West. We have to deal with that threat. As much as we would like to avoid it, we can't."
Smith's comments came as the Pentagon worked on a new military strategy for Afghanistan and the White House, in the next few months, will have to decide whether to deploy additional troops. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, has said the situation is "serious," but the war is still winnable. McChrystal has not said how many additional soldiers he will ask for, but such a request is considered likely.
The United States and NATO have more than 100,000 soldiers deployed, including the 3,900-member 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division and other units from Fort Lewis. Obama has already boosted U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan by 21,000 since taking office.
There is growing unease among Democrats about the course of the war. But with health care dominating the political landscape, the war in Afghanistan has received only scant attention.
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the chairman of the House Armed Service subcommittee that oversees special operations forces, Smith has become a rising force in national security issues on Capitol Hill.
"In many cases people want to believe we can painlessly pull out of there," Smith said. "This is not Iraq. Iraq never had the Taliban."
The congressman said the Taliban provide "aid, comfort and support" to al-Qaida.
But the Taliban has little support among the Afghan people, who remember their harsh treatment when they were last in power, Smith said.
"The Afghan people hate the Taliban," Smith said, but adding the Taliban "fill the vacuum' as the government of President Hamid Karzai struggles to gain control and provide security.
Smith on a trip sponsored by his Terrorism and Unconventional Threats subcommittee, said he and two other congressmen met with McChrystal and his staff, other military leaders, the U.S. ambassadors, members of the Afghani parliament, cabinet-level Pakistani officials and other diplomats.
Smith warned against unfounded comparisons to Vietnam or even to previous foreign involvement in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are not nearly as popular with the people of Afghanistan as Ho Chi Minh was with the Vietnamese, he said.
"He was going to win and we were on the wrong side," Smith said. "The Taliban are on the wrong side in this war."
The British, Soviets and other foreign nations sought to conquer Afghanistan to use it as an "economic outpost," Smith said. The U.S. just wants to block al-Qaida from gaining a safe haven and withdraw as soon as possible, the congressman said.
"We don't want to occupy or control it," he said.
The current dispute over the presidential election in which Karzai has been accused of electoral irregularities is a setback for the United States, said Smith. But America needs to be careful not to pick sides or pick winners, he said.
Smith said he wants to see what McChrystal recommends before deciding whether he would support sending additional U.S. troops.
Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008
lblumenthal@mcclatchydc.com
Posted by 6p0120a560e689970b at September 10, 2009 07:54 AM | Email ThisAnd Smith is right! The situation in Afghanistan is largely different. Despite a resurgence, they have no Russia and no China to back them up, the U.S. isn't exactly building plantations or exerting overt control over the economy like the French during the colonial period, and the Taliban have little to offer other than violent repression.
Posted by: demo kid on September 10, 2009 08:58 AMIt is just that the Republicans never have put up the right candidate against him. A reform minded "perot" type would kick his butt quite easily.
Posted by: Steve on September 10, 2009 09:55 AMThe problem with the Afghanistan War is with the military hierarchy. The officers in the higher levels of command positions are not there for their military expertise but, for their political expertise. Even, with all the advance technology of surveillance and attack weapons available to the military, these upper echelon military Crap Heads still, can't put it together. They know how to maneuver politically but, not militarily. When, there is a confrontation with a group of terrorists, you don't use your superior military firepower to drive them away so they can ambush another day......NO, you do just enough to protect yourself and keep them busy while you bring up other troops behind and around them. Then, at your convenience and control, you tighten the noose and KILL or capture them ALL. Also, you always make a pointed effort to get the leaders. You allow deals to be made with the captured terrorists as to the information they provide. Depending on the success of the information, the terrorist will be rewarded with reduced time in prison or even be set FREE. The terrorist that has been set Free will go with the Warning that if caught having returned to Terrorist activities, he will be shot as an example and witnessed by other captured Terrorist as to our resolve in dealing with them. Those who have information yet, refuses to reveal that information will remain in custody. With that kind of PRESSURE on the captured terrorist, a lot of information will be gleamed. Placing that kind of program in place will cause the terrorists to RAT on each other. By doing so.....the Terrorist groups will soon fall apart. Having a bunch of terrorist locked up with the feeding and tying up resources without some sort of gain for doing so....is a WASTE.
But you're a little off in your view on Ho Chi Minh. Looking at his leadership pre-war, it's easy to make the case he was just a pragmatic freedom fighter. Look at what he wrought, though. The legacy of communism on that peninsula, in a word, is death.
Millions of Vietnamese died after America retreated in defeat. We left for our own domestic political reasons. The Vietnamese people paid a catastrophic price.
We could have done the same thing in Iraq: retreat when things were worst and allow a descent into chaos. Democrats tried to make it happen. And today we're all glad that Bush, against the wishes of the American people, Congress (and Obama!) stuck with the mission and pursued a democratic peace. We should be glad that Obama seems to have learned from his mistakes.
Posted by: AD on September 10, 2009 02:07 PM@4: You're absolutely missing the point. The rise of the Viet Minh and its support amongst the public had more to do with a desire for independence from the French than strong Communist tendencies. If the US had not decided to support French colonial claims in the region against Vietnamese sovereignty, they could have nipped the whole situation in the bud, and kept the North and the South from being divided in the first place.
Likewise, what Smith seems to allude to is the fact that the Viet Minh did a far better job of winning the hearts and minds of the people in Vietnam than the allies of South Vietnam. I agree that the purges after the conquest of South Vietnam were awful, but if you're looking at the war itself, that ability of the VM to gain support amongst the people is what made the difference.
Finally, even if the American forces stayed for another decade, what would it have accomplished? All of SE Asia would have been a smoking, bombed out crater, and there was no democracy in the South... only a succession of strongmen. We were really between a rock and a hard place in that war, just like the Soviets in Afghanistan. Quite frankly, we would have worn ourselves down completely if the war had lasted for another five or ten years.
Posted by: demo kid on September 10, 2009 03:07 PMNow, you're calling me a bunch of unsupported names without cause to unload your wrath because, I pointed out what an IDIOT you are. Again...What a surprise.
Additionally, I stated that Ho Chi Minh actively lobbied for support from Truman (a Democrat, btw!) against French colonial rule and he was rebuffed. Call Ho Chi Minh an unrepentant communist, an evil man, whatever... but we were supporting some pretty nasty people back then anyway for both political and economic reasons.
So, if we had actively practiced what we preached about freedom and democracy, and stepped in to give the Vietnamese support to get their independence before the Communists in China took a central role in the 1950s, we would have saved ourselves a lot of grief. Hindsight is 20/20, but it goes back to what Smith was saying: we're in a much better position in Afghanistan because folks there simply don't like the Taliban. They were the oppressors before the war, and they can only hold onto power through fear and violence. This isn't a case where they can claim to be fighting for independence from colonization like in Vietnam, and while guerrilla warfare is always going to be a part of asymmetrical warfare, this isn't nearly as nasty today as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, you can't seem to form a coherent argument to save your life, deciding instead to throw around insults like a bratty child. You cannot seem to step away from your drooling hyper-partisan diatribes to look at reality, and for that, I really feel sorry for you.
Hope the view's pretty good on whatever planet you're on!
Posted by: demo kid on September 10, 2009 04:39 PMI have already stated my position on Afghanistan and there is no need to go further. Plus, your complaint that I'm being bratty by calling you names as if, you never called me names. I would like to point out a couple of names you expressed @5. Yeah, you're mister Clean...What a Laugh!
The war in Vietnam wasn't just about "containment". Vietnam was in a strategic position with respect to the South China Sea, and it was a major producer of rubber. But yes, I get the theory, and yes, it was a guiding principle of policy at the time. (Note that the Pentagon Papers were quite enlightening to show how far folks were willing to go for this.)
I'm also not claiming that Truman should have been omniscient. I'm sure that in hindsight, supplying chemical weapons to Iraq, installing the Shah in Iran, and providing arms to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan would be seen as bad maneuvers, but you do work with the information that you're given at the time. Still, the overtures were made to the United States, and rebuffed.
That gets to the crux of the argument: what went wrong. Simply put, we were in a very untenable position. The North was getting support from China, but they were also seen as anti-colonialists at a time when the people were not happy with major powers controlling their country. They had support that the US couldn't get by propping up the successive governments they did in South Vietnam, which were pretty much puppet regimes that couldn't do much of anything. The VM had an incredible headstart in winning "hearts and minds" that we couldn't match.
Expanding the war to the North would have been insane. The NVA were not in great shape after the Tet Offensive and all, but using ground forces to take the North in an era of carpet bombing and napalm? It wouldn't just be destroying the village to save it... you'd be devastating the entire country, AND upping the stakes to the Chinese to get them involved.
And "calling you names"? You call me a "shit" and you have the gall to say that? Please.
Posted by: demo kid on September 11, 2009 07:43 AMSo you whine that I'm calling you names, but then you call me "dumb". That's pretty brilliant.
But... ugh. I simply can't argue with someone that is willing to repeat idiotic right-wing talking points without backing them up with far better evidence.
Look, I'm not even covering all of the mistakes and disadvantages that the US had in Vietnam, ranging from a force that was comprised of a notable number of untrained and inexperienced conscripts, to the fact that the US was not adept at using guerrilla tactics but trying instead to fight a standard Korean style engagement without a real "front-line".
However, as it was, the US commitment in the region was well over a half million at one point. Advancing and conducting a land war in North Vietnam would have required far more troops, and resulted in far more casualties. The American public was getting weary of the war because of the draft and the clumsy spin coming from the White House and Pentagon at that point... but a full draft to rustle up another few hundred thousand troops to send to Vietnam and occupy Hanoi? The massive increase in funding necessary to carry out an operation like that? I'm definitely interested in hearing how you would think that would have been feasible.
And yes, the possibility of having American soldiers directly engage the Chinese at a time when they had nuclear weapons was kind of a deterrent too. There was a definite interest in keeping this from being anything more than a brush war. If you could tell me the reason why you think invading North Vietnam and expanding the war into a full-scale regional conflict would have been a GOOD idea, I'd be fascinated to hear it too.
I have the feeling that if you were a general, we'd all be glowing in the dark right about now.
Posted by: demo kid on September 11, 2009 09:45 AMOne half of a million troops would have been more than enough to do the job. You can do a lot with troops if they are used correctly. However, with the Politicians interfering and not letting us invade North Vietnam was what lost the War and not that we didn't have enough troops available. General Douglas MacArthur certainly had less troops when he pushed the North Koreans back to the Yalu River. If action was allowed to move aggressively into North Vietnam, the worst outcome would have been a peace treaty like between North and South Korea. There would have still been a South Vietnam. Because, of the Politicians, it ended much worse, very much worse. But, Truth and Reality have always been too much for a Liberal to grasp. The Liberal will continue to be happy with whatever Political BS is spooned to him. A Liberal is not known to be very good at thinking on his own. He looks for others to tell him what and how to think and you're a shinning example of a Liberal. Nuff said.
China wasn't in a position to go toe to toe with the United States with respect to ICBMs in a country-to-country exchange, but that wasn't the point. We're talking about the use of nuclear weapons in Indochina. You don't need complex missiles as delivery systems, either; there were proposals to mine the North German Plain with "chicken-powered" nuclear mines in the 1950s, for example. This is theater operations and not global conflict we're talking about.
Likewise, it's the escalation that's also an issue. Invade North Vietnam, and you get a twisted form of the domino theory, similar to what happened in Sarajevo to start World War I: China ups the ante, as does Russian and their allies, more countries in the region get pulled into the conflict, and it explodes.
And no, a half million troops would NOT have been enough to do the job in that case.
Again, I'm not saying that South Vietnam falling to the NVA and Communism was a good thing, and I'm definitely not saying that the folks that went to Vietnam, either voluntarily or as part of the draft, shouldn't be commended for the sacrifices they made. However, Vietnam is a great example of a lot of things that shouldn't happen in military operations. Believing that a war in unfavorable conditions should have been EXPANDED, though, and that you can make these types of decisions without considering the wider implications of expanding a war... it's silly.
Posted by: demo kid on September 11, 2009 11:56 AMFor you to come up with that the Chinese would be able to deliver Nuclear Weapons by hand or whatever, to a local and regional theater of War and therefore, the Chinese entering the War was a strong deterrent to the U.S. not invading North Vietnam is Dumb and without foundation. The reality is, the Chinese being a poor country, would be very hesitant in dealing with the affordability of entering the War in the first place, let alone, being anxious to waste what few precious Nuclear devices they may of had on some small regional conflict. Plus, if the Chinese were to introduce and waste their two or three Nuclear Weapons in the Vietnam War, the United States would have retaliated by bringing Nuclear destruction to China itself. There is no way, that the Chinese would avail themselves to such obliteration over Vietnam. Get it?
Irregardless, what I've stated (which you haven't disproven) also makes the argument of the original post moot. Smith wasn't saying that we should have kicked out the French and installed communism in Vietnam, he was saying that the Viet Minh did a far better job of reaching the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. As far as I can tell, nothing in what you would have proposed would have changed that, and that was pretty much why the North Vietnamese could run an effective guerrilla war of attrition against the United States in the South.
Again, this isn't a value judgement... but it is a reading of the facts as they exist. Take whatever opinion you want, but just repeating the tired arch-conservative mantra about politicians losing the Vietnam War is lacking in any intellectual depth whatsoever.
Posted by: demo kid on September 11, 2009 02:40 PMSmith is an Idiot, the same as you. Smith is a Liberal, the same as you. The Truth as to where it is at can be explain to a Liberal all day long and they still wont get it. You have proved that time and time again on this and other forums that you're an Idiot. Asking you to have a clue, is a Waste of Time. So...Take a Hike!
There is one very common conservative talking point that you brought into the exchange: that the Vietnam War was lost because politicians got too involved, and if the military was just left alone to do "its job", everything would be okay. However, for good or for naught, we have civilian control over the armed forces for a reason.
Posted by: demo kid on September 12, 2009 08:09 AMYes, its good that we have civilian control over the military. But, in Vietnam, civilian over-control was for naught and not for good.
Posted by: Daniel on September 12, 2009 09:43 AMFrom Wikipedia:
From 1919–1923, while living in France, Nguyễn Sinh Cung (later Ho Chi Minh) embraced communism, through his friend Marcel Cachin (SFIO).[citation needed] Cung claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917 but French police only have documents of his arrival in June 1919.[3] Following World War I, under the name of Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Quốc petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to remove the French from Vietnam and replace it with a new, nationalist government. His request was ignored.
In 1921, during the Congress of Tours, France, Nguyễn Ái Quốc became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) and spent much of his time in Moscow afterwards, becoming the Comintern's Asia hand and the principal theorist on colonial warfare. During the Indochina War, the PCF would be involved with anti-war propaganda, sabotage and support for the revolutionary effort.
You see, it was Woodrow Wilson, not Truman, and Uncle Ho was a committed communist long before he was ever the leader of the North Vietnamese Communist Party. I didn't have time to read the rest of the story, but I suggest you do some research. You and Adam Smith are dead wrong, although Smith can get a pass you cannot get: if you replace "wrong" with "losing", and put that in the context of his comments, his statement makes a lot more sense. He may not have intended to say we were on the wrong side at all. You are just making arguments based on facts you make up. Go away.
Posted by: srogers on September 14, 2009 12:15 PMBut still, you're not really disproving my argument. Where exactly are the "falsehoods"? There was a significant movement in Vietnam against French colonial power, and the US tried to go against that by propping up whatever regime they could find, even against democratically elected governments. By saying that we were on the "wrong" side, Smith's arguments had nothing to do with saying that we were wrong to oppose communism, just that we were not in a good position because we were identified with the colonial powers that were against independence.
In fact, I'd argue that efforts to keep old colonial systems going after World War II did more to promote communism than anything else. Time and time again, you had regular folks in these different countries that simply wanted independence from the British, French, Portuguese, South Africans, etc., and were willing to throw their lot in with whomever they could find that would support them in that fight.
As I stated a few times, I wouldn't expect Truman to be a fortune teller. However, much of the current political problems in the world stem from the fact that, in hindsight, we really, really, REALLY screwed up when dealing with former colonies and protectorates after World War II.
* read more than just Wikipedia to support your position,
* point out what mistakes I made, and
* present a coherent counter-argument.
Your argument is simplistic, and your facts are wrong. He didn't lobby Truman. He was a communist for 20 years before Truman became president and he became a willing domino in the soviet/commintern strategy to extend dictatorial communism throughout the world and eventually crush the west: using military and political resources to install communist dictatorships, one country at at time, irreversibly, until western capitalism was "buried." Uncle Ho's nationalism was simply a front, a diversion to satisfy leftist chumps, just like the current global warming argument diverts from the radical environmentalist agenda underlying it.
We did nothing to drive Ho to the position he attained, and we certainly were in no position to drive the French out of Indochina. In time, colonialism died its own natural death. Note that the majority of nations achieving independence in this period, with warfare, non-violent protests, or political negotiations, did not become communist nations, and we didn't become involved in any of these struggles. Vietnam was different. The Commintern strategy was pursued (with little success) and contained right up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 80s. For more info and documentation, go to the UW library and look up Grenada - copies of many, many documents are archived there that were abandoned when Maurice Bishop was driven out of the country, and they back up everything I've just written. I still have copies I made there in the late 80s.
I went to Wiki because it was quick and easy - I could get a documented biography of Ho in an instant that proved the inaccuracy of the premises of your argument. But I have read much more than that to arrive at my overall understanding not only of the events leading to the Vietnam War, and its shameful conclusion, but also to understand how history is misrepresented, simplified to meaninglessness, or manipulated for political reasons. I minored in history in college, emphasizing WWII and the post-war years, and I am 50 yrs old - I lived through the end of the war. Four books I have read and recommend: Years of Upheaval by Henry Kissinger; No More Vietnams by Richard Nixon (who was lawyer and a scholar before entering politics, and who may be the smartest modern President we've had, despite his obvious shortcomings); The Battle for Khe Sanh (I don't remember the author); Witness by Whittaker Chambers. Enjoy - especially Witness.
Posted by: srogers on September 16, 2009 09:35 PM@24: First of all, nothing that you've written here has disputed the main point of Smith's statement, or mine: the Viet Minh represented to many in Vietnam a release from the oppression of French colonialism, which is the opposite of the situation we're experiencing here The United States, in supporting the French (and a succession of South Vietnamese strongmen), had little credibility in terms of "defending democracy and freedom". We had quite the notorious habit of installing regimes that were hardly a beacon of hope and freedom to carry out our "containment politicies": Central and South America, South Korea, Iran, and so forth.
Does that mean that I think that communism is great? Hardly. But the advantage that communists had from the 1920s to the 1980s is that they could genuinely represent the dissatisfaction that some folks had with capitalism and colonialism at that point. I don't think they would have signed up for Pol Pot or Stalin's image of the world if they had a choice, but they were seen as a much better ally than an outside government that supported the colonial interests in the country.
Now, with the current situation in Afghanistan, we represent a completely different perspective: we're the ones that came in and allowed folks to shave their beards, listen to rock music, watch movies, and produce heroin. We may be propping up a leader like we did in South Vietnam, but we're still considered to be the liberators. We've done a far better job of winning "hearts and minds", and we're in a much better position because the general public in Afghanistan knows that the Taliban are bastards.
With respect to the French, we actually were in a perfect position to drive them out of Indochina: even before we were sending a half million troops to trudge around the wilderness of Vietnam, we were sending massive amounts of aid to the French. (Around 70-80% of the cost, as I recall.) The main reason why they left was because they were losing other, more important colonial holdings and needed the troops. The war itself was contingent on our support.
Colonialism did die a "natural" death, mainly due to economics. But we DID become involved in many of their political affairs, actually. We didn't necessarily commit troops to all of them, but in terms of support and military aid, the US presence was felt. (Guatemala? Greece? Bolivia?) But "Comintern"? That was an organization that was present back in the first half of the century... and we were definitely NOT signatories to the Anti-Comintern Pact. You might want to get your teminology right with that one.
With respect to supporting Ho Chi Minh, I certainly didn't expect Truman (or Wilson, according to your definition) to foresee the future. I also don't think that he would have been a GREAT horse to back at the time, for exactly the reason that you suggest. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that he was a socialist/communist, and pointing that out doesn't exactly detract from my original argument. However, there are two relevant points to keep in mind here. First, we were hardly supporting a democratic regime in South Vietnam, and with each coup it seemed as if the notion that we were doing this to support the people of Vietnam was a sham. By backing Diem (and his military successors), we lacked the legitimacy that Ho Chi Minh had amongst the people. Second, the US has certainly supported some disturbing folks in the past, even some that had strong socialist ties (see: Hussein, Saddam). Who knows if Ho Chi Minh could have been swayed to a position amenable to American capitalism in the 1950s or 1960s, but we really did a horrible job with managing the entire situation in Vietnam from the beginning.
But agreed with respect to Nixon. He may have been a crook, and he was certainly not the most charismatic or likeable fellow in the world, but he was a shrewd strategist and politician.