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Vietnam?
It says much
about the mindset of the West, or at least of its elite, that this
is already a question after a few weeks of desultory bombing in
Afghanistan.
R. W. Apple
yesterday wrote one of his quasi-op-eds that the New York Times
runs in its news pages, making the comparison between the current
conflict and Vietnam. Apple admits that the comparison is "premature,"
but says that it is not "unreasonable" — whatever
that's supposed to mean.
Actually, it
is totally unreasonable.
Yes, the war
in Afghanistan could be going better — NRO has been criticizing
our apparent strategy for weeks now — but slow progress doesn't
another Vietnam make.
Any similarities
between the two conflicts — U.S. advisers on the ground, for
instance — are entirely superficial, on the order of: We used
helicopters in Vietnam, and are using them again in Afghanistan,
therefore Afghanistan is another "quagmire" that will
cost tens of thousands of American lives. (Bob Novak also resorts
to this sort of superficial analysis, in his column today.)
In his 800
words or so, Apple doesn't manage to hit on any of the rather large
differences between the current situation and Vietnam. As ABC News
military analyst and NR contributing editor John Hillen points
out, there are at least three big ones.
The first,
and perhaps the most important, is that the Taliban will not be
receiving major supplies and reinforcements from another country,
the way the Viet Cong did from North Vietnam, nor will the Taliban
have the support of major powers, the way the Viet Cong could rely
on the Chinese and Russians. This means that the Taliban —
apart from some sporadic support from elements within Pakistan —
is on a road to strategic starvation.
The second
is that Afghanistan, at least at the moment, is not a guerrilla
war. The Taliban has frontlines that we can bomb, something that
was too often missing in Vietnam.
The third is
that in Vietnam, we were propping up an increasingly unpopular government
with legitimacy problems, whereas in this case it is our enemy that
is trying to save an unpopular regime tainted with foreign support
(Osama bin Laden and his "Arabs").
So, this is
far from another Vietnam, except in the minds of parts of the pundit
and political class, who will apparently never recover from their
Vietnam Syndrome.
Next:
Saudia Arabia?
A sort of consensus may be forming among war hard-liners: first
phase Afghanistan, second phase Iraq, third phase Saudi Arabia.
Ralph Peters has a piece today in the Wall Street Journal,
raising the idea of seizing the Saudi oil fields. Stephen
Schwartz has a similarly tough piece in the latest NR,
calling for liberating the Middle East from Wahhabism.
A
Reminder
Lest you forget why we can't stand the French and the Saudis, the
Washington Post ran a story yesterday on terrorist Imad Mughniyah,
who was involved in bombing the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983,
hijacking TWA Flight 847 in 1985, and bombing the Israeli embassy
in Buenos Aires in 1992.
According to
the Post:
Lebanese
security officials, exploiting a monitored telephone call, traced
Mughniyah to Paris in November 1985, only five months after the
TWA hijacking. He was staying at the Hotel de Crillon, a tony
hotel just across from the U.S. embassy on the Place de la Concorde.
Tipped by
the Lebanese, U.S. officials asked French police to arrest him
and turn him over. Instead, according to a source who was closely
involved, French intelligence agents met with him several times
over a six-day period and worked out an agreement to release him
in return for the freedom of a French hostage.
At another
point, U.S. intelligence got word that Mughniyah was stopping
over in Saudi Arabia on a flight from Khartoum, the capital of
the Sudan, to Tehran. Despite entreaties to Saudi authorities
that he be taken into custody, he was allowed to proceed.
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