The Gazette-Enterprise

The wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to look like the war in Vietnam. While the war in Iraq is much closer to Vietnam than is Afghanistan, there are some serious similarities.

The first, and most glaring comparison, is the idea that there is a victor and conquered or win or lose comparison. We are still thinking in terms of war where there are clear lines of territory to be captured and retained. Even though there are examples of that happening in cities, we must stop basing our decisions on that possibility. We are fighting an idea, not a nation-state.

Secondly, we have continued to change the reasons we are sending our military into the countries. As we all recall, we sent troops into Vietnam to stop the domino effect of communism. The previous administration sent troops into Iraq to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. We sent troops into Afghanistan to retaliate for the event of Sept. 11th, 2001 and to destroy al Qaeda and the Taliban. As we learned, Vietnam was about nationalism and not communism; we did not and have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the Taliban and al Qaeda have essentially moved into Pakistan.

Vietnam is long past us, yet we are still trying to engage opponents or foes in combat in the same way. We are still talking about victory or defeat. Should we send more troops or if we don’t we will fail. There is one thing wrong with the win or lose scenario: it is not a logical scenario.

The Republicans and right wing entertainers are already saying that if the president does not send more troops, we will experience failure in Afghanistan. The commanding general has apparently said the same thing. Yet the president has indicated that he is going to evaluate the strategy before committing more troops. That is an excellent idea but there is one key element lacking. Namely, he has not said what the strategy is trying to achieve.

We need to learn some lessons from both Vietnam and Iraq. We cannot continue to change the objectives while blood and treasure are being shed. Those losses are not just ours, but our allies’ as well. How many times was the objective in Iraq changed and what is it now? We need to have answers to that question as well as in Afghanistan.

We, as a nation, cannot afford to continue both wars as we are now doing. Our allies are withdrawing from Afghanistan or putting their troops in non-combat situations. If, as we believe, terrorism is a worldwide problem, then we must convince other nations of that so that more troops from those nations are committed.

If the President decides that more troops from the United States are needed in Afghanistan, he and Congress are going to have to increase the number of men and women under arms. We can no longer depend on the commitment of so few to protect the many from terrorism. We can no longer say that the war on terror is to be fought only by those who have volunteered. We are going to have to return to the days of the draft. We are asking too much of too few.

If America is committed to stopping terrorism by being in Afghanistan until terrorism is no longer a threat there, we need to commit America. That means all of us are going to have to sacrifice and help with the commitment. We can no longer only verbalize our commitment. By reintroducing the selective service with no deferments, the Congress and the president will see how fully committed the American people are. We learned during Vietnam, but entirely too late. Let’s not make the mistake again.

Jack Linden is a retired history professor and a regular contributor to the Gazette Enterprise editorial page.

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