Another Vietnam?

While listening to this week’s Meet The Press, I caught New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman saying a “civil war” within Islam was the only way to solve the problems countries in the Middle East like Afghanistan are facing. This was in response to Obama’s recent decision to send another troop surge into Afghanistan. I decided to check out Friedman’s most recent column in the Times.
After reading the column, I realized that Friedman was not necessarily promoting, or even condoning an Islamic Civil War, but instead was saying that in order for us to win the war, more troops aren’t going to do it. A movement has to rise within the Afghan people that would unite them under one goal, independence.
Friedman furthers the parallels many have made between the current situation in Afghanistan and the war in Vietnam. An interview between Walter Cronkite and President Kennedy in 1963 shows that Kennedy was going to focus on helping the Vietnam government gain popularity and improve their military rather than impose American force. This way, the Vietnamese would win their war, not the Americans winning the war for Vietnam. Instead, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, reluctantly felt it would be best to bring the American military in as the primary fighting force in the country.
Now that we are looking at the current situation in Afghanistan, it has become even clearer that our tactics in Vietnam were not effective. By repeating the same mistakes, we seem to be creating the same conditions that signaled trouble in Vietnam: the Afghan government is weak and corrupt, and there is a regional split between two factions (N. Vietnam vs. S. Vietnam, Shi’a vs. Sunni Islam). Perhaps Friedman is right, if we take different tactics in Afghanistan, we may be able to foster Afghan independence, rather than nurture dependence by sending more troops like LBJ did in Vietnam.URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06friedman.htmlReference:Friedman, Thomas. "May It All Come True." New York Times. New York Times, 5 Dec. 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2009.