Vietnam III?

The economy is the first concern of Washington these days, but as we move forward with the Obama administration, my biggest fear is another issue that may lead to our President's failure. What brought it to mind was a report on CNN this morning concerning the skyrocketing suicide rate among veterans who have returned from Iraq.

Some people wonder whether yesterday's Republican "shot across the bow" is the beginning of the end of Obama's power and popularity. I couldn't disagree more. First, he's got a lot of political capital stored up before he takes a slide down the 'hill' towards negative ratings.

To a certain degree, if the stimulus doesn't work, Obama will definitely take a hit. But it won't be anything compared to soldiers coming home in bags, or physically and psychologically damaged.

President Obama should be praised for having opposed the war in Iraq. He called it both "dumb" and "a misguided adventure," and rightly so. There was no justification whatsoever to go to war in Iraq because not only was there no al-Qaeda hiding in the desert sands, nor were there weapons of mass destruction sitting half-created inside empty trailers.

Obama also opposed the surge, which on the surface brought relative calm to Iraq. In reality it was actually one of three or four factors that gelled and allowed the Iraqis to resume a semblance of life.

And they needed it. Since 2003 about 90,000 civilians have died in this outrageous war; more than 4,200 American soldiers have been killed. Overall, approximately 100,000 human beings are dead because of this "misguided adventure," this "stupid" war.

Although he opposed the Iraq war, President Obama has always stated clearly that he is not a pacifist. He opposed going into Baghdad on political grounds, since Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and since Al-Qaeda was not based there. Therefore, he plans to exit from Iraq as quickly as possible due to the ineffective role we have played there.

Despite the carnage in Iraq and despite our poorly played role there, as Secretary of Defense Gates testified before Congress this week, President Obama plans to send 30,000 more soldiers into Afghanistan. Because of our determination to take on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the mountains, he somehow believes that we will be more effective in Afghanistan than we have been in Iraq.

Obama, unfortunately, is taking a great risk by deploying (and re-deploying) those troops to another front. I am concerned that, after Iraq became Vietnam Redux, Afghanistan will soon become Vietnam III.

How many more civilians - Afghan and Pakistani - will die? How many more American soldiers will come home in body bags?

Is our plan to control Peshawar militarily and improve Afghanistan socially? How will we be perceived by the local people?

Could there be another insurgency? If we kill Osama bin Laden, do we leave?

What is the strategy? Slash and burn? Shock and awe...again?

How long will we be there? What is the endgame?

Like bubbles of gas in a mucky pond, many questions rise to the surface. And it just doesn't smell right.

Why are we there? To kill Osama for what he did on 9/11! At least that is what the party line is. This slow-to-finish war, however, has undergirded what Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA, called the "terror industrial complex."

Weiner's term is a slight twist on Eisenhower's concept of the "military industrial complex," which intimates that our society has become inextricably tied to militarism. Indeed, the fear of terror has ingrained itself into the depths of our society and civic beings and has, therefore, permitted - no, encouraged - such militarism to solve all our international problems.

Like the Soviet Union before, we don't know what we're getting into in Afghanistan. It will take a toll on our nation in many ways: socially, financially and psychically. The effect will be both external and internal, as we watch the elephant grass of Vietnam become the buildings of urban Baghdad become the mountains of Peshawar.

It would take a courageous president to bring this war to a quick end because it could easily take on another life of its own and begin to spin out of control, just like Vietnam and Iraq. I hope President Obama has such courage. Otherwise, it could lead to his downfall, like Vietnam did to LBJ.

It will take more than one interview with Al-Arabiya to convince Muslims around the world of our good will. They have been watching our involvement in Afghanistan and, thus far, what they have seen has been a clenched fist more than an open hand.

My eyes are on the economy and the turmoil that has been caused here in our country. In my peripheral vision, however, is on Afghanistan. And what I see are memories in the form of bodybags and damaged soldiers.

I beg you, President Obama, be careful. Very careful.

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With considerable modifications, this is a reposting of a piece written on 1/9/09.