Vietnam III?

President-elect Obama should be praised for having opposed the war in Iraq. He called it both "a misguided adventure" and "dumb," and rightly so. There was no justification whatsoever to go to war there because not only was there no al-Qaeda hiding in the desert sands, neither 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-elect Obama has always stated clearly that he is not a pacifist. He opposed going into Baghdad on political grounds, grounds of efficacy. So, he will exit from Iraq as quickly as possible due to the ineffective role we played there.

Despite the carnage in Iraq and despite our poorly played role there, President-elect Obama plans to send 10,000 more soldiers into Afghanistan - where he says Osama bin Laden and the real war on terror are situated. He somehow believes that we will be more effective in Afghanistan than we have been in Iraq.

Our future president, unfortunately, is taking a great risk by deploying those troops to another front. I am concerned that, after Iraq became Vietnam Redux, Afghanistan will become Vietnam III. How many more civilians - Afghani and Pakistani - will die? How many more American soldiers will come home in body bags? How long will we be there?

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 endgame? Slash and burn? Kill and destroy? Another shock and awe? Many, many questions rise to the surface of this mucky pond.

This slow-to-finish war has under girded what Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA, called the "terror industrial complex," a slight turning of Eisenhower's concept of the "military industrial complex." Indeed, the fear of terror and its existence in our society has engrained itself into the depths of our civic beings and has, therefore, permitted - no, encouraged - such military moves.

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

It will take a courageous president to bring this creepy-crawlie war to a quick end for it could easily take on another life of its own and begin to spin out of control, just like Vietnam and Iraq.

Our eyes will be on Afghanistan, as have been those of Muslims around the world for the last eight years. What they see is what they'll do, so I beg Barack Obama to be careful. Very careful.
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