Vietnam War

As a veteran of both conflicts, I’m often asked if there are any characteristics that are common to both wars.  The short answer is: very few.  First of all, Vietnam was a first rate insurgency because the Viet Cong were well trained, disciplined, and very effective.  While I strongly opposed their political agenda and ideology, they did have a plan for governing South Vietnam in the event they succeeded in overthrowing the government. Their plan was to impose communism on South Vietnam.   In Afghanistan, the Taliban have nothing that could be remotely considered an alternative to the Karzai regime.  Their goal is to destroy any trace of western civilization in this tortured nation and return Afghanistan to the 7^th century.  As insurgencies go, the Taliban are at best third rate.  They have two weapons-suicide bombers and IEDs.  I served in Vietnam for over two years and I never heard of a Viet Cong suicide bomber.  They were very effective fighters and would not hesitate to fight pitched battles but they were far too bright to blow themselves up expecting some fantasy reward in the afterlife. 

Camp Eggers, Afghanistan

In Vietnam, we were fighting a war against communist aggression and we said that in no uncertain terms.  On that point, all the coalition forces there and the government of South Vietnam, agreed.  There was no ambiguity.  In fact, under the South Vietnamese constitution, communism was outlawed.  In Afghanistan, there are Taliban members in the parliament.

In Afghanistan, we claim we’re fighting a “war on terror” which is a vague, almost meaningless term because it fails to get to the root cause of the conflict.  The truth is we are fighting a war against Islamic extremism but we can’t seem to bring ourselves to actually say that for fear of offending our Muslim hosts.  Yet this is precisely what the Taliban claim they are fighting for, returning Afghanistan to a pure Islam nation as envisioned by the prophet. 

The Viet Cong were at war with the government of South Vietnam.  The Taliban are at war with the government of Afghanistan, women and the western intellectual tradition of freedom and equality. A favorite target of the Taliban are girls’ schools.  The Taliban routinely attack these schools because they are afraid that an educated female population would threaten their male-dominated world.  In short, they are misogynistic-they both hate and fear women.  This is something that would be alien even to the Viet Cong.  They were far too serious to even consider such idiotic distractions. 

It was in Vietnam that the US Army developed the most effective counterinsurgency doctrine ever used in combat, the Phoenix Program.  As a result of this program, which targeted the leaders of the insurgency for elimination, the Viet Cong were virtually eliminated.  The program operated from national level all the way down to the districts where each district had a fully functioning advisory team.  In Afghanistan, our counterinsurgency program consists of little more than protecting the civilian population at all costs, with special emphasis on protecting the population centers.  While this doctrine sounds very humane and appeases the international press, protecting the population is not the primary goal of an effective counterinsurgency strategy. The central objective of counterinsurgency is to eliminate the insurgents.  Period. Just like treating a cancer patient, the objective is to destroy the cancer, knowing full well that some healthy tissue will be destroyed in the process.  Once the cancer is destroyed, everything is possible.  Until it is destroyed, nothing is possible.  By focusing only on population centers, the countryside is effectively conceded to the insurgents.  Unlike Vietnam, we have very little coalition presence in the 365 districts that make up Afghanistan, which means we really have no idea what’s really going on the countryside.    

Kabul, Afghanistan

One of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan in building the Afghan security forces is illiteracy.  In the Afghan army and National Police, the illiteracy rate is as high as 90%.  This makes effective training nearly impossible.  Recruiting is another major challenge because there is no national draft.  Neither of these factors were much of a problem in Vietnam because the Vietnamese on both sides of the war placed a high premium on education and there was a national draft and it was strictly enforced.  In Vietnam, the penalty for desertion was harsh.  In Afghanistan, soldiers and police simply walk away with no retribution. 

Then, of course, there is the ever present issue of corruption in Afghanistan.  At the heart of the corruption lies a half a million acres of poppies in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces maturing under the bright Afghan sun.  Growing poppies is in direct violation of Afghan and international law yet, incredibly, this practice continues, year after year.  There are other sources of corruption as well such as contract fraud, “ghost” soldiers and policemen, bribes, payoffs, etc., but nothing on the scale of the illegal and open opium trade which runs into the billions of dollars and represents thirty percent of the entire Afghan economy.  The excuse given for allowing this practice to continue is that elimination of the poppies would create an economic hardship for the poppy farmers since they know no other trade.  This is a very thin reason for justifying a criminal enterprise.  It is the intellectual equivalent of allowing a bomb maker to continue making bombs because he knows no other profession. Since nothing like this ever existed in Vietnam,  it is impossible to make any meaningful comparison concerning corruption. 

South Vietnam was a real country with shared values and a common language,  united against a common enemy.  None of that exists in Afghanistan where the highest form of loyalty is to the tribe, family and friends. There is no common language; any number of dialects divide rather than unite the Afghan people and there is very little consensus on who the real enemy is.  Talk to any Afghan soldier or policeman and he will tell you he knows members of the Taliban.  Often, he will have a close friend or relative on the other side, which makes identifying the enemy with any precision  extremely difficult.

Last month, President Obama visited Afghanistan and met with President Karzai.  During that meeting, Obama told Karzai, apparently in direct terms, that Karzai had to step up the pressure on the Taliban.  In a show of defiance toward Obama, Karzai’s reaction was to threaten to join the Taliban.  Such a breach of unity among the coalition would have been unthinkable during the Vietnam war. 

In Vietnam, the army and police worked well together, united against a common enemy.  No such close cooperation between the Afghan army and National Police exists in Afghanistan. This is a serious problem that coalition forces are working to resolve, but they have a very long way to go before we can honestly say the Afghan security forces are working together to create a safe and democratic Afghanistan.

No comparison of these conflicts would be complete without touching on the reaction generated in America.  Since a draft was in effect during Vietnam, Americans in all social, economic and political classes paid the price for this war.  As a result, Vietnam was the source for much unrest among the citizens.  During the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Vietnam was the most divisive issue in America since all Americans, either directly or indirectly, were touched by this war.  This is not the case with Afghanistan, where the Americans who fight and die are all volunteers and, as such, are easily dismissed by the majority of Americans who have little direct connection to them. Thus, the close connection America once felt for the armed forces has been eroded due to the all-volunteer defense force we now have.   

Obviously, any contrast or comparison with Vietnam is a snapshot in time because Afghanistan remains a work in progress while Vietnam is in the past.  It is entirely possible that we can learn from the past, all these challenges will be overcome and Afghanistan will emerge from this current crisis as a unified, fully functioning democracy where the rights of all the citizens are enjoyed freely, without regard to tribal affiliation, age or gender.  It is also possible that the Taliban will lay down their arms and join the government.  It is even possible that the corruption will end and the poppy farmers will grow legal crops next year.  All of this is possible because, as we know, possibilities are endless.  However, I don’t think many professional gamblers will  bet on these possibilities becoming reality.