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(Nguyen Cao Ky and LBJ in 1966 - Tea leaves in the eye of the beholder)

Since the talk this week centers on the endless war in Afghanistan, I thought it might be a good idea to visit another endless war from another time; Vietnam.

Like Afghanistan, Vietnam wasn't instantly met with derision and questions over our involvement. Like Iraq though, we were also sold a somewhat leaky bill of goods and goaded into pledging lives and untold millions over an involvement that had no timetable and no real plan.

The difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is Iraq bears some resemblance to an organized country. Where Afghanistan is one big grab-bag of tribes, sects and factions that have been over-run, quasi-colonized and fought over for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Just like Vietnam.

In 1966 we were still getting our feet wet in Vietnam, having gone from "advisers" to "troops on the ground" in a little over a year. Support and the "domino theory" were still very much alive and our presence increased on an almost daily basis.

But also in 1966 there were the seeds of questions being sown - what was the plan? How long was it going to take? When it is supposed to end? How many troops are needed? What really was the government of South Vietnam all about?

Just like Afghanistan.

And so on June 21, 1966 Eric Severeid delivered a fifteen minute commentary on our state of siege in Vietnam.

Eric Severeid: “A crucial question: Whether our resistance in Vietnam is preventing the spread of Chinese dominance in other Asian countries, through their propaganda infiltration and subversion. The Administration points to Indonesia, where the powerful Chinese-inspired Communist apparatus was smashed not long ago. That would never have happened, we like to think were we not there in Vietnam. If this is true, all of us would feel very much better about this war in Vietnam. My personal opinion is that it’s not true.”

Needless to say, those questions only grew in number and intensity over the next several years as our justifications grew less and less feasible. It would seem we are heading in that direction again.

Link:

The Obama administration on Thursday released controversial memos outlining the legal rationale for interrogation techniques the Central Intelligence Agency used against terror suspects apprehended overseas, and vowed not to prosecute those that carried out what the administration described as "torture."

"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Thursday's developments underscore a quandary of sorts the administration finds itself in -- even as President Barack Obama is to be commended for his transparency in his bid to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration.

Even as the new president has renounced those Bush administration practices, Justice Department lawyers are defending the previous administration's top officials already accused of authorizing and carrying out those policies.

Bruce Fein, former deputy attorney general under Reagan and frequent critic of Bush policies:

President Obama has embraced the national security psychology of the Bush-Cheney duumvirate not only in matters of secrecy, but the entire range of civil liberties abuses justified by a purported global and endless war against international terrorism.

Indeed, Obama has invoked state secrets in litigation to conceal torture, extraordinary rendition, illegal surveillance, or arbitrary detentions that have given rise to private damages litigation against former government officials. He has claimed that Bagram prison in Afghanistan is a sanctuary for United States lawlessness. He has asserted that the entire world is a battlefield against terrorism; thus, drones can be fired without a judicial warrant to kill persons suspected of Al Qaeda membership on the President's say-so alone.

Like President Bush, he has issued a presidential signing statement claiming plenary power over the use of the American military. He has claimed authority to detain United States citizens as "enemy combatants" indefinitely without accusation or trial.

In sum, on national security and the war on terrorism, Obama has shown that the more things change, the more they stay the same, despite his adept semantical juggleries.

Glenn Greenwald has a far more generous reading:

I'll have more details as soon as these memos are available. One can certainly criticize Obama for vowing that no CIA officials will be prosecuted if they followed DOJ memos (though that vow, notably, does not extend to Bush officials), but -- assuming the reports about redactions are correct -- there is no grounds for criticizing Obama here and substantial grounds for praising him.

dday has more at Hullabaloo.

  John McCain has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, and the very first sentence reads, “For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call.”

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I can appreciate how awkward it must be for guys like McCain to claim the moral high ground after being a cheerleader for the war in Iraq, but embracing a neoconservative worldview and denouncing “stark international aggression” at the same time ends up sounding pretty foolish.

And yet, it’s apparently become a standard talking point.

read more...

Didn't we already win in Afghanistan? This is tragic:

A huge blast from a suicide car bomb at the gates of the Indian Embassy on Monday killed 41 people in the deadliest suicide car bombing since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the Taliban.

Among the victims of the attack, the first in seven years on a regional diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, were at least four Indian citizens: the Indian defense attaché, a political counselor and two other Indian officials. Six Afghan police officers were also killed. Many of the rest appeared to be civilians.

The fact that the Indian Embassy was attacked raised suspicions among Afghan officials that Pakistani operatives allied with the Taliban had used the bombing to pursue Pakistan’s decades-long power struggle with India.

Juan Cole covers it...

AP also noted that Sunday's attack came in the wake of pledges of reprisals issued by the Pakistani Taliban because of Pakistani military operations against them in the Khyber area...

The BBC has more...

No-one has admitted being behind the attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Afghanistan has seen a sharp increase in violence, particularly in the south and east - and Taleban militants recently vowed to step up their attacks in the capital. But the latest blast - in what was supposed to be a secure area of Kabul - will greatly concern Afghan government officials, says the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A gas tanker truck wired with explosives blew up in a west Baghdad neighborhood Friday, wounding 12 people and lighting up the sky with a fireball, just hours after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld left the capital, police said....read on...

When the White House says things are going to get worse before the election, that's one thing they are getting right about this war.

...told President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month that there were too few troops in Iraq, according to people familiar with official records of the meeting. Read here

US may strike at Ba'athists in Syria, official tells 'Post' [article no longer posted]

The US is contemplating incursions into Syrian territory in an attempt to kill or capture Iraqi Ba'athists who, it believes, are directing at least part of the attacks against US targets in Iraq, a senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post.The official said that fresh sanctions are likely to be implemented, but added that the US needs to be more "aggressive" after Tuesday's deadly attack on a US base in Mosul. The comment suggested that the US believes the attack on the mess tent, in which 22 people were killed, may have been coordinated from inside Syrian territory.

(hat tip Theodore)

Maureen Dowd in The New York Times:

In Iraq, as Yogi Berra would say, the future ain't what it used to be. Now that the election's over, our leaders think it's safe to experiment with a little candor. President Bush has finally acknowledged that the Iraqis can't hack it as far as securing their own country, which means, of course, that America has no exit strategy for its troops, who will soon number 150,000...

Read on...

Investigators Say Deadly Mess Tent Blast Was a Suicide Attack

Dec. 22, 2004 -- New evidence shows the bombing of a U.S. military mess tent in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday - which killed 22 people and wounded 69 others - was a suicide attack, ABC News has learned.

Investigators at the base have found remnants of a torso and a suicide vest that was probably a backpack, sources told ABC News, indicating that the attack was a suicide bombing.

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Coulter:   ...instead of gloating after everytime there's an attack, liberals ought to be embarrassed...

Ann Coulter is in the lead for our "Wingnut of 2004" award, here attempts (with her typical smear tactics) to deflect any form of accountability to the administration's handling of the Iraq war. To Allan Colmes's credit, he did get her to back off her latest idiotic statement.

Coulter:   ...Okay, your going to obsess over the word gloating...ok, I'll retract it...

I guess honest opinion of a bad situation is considered gloating to Ann.

Chamblis: This is another area where the Secretary is being insensitive.

Hagel: My goodness, that's the least that we could expect from the Secretary of Defense!

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Is it too much to ask Rumsfeld to pick up a pen and sign his name? Now the families are complaining.

When you see a video like this, you only get angrier at Donald Rumsfeld.

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Some might say why aren't we as mad at the insurgents? Well we are, but they don't allocate armor to our troops!

18,000 U.S. Troops Begin Afghan Offensive

KABUL, Afghanistan - Some 18,000 American troops have started a winter offensive against Taliban rebels in Afghanistan (news - web sites), vowing to eliminate insurgents who could threaten parliamentary elections slated for the spring. 

The U.S. military said Saturday that it hoped the new push, dubbed Lightning Freedom, would persuade insurgents to accept an amnesty offered by President Hamid Karzai that could stabilize the country and allow foreign troops to pull back.

"It's designed basically to search out and destroy the remaining remnants of Taliban forces who traditionally we believe go to ground during the winter months," spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said. "It's going on throughout the country of Afghanistan."

Homeland Security warning!

No specific evidence, but intelligence says that terrorist groups have expressed interest in using laser beams to blind pilots during landings!

Tom Ridge had one of his:"nothing more than sharing information that maybe relevant..."

C&L:"Huh?...That's it, scare people who fly even more."

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