President Obama Will Not Do The Same Mistake That The U.S. Did In South Vietnam

Note To The CIA: Be Careful Who You Assassinate -- Jeff Stein, Newsweek

President Barack Obama might be forgiven if he has moments when he fantasizes about killing Hamid Karzai.

Someday, notes from the Oval Office (or maybe even secret tapes) may reveal that Obama and his aides tossed around ideas on how to rid themselves of the Afghan president, who has returned the favor of being placed in power by looting Afghanistan's treasury, subverting the U.S.'s democratic goals for the country and consorting with its enemies.

Faced with a similar conundrum, President John F. Kennedy wrung his hands in the autumn of 1963, when the corruption and viciousness of the family Washington had helped install in power in South Vietnam threatened to hand the country over to the communists. There were no good choices in Vietnam, Kennedy observed as his secret microphones recorded the White House deliberations. "We're up to our hips in mud out there." Congress might get "mad" at him for conspiring with Vietnamese generals in a coup d'etat, he said, but "they'll be madder if Vietnam goes down the drain."

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My Comment: Afghanistan is not South Vietnam .... it is an entirely different situation. The Soviets and the Chinese are not arming the Taliban, geopolitics and falling dominoes is not in the equation, and 500,000 US troops are not dispersed throughout the country. If there is a similarity .... it is that both were (and in the case of Afghanistan is) a quagmire.