Could Afghanistan Become Obama’s Vietnam?


Could Afghanistan Become Obama’s Vietnam?
 
WASHINGTON — President Obama had not even taken office before supporters were etching his likeness onto Mount Rushmore as another Abraham Lincoln or the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt.


Yet what if they got the wrong predecessor? What if Mr. Obama is fated to be another Lyndon B. Johnson instead?


To be sure, such historical analogies are overly simplistic and fatally flawed, if only because each presidency is distinct in its own way. But the L.B.J. model — a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad — is one that haunts Mr. Obama’s White House as it seeks to salvage Afghanistan while enacting an expansive domestic program.


In this summer of discontent for Mr. Obama, as the heady early days give way to the grinding battle for elusive goals, he looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan played out at the same time as the debate over health care heated up in Washington, producing one of those split-screen moments that could not help but remind some of Mr. Johnson’s struggles to build a Great Society while fighting in Vietnam.


“The analogy of Lyndon Johnson suggests itself very profoundly,” said David M. Kennedy, the Stanford University historian. Mr. Obama, he said, must avoid letting Afghanistan shadow his presidency as Vietnam did Mr. Johnson’s. “He needs to worry about the outcome of that intervention and policy and how it could spill over into everything else he wants to accomplish.”


By several accounts, that risk weighs on Mr. Obama these days. Mr. Kennedy was among a group of historians who had dinner with Mr. Obama at the White House earlier this summer where the president expressed concern that Afghanistan could yet hijack his presidency. Although Mr. Kennedy said he could not discuss the off-the-record conversation, others in the room said Mr. Obama acknowledged the L.B.J. risk.


“He said he has a problem,” said one person who attended that dinner at the end of June, insisting on anonymity to share private discussions. “This is not just something he can turn his back on and walk away from. But it’s an issue he understands could be a danger to his administration.”


 
More>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/weekinreview/23baker.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview

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Why is Afghanistan only/suddenly Obama's Vietnam as if he originally sent the troops in to fight. If anything the question should read,  Is Afghanistan America's next Vietnam(include Obama as well in the question if you want). In answer it depends on how you compare Afghanistan with Vietnam. If your talking in terms of the same amount of lives lost within the same time frame then I think not. It would take a big escalation in fighting ability by Afgan resistance for troops to return home in body bags in the same numbers as in Vietnam. Plus I think  once the Afghan current goverment is strong enough to preserve itself (Army/military wise) against any attempted over-throw, the U.S will withdraw all/most of its troops and instead provide arms-length support for Afghanistan's elected Governments.

Truely knowing one is to become one.

|I do not think this is Obama's war and it will not be his Vietnam. If I recall correctly it was George W Bush who began the war in Afghanistan after 9/11

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Afghanistan IS Obama's Vietnam!  He has mismanaged everything else so he will mismanage that too.  I warned you people about that surly misfit!  Will Obama's flattery and hypocrisy win a war against a people that defeated the Soviet Union?

The war was turning things around in Afghanistan, until Obama blew it out his butt!  He blew it in Iraq too, and hates the people who died on 9-11!

Now, I see those same brain dead Obama worshippers bashing against Bush, just to prove how much they hate America!

It figures!  You Democrat lunatics elected Clinton because he waqs a cowardly draft dodger so you could use him to insult Vietnam veterans, and you elected a deadbeat racist from Kenya to insult the meoory of the civilian dead of the 9-11 atrocity!

Why is that Disloyal and Democrat both begin with "D?"

If you think Obama's program is working, ask people who aren't. We all had jobs until Obama sent our employers overseas by unfair taxation that ran them broke and us out of work. It is all Obama's fault.

Obama has more than his hands full dealing with so many issues at home and trying to make changes that are difficult to almost impossible at least as far as his desire for universal medical coverage. Add the worlld situation of Israel and especially Afghanistan and I wonder how he can think straight. He can however,  because he has a great mind, whether you agree with him or not he does have that going for him. The subjuect of concern is whether Afghanistan might be his

downfall and end up being the one thing he would be remembered for in the future. It is often true that it doesn't matter how many good things you do you tend to get remembered for the one big undesirable event you are reccorded as a

failure for not accomplishing. I believe this could be the case for Obama. We have majora problems there. We are losing more lives as we engage more  troops, but we have heard reports that we needs more troops still. That is the way it was in Viet Nam. It has been stated by a high military man that we are now lossng  the war and that we could to so I believe. I'm not absolutely sure on the latter coment.

I don't want to spread any false rummors. The enemy has built up troops and has befriended the local people so we don't always know who the enemy is--sound familiar? We have no invented any thing to discover those bombs implanted in the roads--why haven't we do that? The country is big and  mountionous and it is hard to get around in such territory. Many of the people like the Taliban and think of them as friends and us a prople who want to destroy their way of life of the way they make their income (from the poppy seeds-dope).

We offer them a new form of government that they wonder why they need since they have gotten along so far. Things aren't great and there are  things I's sure they would like to improve, but they are also scared of helping us. There are just so many things to overcome in that country that it seems almost impossible. I haven't mentioned the corruption in  the current goverment. This is probably Obama's biggest challenge of his presidency--bigger than the next biggest, universal health care.  He could fail on both points. I won't count him out yet.

Love everybody!

Afghanistan deserves to be Obama's Vietnam if bush can be blamed for every one of Obama's shortcomings. No one wants to be responsible for losing a war and a large number of lives, but no one wants to keep hearing everything that's happened in his administration was because of or began with Bush. Who is responsible for his steady decline from the good grace of the Ameican people except his inexperience and poor judgement? No one wants to hear the same person toot their own horn so long untill he don't even get long winded anymore.Unless things change soon, we will be destined to circumstances that will leave a lot of things to be desired . That's when we can truly  say ''this was after Mr. Bush's time"  

Your direction,not your intention,determines your destination

This will show you how backward this man is in some areas, he is actually worrying about this Hijacking his Presidency, does he really think that forcing us into communism won't do that anyway? Is anyone really planning on re electing this fool, to what, a new Kremlin?

He really should wake up and smell the coffee, didn't he say during one of his million campaign speeches that he was bringing the troops home? All I have seen him do so far is break his campaign promises, plunge us in to unpayable debt, force us into things no one wants, step all over the constitution and travel around the world with his family and their entourage and take vacations, where does he find the time?

To make the answer to your question short and sweet; This walking Anal Cavity is worse right now, and going down fast,  then Jimmy Carter; and worse then that;  has molded a name for Black America that  will take another Hundred years to overcomen  { they won't be able to have forced trusting of Black America!}  I have a lot of Black friends and they are not happy with this lying multifaced replica of the devil himself!

And He said unto me, You are my servant and You shall glorify Me, then He made my tongue like a sharp sword, and He shined me like a jewel, He gave me a sheild of blood and the word of His testimoney, and No fear for my Life which is the power overcome the enemy.

Miguel999:    Afghanistan IS Obama's Vietnam! 

Just a little over a half year...my, my....

 He has mismanaged everything else so he will mismanage that too.

Like what?  Stock market is up over 9500 from a low of 6500 or so, in just a few months.....housing market has improved for six straight months.....America's image in the world improved overnight....avoided a depression bigger than the Great Depression....health care is going to improve, no way to go but up, since now America ranks 37th in the world....and it's beginning to feel good to be an American once again....

 

  I warned you people about that surly misfit!  Will Obama's flattery and hypocrisy win a war against a people that defeated the Soviet Union?

 

Already forgotten why American went into Afghanistan?  Conveniently, forgotten?  bin Laden, still at large.  Omar still at large.....however, I don't think Obama is going to stay in Afghanistan, since it is not a threat to our security.  At least, not an army necessary to keep the hunt up for bin Laden......which is the only reason to be there.

The war was turning things around in Afghanistan, until Obama blew it out his butt! 

 

What a joker you seem to be.

 He blew it in Iraq too, and hates the people who died on 9-11!

 

A rather sick kind of joker.

Now, I see those same brain dead Obama worshippers bashing against Bush, just to prove how much they hate America!

We'll see where the evidence leads....to Cheney, for sure; but Bush was in the room...

It figures!  You Democrat lunatics elected Clinton because he waqs a cowardly draft dodger so you could use him to insult Vietnam veterans, and you elected a deadbeat racist from Kenya to insult the meoory of the civilian dead of the 9-11 atrocity!

You seem to be an ill sort of chap....wacky, warped....maybe a bit dangerous?

Why is that Disloyal and Democrat both begin with "D?"

A bit sophomoric, if not juvenile, but what does Repulsive and Republican begin with?  "R". 

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