Word: vietnam
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...Obama is ordering 21,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, spending more money there than in Iraq, and approving the firing of the current U.S. commander, liberal Democrats are talking of giving him only a year to show progress. They fear the country could be sliding into a Vietnam-like quagmire, and the Democractic House caucus is already fraying: on Thursday, 51 of them voted against a $97 billion bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq...
...with the incompetents you've got," a Senator who supports the Obama Administration's policy told me. "We have no alternative." Holbrooke made a similar point during the hearing. Yes, he said, this situation resembled the war in Vietnam, harking back to his earliest service, as a U.S. diplomat in Saigon. "Structurally, there are many similarities - the enemy sanctuaries across the border, the [failure of] governance, corruption ... but there is one core difference: 9/11," he said. "There was no threat from Vietnam to the U.S. homeland...
...lies ahead. A new submarine base there gives Beijing a vital edge in the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by five other governments. The disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes, which sit above reserves of natural gas, have been an ongoing bone of contention between China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Further afield, China and India, Asia's other rising giant, are locked in a protracted contest of influence over the Indian Ocean, with China setting up a "string of pearls" - or listening posts - from Burma to Pakistan. New Delhi has stepped up its own military ties with Hanoi...
...response to China's gains - which include putting out three new submarines a year since 1995 - neighboring countries have also set about beefing up their fleets. Just a week after the ceremonies in Qingdao, Vietnam announced its purchase of six kilo-class submarines from Russia. On May 2, the Australian government published a white paper outlining a twenty year, $74 billion plan to revitalize its navy so it could be ready, if need be, to counter a "major power adversary" - a thinly veiled reference to how some defense officials there imagine China's military project. "The front line...
...truth of what is happening in Afghanistan was laid out during recent gatherings held by the advocacy group Iraq Veterans Against the War, during which vets testified to the brutality of the occupation. Hamid Karzai's government is just like the puppet regimes the U.S. set up in South Vietnam. And as in Vietnam, civilians are being massacred by U.S. troops. The media will deny it until, like My Lai, it becomes too big to be denied. While I heartily disagree with its policies, even the Taliban would be better for Afghanistan than the U.S.'s self-serving occupation. Hannah...