I SEE QUAGMIRES:

A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam (R. W. APPLE Jr., October 31, 2001, The New York Times)

Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad.

Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam? Is the United States facing another stalemate on the other side of the world? Premature the questions may be, three weeks after the fighting began. Unreasonable they are not, given the scars scoured into the national psyche by defeat in Southeast Asia. For all the differences between the two conflicts, and there are many, echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable. Today, for example, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed for the first time that American military forces are operating in northern Afghanistan, providing liaison to "a limited number of the various opposition elements."

Their role sounds suspiciously like that of the advisers sent to Vietnam in the early 1960's, although Mr. Rumsfeld took pains to say of the anti-Taliban forces that "you're not going to send a few people in and tell them they should turn right, turn left, go slower, go fast." The Vietnam advisers, of course, were initially described in much the same terms, and the government of the day vigorously denied that they were a prelude to American combat troops.

In the most famous such denial, Lyndon B. Johnson vowed that he would not send American boys in to fight the war for Vietnamese boys.

Despite the insistence of President Bush and members of his cabinet that all is well, the war in Afghanistan has gone less smoothly than many had hoped. Not that anyone expected a lightning campaign without setbacks; indeed, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have often said the effort would be long and hard. [...]

At least at first, American public opinion would present no problem. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans are prepared to accept the deaths of several thousand American troops there, although there were the first suggestions that many Americans think that the war is not going too well.

Bush's Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion (R. W. APPLE Jr., March 30, 2003, NY Times)

Though the scion of a family steeped in politics and public service, George W. Bush remains a young president who came to the White House with relatively limited knowledge of the world and its ills. Yet for two years he has ridden high in public esteem, thanks to confident leadership after Sept. 11 and a surer political touch than his detractors give him credit for.

Is his luck about to turn in the winds and sands of Iraq? [...]

For the moment, Mr. Bush seems secure. People like him. None of his possible Democratic opponents loom as a major threat, not so far.

Still, for presidents, especially for wartime leaders, political capital can drain quickly from the White House account. After the guns fall silent, voters' eyes turn elsewhere, often to social and economic needs. It happened to Winston Churchill late in World War II, and as this president remembers better than most, it happened to his father, too.

Mr. Apple better get to work on his Syrian and North Korean quagmire stories. Actually, all he really has to do is swap out the names, eh?

MORE QUAGMIRISM:
Back Off, Syria and Iran! (MAUREEN DOWD, March 30, 2003, NY Times)

We're shocked that the enemy forces don't observe the rules of war. We're shocked that it's hard to tell civilians from combatants, and friends from foes. Adversaries use guerrilla tactics; they are irregulars; they take advantage of the hostile local weather and terrain; they refuse to stay in uniform. Golly, as our secretary of war likes to say, it's unfair.

Some of their soldiers are mere children. We know we have overwhelming, superior power, yet we can't use it all. We're stunned to discover that the local population treats our well-armed high-tech troops like invaders.

Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it?

"The U.S. was planning on walking in here like it was easy and all," a young marine named Jimmy Paiz told ABC News this weekend with a rueful smile. "It's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?"

We will conquer the country, and it will be gratifying to see the satanic Saddam running like a rat through the rubble of his palaces. But it was hard not to have a few acid flashbacks to Vietnam at warp speed.

-Iraq and the Lessons of Lebanon: 'Don't Forget to Leave': Israel's experience in Lebanon - an ambitious invasion that turned into a draining quagmire - is a cautionary tale for the American war in Iraq. (ETHAN BRONNER, 3/30/03, NY Times)
-As a Quick Victory Grows Less Likely, Doubts Are Quietly Voiced: After 10 days of watching smart bombs, sandstorms and stiff resistance from the Iraqi regime, a capital that usually embraces a president at war is beginning to show fissures. (DAVID E. SANGER, 3/30/03, NY Times)

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 30, 2003 6:23 AM