War On Terrorism: Viet Nam Redux? by bobby jennings While watching the HBO produced "Path To War", a docudrama about how the US and President Lyndon Johnson were pulled into the Viet Nam War, I could not help but make comparisons to the current war on terrorism. In Viet Nam we were slowly and methodically pulled into the war by questionable global concepts and egos. But, if one thing can be discerned from our experience in Viet Nam, it is that it was a war that should not have been fought and could not be won. And in the end it left 50,000 Americans and 3 to 4 million Vietnamese and Cambodians dead. Any sane person can only reflect in disbelief. As in Viet Nam, America again is slowly and methodically being pulled into war. The war on terrorism should be merely a necessary police action to round up criminals, an action that is always required in a lawful society. Make no mistake, I am for rounding up global criminals and for increased vigilance by law enforcement authorities. But, I don't for a minute think they can stop all criminal activity and I don't even pretend that I think they can. Thus, I am not in favor of locking down our borders, suspending citizen's rights, or restricting any other rights we and our ancestors have worked for, suffered for, and died for, in a mythical quest for security from a bloated government that can't seem to get out of its own way. But I think there is more going on here than is immediately apparent and it's here our foreign policy fails us and misrepresents the true meaning of America as it has so often done in the past. Like the Roman Empire, our Government is scattering our legions across our "oil" empire. This is not left wing or liberal jibber jabber or conspiracy theory as some may characterize, but straight out of Business Week. (The Next Oil Frontier: America carves out a sphere of influence on Russia's borders, May 27, 2002. Subscribers to Business Week can find it here online.) Oil is the lifeblood of America, you say, and our oil interests must be protected. Then, I must argue that, if we just spent 10% of our 400 billion-dollar annual defense budget for 10 years on renewable energy sources and conservation measures, we would have no need to protect foreign oil interests. And there would be many other benefits to our society besides removing foreign oil dependency. Mind you, I have no problem with American companies making investments in foreign countries, oil or otherwise. But I draw the line at stationing American troops in countries like Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to protect those same private oil interests and then pretend it is linked to terrorism. Frankly our governmental involvement in the Caspian Oil fields looks more like Western Imperialism in China during the 1800's. See Opium Wars and The Boxer Rebellion. This comparison to China is not just historical but weighs heavily on current affairs. One can only be concerned that the Carlyle Asian Group's publicly stated interest is China. And that George H.W. Bush is Carlyle's Asian advisor. And that our current President and many of his administration were or are connected directly or indirectly to the Carlyle Group. (See The Nation.com "Crony Capitalism Goes Global".) At best, these connections give the appearance of impropriety. I am also disturbed that plans to attack the Taliban were in place prior to 9-11 (NBC) and I suspect so were plans to attack Iraq. Coupled with the almost immediate stationing of troops in Caspian Sea area after 9-11 and preplanning attacks of Afghanistan and maybe Iraq may suggest something else is at play besides retaliation against Osama bin Laden. It is an easy guess that he who controls the flow of oil from the Middle East -- Caspian oil fields, pipe lines, and tankers -- to the emerging industrial giant China, will think they hold the upper hand. Instead of Opium Wars will it be Oil Wars? As Yogi Berra would say: It's deja vu all over again. General Westmoreland, the commanding general in Viet Nam had it right. The secret to winning the Viet Nam War was "winning the hearts and minds " of the Vietnamese. However, someone forgot to point out that you can't win hearts and minds with bombs and that people have long memories of atrocities. While serving in Germany in the late 60's, I found the German people to be very hospitable, but the firebombing of Dresden was brought to my attention more than once in discussing the purity of the American War effort. See: The Truth about the 1945 Bombing of Dresden and The Fire-bombing of Dresden: An eye-witness account. Hitler himself proved that bombing would only strengthen the resolve of the British people during World War II. Like Viet Nam, the current War On Terrorism is based on questionable global concepts, should not be fought, and can not be won by military means. Terrorism and other criminal activities can only be limited by truly winning the hearts and minds of the people of the world and by just enforcement of laws at home.
 RECOMMENDED BOOK: "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace", ?2002, by Gore Vidal. Published by Nation Books. http://www.nationbooks.org
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About The
Author
 bobby
jennings is co-publisher of InnerSelf Publications and webmaster of
InnerSelf.com/InnerSelf.ca. Originally a Democrat for many years, he moved to
the Republican party in the mid 1980's and the Green Party in 2000. He returned
to the Republican party after the 2006 election. He now supports common sense
initiatives from all parties and votes independently in the general elections.
He supports small efficient honest government, government managed capitalism, an
independent judiciary, religious tolerance, and social justice. He is an ex-Army
officer and retired small business owner. He was born, raised, and educated in
the "Old South" in Northern Florida.
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