Antonio C. Abaya - Obamaâ€™s Vietnam

During the 2004 presidential elections in the US, the Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, often lashed out at the Republican incumbent, George W. Bush, for losing his focus on Afghanistan and being distracted by and diverted to Iraq.

Indeed, when the US struck at the Taliban in Afghanistan in, I believe, December 2001, for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, the acknowledged culprit in 9/11, world public opinion supported the Americans as they rightfully sought to exact revenge for the unspeakable outrage that had been visited on them by Bin Ladenâ€™s Muslim extremists.

The Americans supported a group of anti-Taliban rebels that called itself the Northern Alliance as it rolled down around the Hindu Kush mountains and eventually into Kabul and Kandahar, while American special forces went from cave to cave in and around Jalalabad in the southwest in an effort to smoke out Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda.

But it became a half-hearted effort as preparations were made in 2002 to invade Iraq. Men and materiel and strategic planning were diverted to Iraq, on the grounds (which later proved to be groundless) that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Iraqi secret agents had coordinated with al-Qaeda terrorists for the 9/11 attack.

In truth, the neo-conservatives, led by Dick Cheney (who later became Bushâ€™s vice-president) had decided as early as 1997 that the US should use its pre-eminence as the sole super-power to establish military control of the Middle East, and Paul Wolfowitz (who later became deputy of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both neo-cons) was tasked with preparing plans for the invasion of Iraq, years before 9/11.

The neo-cons realized that their plans would be a hard-sell to the American public. They stated in their white paper of September 2000, one year before 9/11, that they would need â€œanother Pearl Harborâ€ to justify a massive military intrusion into Iraq and the Middle East.

Fortunately for them, Bin Laden obliged by launching his attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, providing them with the â€œPearl Harborâ€ pretext to launch in March 2003 the invasion plans that Wolfowitz (a..k.a. Wolfowitz of Arabia) had drawn up years earlier.

Thus Afghanistan became a mere sideshow with less than 20,000 US troops, as more than 150,000 and billions of dollars worth in equipment and supplies were poured into Iraq. The unspoken rationale, of course, was to control the vast oil resources and reserves, not only in Iraq but also in the whole region. By contrast, there is not a drop of oil in Afghanistan.

The other unspoken rationale was to guarantee security for the state of Israel, always a major factor in American domestic politics, which was threatened by an Iraq allegedly armed with weapons of mass destruction. By contrast, Afghanistan was too far to threaten Israel. (See my article War for Oil and Israel, Jan. 30, 2003, written more than a month before the actual invasion.)

A third element in the decision to invade Iraq was the political support of the Christian Evangelicals, George W. Bushâ€™s biggest support base. The Evangelicals believe that war in the Middle East is foretold in the Book of Revelations and will result in the destruction of Israel, except for 144,000 male Jews who will convert to Christianity, which will be the signal for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. By contrast, the Biblical prophecies make no mention at all of Afghanistan or its ancient incarnation, Bactria.

In his successful campaign to win the presidency, Barack Obama promised a phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, an advocacy that found resonance among the war-weary American public, except among the Christian Evangelicals who, like the neo-cons but for different reasons, want perpetual war in the Middle East.

President Obama has promised withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by mid-2011, but amended his campaign rhetoric to allow 50,000 â€œnon-combatâ€ troops to remain, as in Japan, South Korea and Germany. Instead he wants to send 17,000, and then another 4,000, additional troops to Afghanistan, which has now widened to become a bad-news Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre of operations.

Almost every week, suicide bombings and other, increasingly more daring attacks on both Afghan and Pakistani government targets, and even on fellow Muslims attending Friday prayers in their mosques, remind us of the endless â€œwar on terror.â€ . More and more, Afghanistan-Pakistan is beginning to look and sound like Iraq.

As Bush got bogged down in the old Iraq, so also, it seems, will Obama be in the new Iraq. And unlike in the old Iraq, there are no oil deposits, no guarantee for the security of Israel, no Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in Afghanistan-Pakistan to justify it to the various constituencies that supported war in the old Iraq.

Nothing, in fact, but more serious problems. Such as what to do with Pakistanâ€™s nuclear arsenal and facilities if and when Pakistan crumbles into the ruins of a failed state. The architect of the surge in Anbar Province in Iraq, which is said to have turned the tide in that war, has suggested that US forces form defensive quadrangles in various sites in Pakistan as nuclear technicians try to extricate fissile material from nuclear facilities, both military and civilian.

But that is easier said than done when tens of thousands of unarmed but enraged civilians mob those defensive quadrangles screaming â€œAllahu Akbar!â€ and â€œDeath to America!â€

The Americans continue to hit the tribal border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan using unmanned Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles, on the prayer that they will one day score a lucky hit on Osama bin Laden and/or Ayman al_Zawahiri. But that is like hoping to win the lottery.

Such tactics merely increase the risks of killing innocent civilians and destroying poor peopleâ€™s mud huts. Which merely raises the hate level against the Americans and other foreign occupiers, and guarantees more recruits for the Talibans and al-Qaeda.

Asymmetric warfare may find a more gruesome imagery in Afghanistan-Pakistan. In Vietnam, an arrogant super-power with B-52 bombers, F-4 Phantom jets armed with napalm jelly, Agent Orange defoliants to destroy jungle hide-outs, thousands of Huey gun-ships and Jolly Green Giant helicopters, limitless supply of tanks and armored vehicles, and more than half a million troops at max strengthâ€¦was fought to exhaustion and withdrawal by a ragtag army of guerillas in black pajamas, aided eventually by North Vietnamese Army regulars.

In the evolving asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan-Pakistan, Obamaâ€™s possible Vietnam, that same super-power could be brought to the breaking point by a mere 8-inch kitchen knife.

The Talibans are, literally, Koranic scholars. But unlike Biblical and Talmudic scholars, the Taliban Koranic scholars know how handle AK-47s and Kalashnikovs, fire recoilless rifles, set up improvised explosive devices, assemble suicide belts, and operate T-61 Soviet-made tanks. They also know how to decapitate people, especially infidels.

Last week, I received video footages of Taliban warriors beheading seven individuals, one after another, apparently fellow Afghans and fellow Muslims.. The victimâ€™s hands are tied behind his back and his two feet are held firmly by two Talibans, while the executioner, holding the victimâ€™s jaw, calmly and matter-of-factly slits his throat.

While blood and other bodily fluids spurt from the victimâ€™s neck, the executioner hacks through flesh and bones with his 8-inch kitchen knife, as if he were cutting through a goat or a sheep, until the head is severed, which is then plunked down on the victimâ€™s stomach.

It takes less than two minutes to finish one decapitation. The videos do not record the victimâ€™s screams and gurgling resistance. Instead the chanting of what seem to be Koranic verses accompany the grisly ritual. Allahu Akbar!

The Americans never faced this kind of response from the Vietnamese. They may face it in Afghanistan-Pakistan. The Americans suffered 55,000 dead in Vietnam before they decided to call it quits. How many decapitations on YouTube of captured Americans will the American public tolerate before they demand that their fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters be extricated from the intimidating presence of the Talibans? One hundred? Fifty? Twenty? Ten? Five? Two? Obamaâ€™s Vietnam.

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com

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