A few days ago I happened on to a somewhat obscure, 8 minute video from BBC.
I see no way to embed the video but I would urge readers to watch it in order to have a better understanding of what our military is faced with in dealing with the rural population of Afghanistan. The video is from 2008 however it provides relevant insight to the situation on the ground then and now.
John D McHugh reports for BBC and brings us this video of Charlie Company of the 173rd Airborne. Members of Charlie Company attempt to get information about the Taleban from a Pashtun village elder.
As the article headlines point out "the gulf is so great even the interpreters have given up interpreting." The interpreter would ask the elder a question and the Pashtun elder's response would be unrelated to the question.
Some poignant memories were aroused upon watching the video linked in the introduction.
It's been 42 years since I first set foot in Viet Nam. As young enlisted Marines we had been indoctrinated to believe we were sent there to help the people of South Vietnam, to save them from communism.
I had purchased a small Vietnamese-English language phrase book at Camp Pendleton and hoped to try conversing with the local population. Although we were discouraged from contact with the people - "they're all VC" we were told upon arrival, I wanted to learn more.
Young boys were the easiest to engage in conversation. Young girls carefully kept their distance and adults went about their daily activities as if we did not exist. They seldom looked in our direction.
"Where are the VC?" I would ask in all of my naivety and awkward pronunciation. There were two standard answers. The first was "Khong biet" (don't know). The second was accompanied by a gesture pointing off the distant mountains to our west, "o tren nui" (up in the mountains). It would be a few weeks before my first firefight confirming the fact that the VC were not only in the mountains and that they were among the people, the rural population of Quang Nam.
Two and a half years later my conversation skills had improved but the answers to my questions were as elusive as ever.
Meanwhile:
The new head of the British army warned that the UK's involvement in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years, as the Ministry of Defense announced that three British soldiers working with special forces had been killed in a roadside ambush.
... (General Sir David) Richards, who will become Chief of the General Staff later this month, told the Times: "I believe that the UK will be committed to Afghanistan in some manner – development, governance, security sector reform – for the next 30 to 40 years."
The Guardian 8 Aug 2009
Joe Biden tells us:
"It is worth the effort we are making," he said, warning that the terror groups on the border with Pakistan could "wreak havoc" on Europe and the US.
... The vice-president insisted that "in terms of national interest of Great Britain, the US and Europe, [the war in Afghanistan] is worth the effort we are making and the sacrifice that is being felt".
He added: "And more will come".
President Obama has made significant increases in the number of US forces in Afghanistan. At the same time the influence of the Taleban has also increased. For anyone who has memories of the Viet Nam conflict this should give cause to notice the similarities.
Obama has tasked General McChrystal to conduct a review and provide a detailed proposal for victory. In turn General McChrystal and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, contacted Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stanley Karnow, who opposes the Afghan War, last month in an apparent effort to apply the lessons of Vietnam to Afghanistan.
Holbrooke confirmed to The Associated Press that the three men discussed similarities between the two wars. "We discussed the two situations and what to do," he said during a visit last week to NATO headquarters in Brussels.
In an interview Thursday with the AP, Karnow said it was the first time he had ever been consulted by U.S. commanders to discuss the war. He did not elaborate on the specifics of the conversation.
When asked what could be drawn from the Vietnam experience, Karnow replied: "What did we learn from Vietnam? We learned that we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Obama and everybody else seem to want to be in Afghanistan, but not I."
MSNBC
Will someone provide us with an honest answer - why is there such a long term threat from Afghanistan? What is it and what form does it take? How many billions of dollars will be thrown at this military adventure that has repeat quagmire written all over it? Aren't there better ways to end "terrorism" than by terrorizing others?
Yes, we have a powerful military but when it comes to winning hearts and minds, the key to success in wars such as Afghanistan, we are out of our league.