Priorities and patriotism

 Pat Oliphant on priorities.

After the discussion the other day about political courage versus partisan hackery, it occurred to me that one reason we've been in Afghanistan so much longer than we were in Vietnam is that nobody in the major parties wants to stand up and ask the sorts of questions raised by Oliphant's cartoon. When does "patriotism" start including a cold-eyed examination of priorities, rather than silent acquiesence?

Ever?

Part of the answer is that a Republican started it and a Democrat has inherited it, but that was reversed in Vietnam, and, while Nixon didn't exactly burn rubber getting out, he did see it as the key to being re-elected in 1972. I've already compared the expectations for Obama with those harbored for RFK, and I'm not surprised he didn't bring everyone home the day after inauguration. But I don't see him racing to complete the process in time for 2012, either.

The larger point, however, is that we seem to be much less willing to question the war than we were a half-century ago.

Granted, 9/11 was no Gulf of Tonkin. Not only did it really happen, but it really happened here, and, while it was a totally bogus excuse to invade Iraq, it had both emotional resonance and actual political relevance in terms of driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

But it's been a decade and, if the Taliban are not totally out of the picture, they don't resemble the North Vietnamese half so much as Karzai is beginning to resemble the Diem brothers and the other leaders of the Saigon governments that followed.

In fact, Kharzi is starting to resemble the kvetching women of the Woody Allen anecdote: "The food here is terrible!" "Yes, and such small portions!"

The Vietnam War inspired criticism from its very start, and not just from the opposition. In the process of considering the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Sen. Gaylord Nelson -- one of LBJ's fellow Democrats -- proposed an amendment limiting the American response, but was persuaded to withdraw it with a promise that the limitations he wanted would indeed be followed.

But he still declared that his support was not to be considered a blank check. Two other Democrats -- Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Arkansas -- were the only two votes against the resolution in either house.

It has become part of folk history that LBJ was genuinely torn by the chants of protestors, asking "Hey, Hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?" But he also faced strong and public criticism from Senators and Congressmen. It wasn't all about the longhaired kids in the street. Not hardly.

Yesterday, NPR reported that Leon Panetta, who faces Senate confirmation as the new Defence Secretary, favors withdrawal. It didn't give a timeline, or indicate just how much he favors it. But Judy Woodruff interviewed Senators Saxby Chambliss and Robert Menendez, who will be questioning Panetta today, on the PBS Newshour last night, and there seem to be significant cracks developing in the wall of support for the war.

How long before cracks become fissures? Who knows? At this point, the dissenters are talking "draw downs." That could mean anything. I had a friend who we thought had lucked out when he was sent to Korea instead of Vietnam. He was shot and killed on the DMZ, in our father's war. And, nearly two generations after that, we're still in Korea.

Will our great-grandchildren be stationed in Kabul one day? 

However it ends, we'll certainly have been there longer than the Soviets. Oliphant asks how much we're willing to divert from our own needs to maintain the war. It's a question still being pondered in the shattered remains of the Soviet Union.

Comments

[David Spitko]

I think one of the huge differences to explain the lack of questioning of the Afgan war as opposed to the Vietnam war is the draft. If children of the upper middle class (children of wealth were able to avoid the draft) were forced to Afghanistan, the colleges would be roiling again and politicians would have to listen to their angry constituents. Also, during the Vietnam war, the press was not yet controlled by corporations and had greater access to what was really going on. Can you picture any of the major anchors of today walking around Afghanistan like Walter Cronkite in 1968?

[Mike]

Agree on the draft, not only because it made the war more relevant and immediate for the students but also for their parents. As long as the war is being fought by "those guys over there," it can be ignored. When you don't know whether your name is coming up next, it does, as the phrase go, tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully. Certainly there are people in Congress and other decision-shaping places whose kids are serving, but not ones whose kids are serving because they couldn't get out of it.

As for corporate news, there are a couple of factors involved: One is that, in a three-network media world, and one in which news and entertainment divisions were separate, the news departments had more of an avuncular view of their mission. They felt a duty to tell Americans what they felt they needed to know, rather than a duty to make sure the dial stayed turned to them. It may have been patriarchal and condescending, but at least somebody who knew what they hell they were doing called a few of the shots.

The other is that they had more boots on the ground, so you didn't have so many cases of "star" reporters parachuting into situations they didn't really understand.