MORE TROOPS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/17/09)

When General William Westmoreland called for more troops in Vietnam in 1968, he saw "light at the end of the tunnel." On April 30, 1975, came the "Fall of Saigon" on our Embassy's roof top.

The French General Henri Navarre said the same thing in May 1953. Dien Bien Pho fell in May 1954. Following the French defeat, President Kennedy sent American troops, military advisors, in 1956. President Johnson in 1965 sent in the Marines. In 1968 General Westmoreland wanted 200,000 more.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel in the Afghan War. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke claims the war "will become the longest in American history." After almost nine years, we haven't defeated Al Qaeda or the Taliban and haven't captured or killed Usamma Bin Ladin. The Afghan war has transmogrified into nation building, a fool's errand, if there ever were one, especially since the Afghan government is as corrupt as was the South Vietnamese.

Nations are built from the ground up, often through a revolution of the people, not by foreign interlopers imposing a government militarily. President Eisenhower in 1954 enunciated the "falling domino theory," the metaphoric rationale for the Vietnam War. If Vietnam fell, Southeast Asia would go communist. It didn't. General Eisenhower's metaphor was wrong.

General Stanley McChrystal wants more troops. What general doesn't? What's the metaphoric rationale for an endless war with no clear purpose without a victory in which thousands of America's finest will be killed and maimed? Sorry, no dominoes this time.