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The mountains of Afghanistan are quickly growing verdant in their similarity to
the jungles of Vietnam. The revelation this week in the New York Times that
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Karzai, is a ''thug'',
''suspected player in the country's booming illegal opium trade'', and ''on the
CIA payroll'', is striking not for its news quotient, but for the fact that it
was made by what appear to be White House officials. We are in 1963 all over
again.
It was that year that American president John F Kennedy, fresh off his victory
in the Cuban missile crisis, began asserting himself more deeply in the Vietnam
conflict, which had, until then, been
run almost entirely by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The president was
intervening because Ngo Dinh Diem, the CIA's man in Saigon, a city he ruled in
a country he only tried to rule, had gained a reputation as a gangster, thug,
and narcotics dealer both on the ground in Vietnam and in the international
press.
Diem had carefully built a network of power from his base of Catholic
supporters, French post-colonial arms and narcotics dealers, local criminals,
control of the prostitution and bar industry, and through work with a longtime
Saigon criminal syndicate known as the Bin Xuyen, originally river pirates, now
traders in narcotics, and more importantly, information. His spy network was
thorough and terrifying to the local populace. Through this network, Diem, a
man who kept a working casino on the top floor of his presidential palace, had
gained a firm grip on the security of Saigon.
However, the North Vietnamese had built a successful public relations campaign
against Diem for these very reasons. Kennedy felt he had to win over the
population of Vietnam, and could never do so with such a known thug in office.
This was in direct contradiction to the CIA's perspective. Their chief man in
Asia, Edward Lansdale, had personally nurtured Diem's rise to power. He felt
that Diem, while dirty, had taken great strides in gaining control of a country
that the colonial French had so recently fled.
The dispute became personal: Kennedy asked Lansdale to the White House, and
Lansdale fought tooth and nail in a September 1963 National Security meeting
for the president to back Diem and to give him moral and political, as well as
financial and military, support. Lansdale berated the administration for not
having already done so - even going so far as to accuse State Department
officials of having tried to kill Diem in 1960.
Ultimately, Kennedy came round to the belief that the United States could
better win over Vietnam by replacing Diem. He ordered the American ambassador
at the time, Henry Cabot Lodge, not to meet with Diem, and soon American
military commanders gave the go-ahead to a coup by Diem's own military leaders.
The new leaders let the network of thugs, criminals, gangsters, and
ex-colonialists fall apart, and with it, Saigon's security. The coup led to a
never-ending power struggle among South Vietnamese military leaders for control
of the various power centers of the old network. Amidst the chaos, the North
Vietnamese leadership was able to quickly infiltrate the city.
In the words of the North Vietnamese politburo: "Diem was one of the strongest
individuals resisting the people and communism. Everything that could be done
in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of
the most competent lackeys of the US imperialists ... Among the anti-communists
in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political
assets and abilities to cause others to obey."
Ho Chi Minh thought Diem was such a powerful figure that he ''could scarcely
believe the American's could be so stupid'' as to have replaced him.
Indeed, Ho Chi Minh's prediction proved true. Under new rule, Saigon fell from
bad to worse, forcing the CIA to later re-institute a ''strong-man'' policy in
the city, only to see support for its rule and efficacy undermined by the Tet
offensive. In Vietnam, neither the idealist route of dumping thugs nor the
cynical route of reinstating them worked. Ultimately, there was no compelling
reason to the Vietnamese why the United States should be in Vietnam.
And so it is little surprise, but a well-timed reminder, that also this week, a
leading American figure in Afghanistan offered his resignation, stating, ''I
have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the
United States' presence in Afghanistan.'' Mathew Hoh, the Senior Civilian
Representative for the US Government in Zabul province, wrote on September 10
in a four-page resignation letter that ''I have doubts and reservations about
our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based
not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.''
Now President Barack Obama is choosing between strategies in Afghanistan, with
the New York Times reporting that his administration has ''deep divisions''.
Yet they seem to be split only between the strategies of cynicism and of false
idealism. The White House has already made clear that its decision will involve
a troop increase, the question being only how large and deployed in what way.
Throughout the general mass media bonanza that has been covering the decision
over Afghanistan, from the fawning entire Nightline episode dedicated to a
''day in the life'' of Stanley McChrystal, to the most recent New York Times
piece about Karzai's allegedly drug-dealing brother, few have explored why the
US remains in Afghanistan at all.
The New York Times article, based on statements of "American officials"
indicates only one thing: that the White House has clearly decided to confront
the CIA, and Karzai, over Afghan policy, undermining both in one quick news
attack. What it has clearly not decided to do is pull out of Afghanistan.
There is an old British diplomatic saying, ''The United States will always do
the right thing, after it's tried all its other options.'' Lets hope that 45
years after 1963 we have outgrown this. But it doesn't appear to be the case.
Michael Wallach is the former senior analyst for Middle East Public
Opinion at the US State Department. He resigned, with little fanfare, due to
the US's overall Middle East policy.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in contributing.
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