Newsweek's Evan Thomas, John Barry, Fahreed Zakaria: cowardly, bottom-feeding armchair quarterbacks

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Coming to newsstands Monday: 1965.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Newsweek_puts_Obama_in_Vietnam_0131.html

That's the year then-President Lyndon Johnson officially expanded America's involvement in Vietnam, expanding the number of US troops from 3,500 in March to 200,000 by December.

Newsweek invites the comparison with a bold cover, titled, "OBAMA'S VIETNAM," going to press less than two weeks after Obama takes office. Johnson, like Obama, inherited a troubled US conflict from his predecessor.

"A wave of reports, official and unofficial, from American and foreign (including Afghan) diplomats and soldiers, present and former, all seem to agree: the situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse," the magazine's Evan Thomas and John Barry write, in a news story that accompanies an opinion piece by Fahreed Zakaria. "Some four decades ago, American presidents became accustomed to hearing gloomy reports like that from Vietnam, although the public pronouncements were usually rosier. John F. Kennedy worried to his dying day about getting stuck in a land war in Asia; LBJ was haunted by nightmares about "Uncle Ho." In the military, now as then, there are a growing number of doubters. But the default switch for senior officers in the U.S. military is "can do, sir!" and that seems to be the light blinking now. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, when in doubt, escalate. There are now about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration appear to agree that the number should be twice that a year or so from now."

[elleng]

1. Maybe they are,

but there's little doubt Afgh has been a problem for a long time. Did you read their story?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. I did. It's a little soon to call it "Obama's Vietnam." n/t

[elleng]

7. I'll try to read it.

It certainly is too soon, and its worse than that; suggests that since vietnam and iraq, President Obama won't have learned somethings, for example the questions to ask proponents and military.

[jenmito]

2. Wow-comparing an increase from "3,500 to 200,000" under LBJ to doubling the number

of troops in Afghanistan. :eyes:

[MarjorieG]

4. We have different motives than planting Democracy or colonialism-like Bush or Russia.

All about world-wide terrorism and stabilization, and as much as we want to rebuild, also, we can't do it until stabilized. Like all that money thrown at Iraq too soon.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. Exactly, Obama isn't sending 60,000 troops to conquer Afghanistan

He's sending 60,000 troops to maintain our stable foothold in Kabul and a few other areas so that we can fight Al Qaeda. If anything I think that analogy is far more comparable to Korea. Our objective is to push the Taliban out of the areas we want to control, not to eliminate the Taliban entirely.

[liberalmuse]

5. That is disgusting.

I think I'm going to have to get rid of my cable again, and glance towards the gum instead of the magazines in the supermarket. I can't take much more of this bullshit.

[senseandsensibility]

6. I got a free subscription to that rag in 2001

and canceled it (even though it was FREE) because of its chimp worship. I see that haven't changed.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. My dad just got me a free subscription to it and it kicked in about a month ago

I really wish he hadn't. I really do. Right from the first issue I knew I was risking a heart attack by trying to read it. I used to read it a few years ago. I didn't realize how much of a right-wing rag it is. It might've been even back then when I was also filling my head with CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the corporate propaganda "organs" out there. No wonder my head is so messed up!!!!

[LittleBlue]

10. This will be another debacle where we "surge" and then pull out

because of the lull in violence.

Obama should be smart enough to renege on his campaign promise, because it sounds a helluva lot like escalation in Vietnam.

[Binka]

11. Fuck The CIAWeek Dirty Rag

All the trash you meant to take out.

[bread_and_roses]

12. Wow. So many eager to bomb more children and old people in

Afghanistan - sounding just like the apologists for every other of our oh-so-justifiable slaughters. Which has nothing to do with the article in question, whih I have not read and don't intend to. But Obama would do well to reflect on Alexander the Great, even if the inhumanity of continuing to continuing to slaughter children holds no sway with him.

[berni_mccoy]

13. They wanted to call it "Obama's Holocaust" but the editors wouldn't let them

The editors felt that they couldn't pull that off with even the dumbest Americans.

[CTyankee]

14. Well, "holocaust" has taken on a whole new meaning since WWII.

That's probably the reason they took it out.