Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:41:03 PM
Vietnam Afghanistan
On the very day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was celebrating her 62nd birthday and Barack Obama met with his national security team in a conference on Afghanistan tragedy struck US forces in that country as two seperate accidents involving three helicopters-one crashing to the ground and two colliding in mid air-claimed the lives of 14 Americans. This was the single most deadliest day in Afghanistan since Obama took office; and as enemy fire wasn't the cause of either crash it may be ominous of terrible disasters to come for our troops due to Obama's inept, dithering and demoralizing leadership and the strategy he's using in fighting the war.
Consider this:
NBC Mideast correspondent Richard Engel was supposed to be the 11th person aboard one of the crashed helicopters (see). When asked by Charlie Rose in a recent interview if we "should get out of Afghanistan" Engels answered in the affirmative (see).
Engel was born in 1973* seven months after the signing of the Paris Peace accords that ended the Vietnam War. Our training and arming of the South Vietnamese, called Vietnamization, proved futile as they were easily overrun by the Communist North once we deserted them. Is Providence sparing Engel's life a sign that building up the Afghan military and security forces is a complete waste of life, treasure and time, and that once we leave Afghanistan they'll be easily defeated by the Taliban? Unfortunately it looks that way.
*September 16, 1973
Moreover, Hillary Clinton was born on the day Great Britain withdrew its military forces from Iraq* ending a six year occupation. This is the same Great Britain that fought three wars in Afghanistan two in the 19th century and one in the 20th.
*October 26, 1947
The bad omens pile up. For yesterday was the 42nd anniversary of John McCain's tragic flight over North Vietnam* when his plane was shot down during a bombing run. McCain, a leading proponent of McChrystal's counterinsurgency plan, was captured by the enemy during the Johnson administration and spent five and a half horrific years in a Communist jail. This links Afghanistan and Vietnam.
*McCain's plane was shot down October 26, 1967.
Furthermore, yesterday would have been the 87th birthday of Madelyn Dunham*, Barack Obama's grandmother who died of cancer one day before his election victory last year-an unmistakable sign of her grandson's tragic destiny now tied into yesterday's disaster in Afghanistan (see).
* Dunham was born October 26, 1922. Perhaps I'm stretching things a bit here but the number 87 gives us the date 8-7 or August 7th. On this date in 1965 Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing LBJ to use militray force in Vietnam to prevent attacks against US troops.
14 Americans died yesterday ten soldiers and four civilians. When we multiply this number by 139 it gives us the number 1946. This indicates the year when the First Indochina War began between Imperial France and Ho Cho Minh's Red Army. Ho's defeat of the French in 1954 is what drew us militarily into the Vietnam conflict.
Moreover, 1946 was also the year George Bush was born the President who sent us into Afghanistan in pursuit of al Qaida. It was also the year that John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon won their first Congressional races; this kicked off their political careers culminating in the presidency. It was Kennedy who first ordered US military intervention in Vietnam* (four months after Obama was born) and Nixon who ended it.
*December 11, 1961 (see note 1).
Furthermore, Obama and Nixon are the only presidents in US history to inherit wars from presidents of the opposite party-both Texans.
Yesterday was Obama's 179th day in office. 179 is a factor of the number 1969 (11x) giving us the year Richard Nixon was sworn in as 37th president. This marked the beginning of the end for the Vietnam War and coming defeat and humiliation for America. Will Obama end up throwing in the towel and negotiate peace with the Taliban to end the war? Or looking to his reelection will he start withdrawing our forces from the country thus emboldening Taliban aggression and the killing of Afghans and US troops?
It is reported that Obama's greatest fear is Afghanistan hijacking his presidency and overshadowing his domestic agenda as happened to the hapless LBJ (see). Obama is right to fear this outcome. We are in Afghanistan to fight and defeat the jihadists who attacked us on 9/11 and are at war with the Western/Democratic world, but you'd never know it from Obama who refuses to define our mission and puropse in this war. If he continues down this path of poor leadership he is likely to end up the new LBJ with Afghanistan (and Iraq) becoming his Vietnam. Indeed, when
he delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention one day after the centennial of LBJ's birth* it was a sign to him about this fate.
*August 27, 2008 was the 100th anniversary of LBJ's birth.
Obama has tragedy, misfortune, failure and defeat written all over him. This is his destiny and it is inescapable. Yesterday's terrible military accident is a sign that whatever decision Obama makes on Afghanistan will have a bad outcome for him and our national security*.
*The Taliban returning to power means a return or regression to pre-9/11 days with possible attacks on our homeland once again originating from Afghanistan. Thsy will not forget that we drove them from power and all the jihadists we captured and killed. Vengence will be their policy toward us if they prevail.
Did Providence intervene in saving Richard Engel's life because his view on leaving Afghanistan is the best of many bad options? Did the helicopter crashes fall on Hillary Clinton's birthday as a sign that it would be best that we retreat from Afghanistan like the Brits did from Iraq 62 years ago?
Be that as it may, Obama quitting Afghanistan is not in the cards for the moment. Obama is the Bush derangement president (see ) obsessed with besting Bush and Cheney in the War on Terror and capturing or killing Osama bin Ladin. If he's fortunate enough to find bin Ladin (capturing or killing him) it will mean "Mission Accomplished" for him and the end of the Afghan War, with the Taliban likely returning to power once we're gone. Obama is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't order our withdrawal from Afghanistan. One way or the other Afghanistan is likely to be Obama's Vietnam (see). His fear of ending up a failed, ineffective one term president like LBJ will being realized.
Postscript: Is Karzai Afghanistan's Diem?
Karzai Diem
Analogies between the very corrupt Hamid Karzai and murdered South Vietnam President Ngo Diem are by now a dime a dozen. But it is interesting to note that Diem started his presidency on October 26, 1955. Were the fatal copter crashes of October 26th ominous for Karzai as it appearently was for the US war effort in Afghanistan? Will history repeat itself? Will Karzai, his brother and family members share Diem's fate and suffer assassination? When I think on this what comes to mind is al Qaida's suicide assassination of Ahmad Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, just prior to 9/11.
NOTES:
1. On December 11, 1961 the U.S. aircraft carrier "Core" arrived in Saigon with 33 helicopters and 400 air and ground crewmen assigned to operate them for the South Vietnamese Army. Also, U.S. pilots started to train and fly support missions with the South Vietnamese Air Force. This really marks the first larger scale participation of U.S. military "advisors" in Vietnam.