Much has been made in recent media reports about the conflict in Afghanistan surpassing the length of the Vietnam War, becoming the United States’ longest war. Some would dispute that, and few would suggest the two wars are comparable.
Unlike the Vietnam War, the beginning of the ongoing war in Afghanistan can be dated very precisely to October 7, 2001, when U.S. and British forces launched an invasion to remove the Taliban from power and rout al Qaeda from its mountain sanctuaries along the border with Pakistan.
Operation Enduring Freedom was unprecedented in that it was the first time the United States mobilized its military might to respond to an act of terrorism.
That winter, I was one of a CNN team at Tora Bora – Osama bin Laden’s warren of caves in the White Mountains. U.S. airpower, including B52s from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, pummeled al Qaeda’s hideouts. But there was very little U.S. presence on the ground in that remote corner of Nangahar province.
The work of corralling al Qaeda fighters was left to the poorly trained and unmotivated mujahedeen of the Northern Alliance. Many of al Qaeda’s hierarchy escaped. It was the first misstep of many in a country that has become a graveyard for invading forces since the days of Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.
Today, 104 months later, about 1,000 U.S. servicemen and women have died in Afghanistan (the exact number depends on the criteria you use) along with very nearly 300 British military personnel and others from NATO countries that have contributed to the International Security Assistance Force.
Most of those deaths have occurred in southern Afghanistan, and more can be expected as coalition forces try to drive the Taliban out of Kandahar, which they still consider their spiritual home. Most of those U.S. troops have died in the past two years; it is a casualty rate that has risen sharply compared to the years following the invasion.
But the Afghan War can’t really be compared to the conflict in Vietnam, which claimed some 58,000 American lives and involved more conventional warfare, including pitched battles for major cities, as well as guerrilla combat. The Tet offensive in 1968 involved some 80,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers in a series of coordinated attacks on cities in South Vietnam.
The Taliban would not be remotely capable of such an operation. The Afghan War is what military analysts call a “low intensity” conflict – a counter-insurgency campaign of small engagements and ambushes but few if any pitched battles.
Another critical difference is that the Vietnam War was part of a larger ideological battle fueled and financed by the superpowers – pitching communism against the free-market democracies in a giant game of dominoes that was played out on five continents. The Afghan War is part of a new paradigm: a clash of “value systems,” one based on culture and religion rather than political philosophy. The term the military uses is the “assymetrical war.”
However, there are similarities between the Vietnam and Afghan wars. In both cases, the United States' enemy used terrain and time of year to its advantage, and has proved adaptable and resilient. The U.S. public has gradually lost faith in the prosecution and purpose of both wars. Few CNN polls since 2006 have shown a majority favoring the war in Afghanistan; the latest from the end of May has just 42 per cent in favor and 56 percent opposed.
Whether or not Afghanistan is now the longest war that America has fought is a contentious issue. The Department of Defense officially lists deaths in Vietnam beginning November 1, 1955 as related to the war; that’s the date when the Military Assistance Advisory Group began in Vietnam. Others insist that 1964 represents the year when the United States rapidly escalated its military presence in Southeast Asia, and moved from a support role to front-line engagement.
The start of the Vietnam War is also dated from the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, something that diplomat Richard Holbrooke has rejected.
Holbrooke, the current U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, was a young diplomat in Saigon during the Vietnam era. He notes that casualties began in 1961. On the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, there are 16 U.S. personnel listed as killed in that year.
Whatever the arguments about timelines, Holbrooke says he expects Afghanistan to be one of the longest wars in U.S. history. And with the gift of hindsight, he says it’s more important than Vietnam.
“Vietnam was not directly related to our national security interest in the way Afghanistan is," he told National Public Radio. "We're there because of 9/11. And that's a simple matter of fact.”
Both wars have cost the United States dearly, both in the number of lives lost and in military spending. But they don’t compare with the era of “total war” – the conflicts that involved the entire population, when society as a whole was mobilized to support the “war effort.”
On 6th June 1944, D Day, the United States lost an estimated 2,499 men on the beaches of Normandy – more than twice the number of American troops so far killed in Afghanistan.
© 2010 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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I agree with ^^^
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S. Powell you dumba$$ the marines an't growing opim to export. They are there to kick ass.
Sepmer Fi
Vietnam has no OIL.
I say we give them the ultimatum. behave or be nuked over all the poppy fields. kill the buffalo... kill the indians concept here target the money. We back out. we nuke then we kindly ask pakastan for osama with a bow on top in 30 days..
I do believe this war can be seen similar to Vietnam except that we have far more cause and doing a whole lot better job. This was is not going to be simple or quick, it will be long and less costly (comparison to other wars). It is not going to be just an individual soldiers' effort but yet a whole worlds' civilian effort.
More than anything else at this moment we are there to stay on top of Pakistan. We all know Pakistan has a lot of nuclear bombs and the ability to deliver them. Right now the regime is stable. If our enemies get their hands on just one, and they are probably trying to do so, it could be a disaster.
Thank you for caring everyone,but we the United States are not in Afganistan to win..We a are there to fight a regime that has a problem with women bettering themselves.It might sound rediculous but if you read about what the Taliban do you will clearly understand that they are there to cause mayhem.
The simple fact is that Afghanistan isn't a winnable war. Do we honestly think that if we capture or kill Osama Bin Laden that the Taliban/Al Qaeda will simply throw down their weapons and surrender? These people have a way of life that we will never understand. They are individually motivated and would rather die fighting than surrender.There is no organized army force that we are fighting against and can be ordered to surrender. This is a sad and discouraging fact, but it is the fact. With all that said, the Taliban will soon come to realize why the Nazis and VC were so afraid of the Marines as they drop the hammer on their sorry asses.
I didn't read through all the posts, so this may be redundant.. As a combat veteran of the Operation Enduring Freedom, I resent the comparison to D-Day, which implies that this conflict's casualties are negligible when compared to one day of combat in WW2. War should never be quantified by numbers, because each soldier who falls is just as valuable as any other, and to compare the wars in which they are involved is to put a value on their sacrifice.
They say Albert Einstein was a bright guy when he said as long as we have weapons we will find a reason to use them. I am a Vietnam war veteran and former VA employee. Our military wounded from the Vietnam war were not as serverly wounded physically or they would not of made it back due to lesser medical and response technology than we have today. Both wars have destroyed the minds and hearts of Americans, Afghans and Vietnamese.
Listen. Completely take over the distribution of the opium crops by bullying the Tailban. Offer protection and a good return plus the aid to grow other crops that feed people. There is a medical market for opium. We need to take the power away from the Tailban. AND i agree with everyone since I am running for OFFICE. Just Kidding.
If this was truly about 9/11 the US would have pursued bin Ladin with all its might and never would have sent forces into Iraq. As soon as they had bin Ladin and those they thought responsible they would have withdrawn and taken him back to stand trial. Bush/Cheney had another agenda and capturing bin Ladin was not in the plans. Now Nato countries which stood by the US in the wake of 9/11 are trapped in an unwinable situation. You cannot fight a religious war with guns and bombs. The more of the enemy you kill, the more religious the battle becomes for them, the more tenacious they become, their is no fear of death to a zealot, superior fire power will hold them at bay, but cannot conquer the beliefs which give them a reason to be.
this is the fruit of U.S. agression against muslim countries and we hope this will continue untill it review policies. if us is still willing to remain their i hope they will not get out alive.
And the " CREDIT " goes to Pakistan, for Afghan longest war.
Leave now and leave Iraq. Two BS Corporate America Big Oil Lie and say its about stopping terrorism wars.
There are parallels to Viet Nam
Innocent civilian by day and Viet Cong by night
Taliban fighter until killed then they become a innocent civilian.
The reality is that the Afghan's only live to fight and die. If not with US involvement, then amongst themselves...they can't concieve of a life without killing someone, anyone. They have been doing it since time began and will be doing it until time ends.
As soon as Congress declares war, we can start the clock. Until then, it's just a corporate takeover that kills people.
I should like you to note the Canada, one of those other unnamed NATO countries to which you refer, has lost about 150 soldiers in Afghanistan, which proportionate to the population, is more than any other country, including the U.S.A.
This article passes as propaganda but not as news. As others have pointed out the very premise of the article is based in a lie. Whether it is the "longest" war or even "unprecedented" miliitary response to a terrorist act. Did the reporter ever hear of a President named Jefferson? President Jefferson sent the US Navy and Marines to attack the Barbary Pirates and their collaborating governments – and that was a few years before our reciprocation in Afghanistan. Perhaps the phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" is alien to the reporter. Then, again, propagandists usually know the truth and simply choose to ignore it. Way to go, CNN! Just because another President with Jefferson in his name (Clinton) failed to respond adequately to terrorist acts doesn't mean that when a President (Bush) does respond that it was "unprecedented". Of course, maybe CNN simply doesn't want to remind its audience that the Barbary War was fought to stop SLAVERY – the ENSLAVEMENT of free men by a certain culture, since slavery still is practiced and honored by that very same culture. I'm sure CNN doesn't want to rock the boat of an administration that believes firmly in moral relativism and the right of other cultures to enslave women and others.
There are some key similarities between the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan that are often over looked due to the superficial differences of the ideology of the insurgents and the terrain. Just as in Vietnam the Unites States equates that technological superiority and the vast economic power of this country can and should guarantee victory over a foe, this is the failure of American military thinking. All one has to do to understand why, is to examine the remarks of the General Diep who lead the North Vietnamese forces to victory over the United States. When reminiscing about the conflict he stated that the first time his forces fought a large engagement with the Americans the American routed them by applying their immense technological advantage and fire power. But he also noted that after examining the battle he was able to come to the conclusion that this was in fact where their weakness was, because this reliance on technology meant that the American force carried the Unite States where ever they went impeding their mobility, but more importantly it showed the longing that American had to return to their country, and as for him and his forces, they weren’t going anywhere, this was their home. This strategy is simple an enemy has to do is show up for the fight and eventually the amount of lives and money spent will manifest themselves, as well as the futility of the conflict that seems to just go on. I don’t want the United States and its allies to lose this war, because I have little respect for the ideological belief and draconian religious interpretation that the Taliban have, but I do recognize that they are fighting at home and that means that they don’t have to win any battles, they just have to have the will to get up in the morning and pick up a gun.
P.S It is true that LBJ allow his civilian cabinet to become heavily involve in military planning, but it is often forgotten that these me were not just any civilians, most of them had server in the military during WWII as did Robert McNamara who achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and did have an understanding of military doctrines.
Even the opening paragraph in this article starts with a lie. The Afghanistan war did *NOT* start on October 7, 2001. It started when the hardline neoconservative Islamophobic think tank "Project for a New American Century" wrote their manifesto "Rebuilding America's Defenses" in 1999, published on September 10, 2000, which called for a series of preemptive wars in the middle east against Muslim nations, Afghanistan included. May signatories of the PNAC ended up in the Bush Administration. The next stage happened in the week after Bush was inaugurated in late January 2001, when initial plans for the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq were discussed. The next significant step was for US military units (aircraft carriers) to assume strategic positions in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Pakistan, in July and early August 2001. By the time of the 9/11 operation, there were already US special forces in Afghanistan. CNN should check the facts before feeding their readership with untruths.
since the founding of this nation american always are at war. if not with each other american they will go out and pick a fight with other nation. every continent on the face of this earth american has military base...last count if was over 270 all around the world. obviously it is for american safety as preached by the government. american people are brought up with mentality that they are superior being compare to any other races. either you agree with us or your are with the enemy. talk about arrogant assertion. of course when you have thousands of nuclear war head point down on your head not many nations on earth can say screw you ugly american we don't agree with your version of thinking. american people will never be able to understand from the poor and oppressive people perspective. if they know they will not sit idle and let this atrocity of war going on for decade after decade.
the US hasn't won a real war since 1944. Yet we spend more on defense than anyone else... Is this about war, or money? Wake up.
I WONDER HOW MANY OF THESE" COMMENTER " WERE BORN BEFORE VIETNAM.......WHERE'D THEY GET THE HISTORY.....NOT IN SCHOOL . CURRENT (5O YEARS OR YOUNGER) HISTORY JUST ISN'T TAUGHT ! MOST WAR HISTORY HAS TO BE OVER 90 YEARS OLD.(WE CAN'T HAVE A LIVING PERSON TO DISPUTE THE TEACHER .) MOST HISTORIANS HAVE AN AGENDA BEFORE THE 1ST WORD IS PUT TO PAPER.....P.S THE U.S.A.DID NOT LOSE THE WAR,,,THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID (April of 1975), TWO YEARS AFTER THE U.S.A.MILITARY DEPARTED IN MARCH OF 1973
Ummm.....Korea is the longest, for it still continuing today. A peace treaty was never signed to end the war, just a cease fire agreement. Thus, the US and the rest of the UN, is still at war with North Korea. With no vote needed from congress to redeclare war, it could start up again as you're reading this. Hopefully that doesn't happen though....
WHY THE U. S. A. HAS SO MANY WARS ALL OVER THE WORLD, WHILE THE U.S. CITIZENS ARE STARVING, LOOSING THEIR HOUSES AND SO MUCH UNSTABILITY AND WITH THE FUTURE SO GRIM? WHY THE U.S.A. WANTS TO SPAND SO MUCH LIKE NAPOLEON. WITH THE VIETNAM WAR THE U.S. GOVERMENT DID NOT LEARN THE LESSON BY THAT TIME WE HAD JUST ONE WAR TODAY WE HAVE (5) FIVE WARS AND ALL OVER THE WORLD THE PEOPLE THINK THAT THE U.S. GOVERMENT IT IS THE CANCER OF OUR MODERN WORLD. HOPE THAT THE U.S. DOES NOT DESINTEGRATE LIKE THE SOVIET UNION; BUT THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ROME, NAPOLEON AND THE SOVIETS.
EITHER WAY GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.
TONY
Argue all you want about Afghanistan. We ended up there after George THE MORON Bush invaded Iraq. And why did we invade Iraq? Well people, the real reason was oil money for Bush and his father...another winner.
Actually MORON, the war in Afghanistan started BEFORE the war in Iraq. Not that I'm a fan of Bush, but you should bash people if the information you put out is wrong.
America's invasion of Afghanistan should be compared to Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
USSR invaded Afghanistan and failed. So did America.... how the heck can you compare Afghanistan to Vietnam? They are worlds apart and vastly different fighting.
A comparison with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is more accurate.
Yes we did not win in Vietnam and we will not win in Afghanistan, we do not learn from history.
The Iraq war looked like Vietnam.The war in Afganistan looks more like a place for the US armed forces to test their equipment and fine tune their battlefield tactics and besides the talibans have a problem with little girls going to school.,just for that they deserve to get their butts kicked.
I had understood that the local fighters we relied upon at Tora Bora were part of the loosely collected "Eastern Alliance" (predominantly Pashtun) and were specifically NOT the forces of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance that had traditionally opposed the Taliban.
It is common to compare Afghanistan now to Aghanistan a year after the US invaded. I think it is more true-to-life to compare Afghanistan now to what it would be like had we never invaded. That, of course, is in the realm of speculation.
Ask yourself:
1) Are we better off today for having invaded Afghanistan and spend 9 years there?
2) Will we be better off if we remain in Afghanistan?
Bush/Cheney totally scr3wed up when went into Iraq and turned our back to the real problem Afghanistan and Bin Ladin. They are totally responsible for the mess we have today.
The Vietnam war was started for the wrong reason and polarized America. The war in Afganistan was started for the right reason. The US military pushed the war in Vietnam evan after they knew that because of the terrain and tenacity of the enemy it was not winnable without more casualties than the US was willing to accept. The US military in Afganistan did not pursue the war in Afganistan because it was shifted to Iraq and without the draft could not muster the resources to fight on both fronts. In all three wars the real problem was the incompetence of the civilian leadership which asked the military to do the impossible. We now have top leadership that can win but the problem is that the US is so polarized politically that we can't accomplish anything, let alone win a war.
I'm not at all convinced that we could win the war in Afghanistan without suffering "more casualties than the US were willing to accept." That's not say we stand at risk of losing 58,000 troops as we did in Vietnam; it's just that this isn't the 1960s, and the notion of losing just a few thousand troops (which would've been a daily occurrence in 1944) is a much more severe (and more readily politically exploited) milestone today than it used to be.
Tack on top of that the extent to which Afghani society continues to engage proudly in things that we abhor – sentencing religious converts to death, beating child brides if they flee their forced marriages, and engaging in armed intimidation to ensure election results – and my guess is that American interest in Afghanistan will vanish long before the war could be won.
And why not? Afghanistan being able to house a bunch of barefoot riflemen was never an issue for us. If we see terrorist training camps, we should bomb them, and otherwise we can just let the country find its own way. In a place where tribal loyalties matter more than sanitation, it's hard to expect us to relate enough to matter.
The United States should make up their minds that in the future, if we decide that we need to attack any country, it be to completely put that country back in the the oh, say 3 century!! When we attack one week and then say we are going to just rebuild them, in the long run all we do is put money (millions if not billions) into the pockets of those that we attacked the week before. The current rulers in Afghanistan are doing just that, making millions and in two or three years at this rate we will either still be there or will have just given up like we did in Vietnam! We could have won these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a couple of weeks and lost less than 100 solders. If we had done so, maybe, just maybe the next country that decided to 'Try' us would rethink their position.
OnTheRoad, we could have 'won' the battle quickly, as you say. But to win the 'war' we might have to have stayed and continue to stay. Our Afghanistan war is like getting rid of roaches. You can kill all the roaches in the house but new ones will move in after awhile. Taliban are like roaches. The question for us is what price? If one could not afford to keep their house roach free they would content themselves to living with them. Sure we can deny the Taliban a good foothold in Afghanistan but at what price to ourselves?
It doesn't help that our troops are themselves no longer able to do anything but shoot, with everything else contracted out to private interests so that we can shovel billions of borrowed American dollars into the pockets of Halliburton, KPMG, and similar well connected companies.
The trouble with history is that the longer ago something happened, the more revised and summarized and ultimately forgotten history itself becomes until it is literally nothing more than guesswork based on what little archeological evidence we can dig up and piece together to make some fantastic story about a civilization that "could not possibly know anything" in the first place (remember how shocked the authorities are that five thousand years ago cultures had moved directly from caves to pyramids). So often people act like teenagers without even thinking about it. Remember when you were a teenager and you thought you knew everything about something simply because you had read a few sentences in a book (or some teacher had told you so)–oh, and can you think back to how often those few sentences that made you believe you knew everything you needed to know on an subject to make you speak so authoritatively in the first place were sentences created by someone else who had read only a few sentences and become an authority whose source was also an authority based on having read a few sentences and so on? Sadly, today we live in an alleged information age when everyone's an "authority" and 99% of the information available seems to have been completely fabricated either as a joke or deliberately in order to confuse or incite that darling rage (the mother of all war).
History is beautiful in that anyone who really wants to learn from it must actually study every bit of information they can find on a subject in order to truly understand it... and even then they must admit they don't know everything, especially since it is obvious that even living through a period of time does not necessarily mean that one will know why an event occurred so all history is automatically false history as soon as the next generation begins learning it. Certainly one cannot just take at face value a few carefully organized facts conveniently attached to one group's view and assume they know anything at all, yet that is how we behave.
I often wonder what the people of five thousand years from now will think of today's humanity... If they ever come across the internet, undoubtedly they will think we are all terrible liars.
i think we can say that the current war we are in can be compared with the vietnam war... with the technology we have and that is being used against us is alot more advanced than what was used back in vietnam...
This is a classic example of sticking one's nose into somebody else's business. Tell me – what the hell do we win if we do win? And to think of all the lives dreams and hopes of so many people wasted is a nightmare.
the War on Terrorism will never totally be over because out of the 6 billion people on the planet, some will always hold a religious grudge against others. Violence is in human nature, going all the way back to Cain and Able, so all of you "lets talk peace, not war" people are trying to deny the fact that humans are violent creatures. In my opinion, I believe that the war in Iraq was devised to construct an American friendly platform that could be used as a launching point for future operations against terrorist groups in the Middle East. Afghanistan is/was merely the "first" operation of suppressing terrorism. The success of this war depends on the feelings and backing of the American people. If WE wish to win, then we will. As it stands though, many Americans are fed up with this war and have lost hope for a victorious outcome, so for this reason I believe we may fail. During WW2 the entire country tried to help out. Vietnam? Not so much. Which did we win? WW2. Go figure.
Wars and conflicts are nothing but a racket... In the words of U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
I'm just going to support whatever war we start because that's what the propaganda instructs me to do.
2014 will mark 100 years in our drug war. Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. The laws are worse than the drugs.
Perhaps we should look at the reasons behind this war and stop supporting Israeli occupation and colonization...but i think it might be too late for that now...
Guerilla warfare can not be beaten just contained. The vietnamese proved it and so will the Taliban. Its a catch 22. You cant send home troops with a force that thinks its still in the 15th century whose greatest entertainment seems to be public floggings and executions on a sunday. Its just no on. It seems that we are going to be in Afghanistan for very long time. I hope our weapons industry can come up against a good deterrent for ieds. At least for our troops sake.
building raport with the populace is key. building infastructures and any help to the populace does this. It takes along time for this to happen. We are their for Al quida. And we are also in the philippines fighting al quida..and I bet u guys dont even know that. Operation enduring freedom philippines. yes alquida is everywhere...it takes along time to capture/kill High value targets. With US presence in another country..raport is very very important. but to build relationships and to win their minds and heart..will take along time.
Either your an idiot or totally clueless about what's involved with any war. Fundamentally, they are all the same! One side attempts to kill the other side. In the end, the country with the most still standing wins, GET IT! Build into it anything you want, the reality is still the same, people die! If i had to bet on this particular war, my vote would go to the United States. Ofter all, we have the technology to turn that entire country into a very large ash tray. Too bad the Russians didn't take the initiative several years ago.
US should get out and stop supporting israel, which has abused human rights of millions of impoverished palestinians.
The U.S. is hundreds of thousands of innocent Afgan men, women, and children yet to be killed before the level of our genocide in Vietnam and Cambodia is approached.