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The Consequences of Speaking out |
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Written by Byron Williams
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Thursday, 30 December 2010 |
 Is there a Paul Kattenburg within the Obama administration?
If there is (or was), the ship has most likely sailed on any potential influence he or she may have on shaping policy in Afghanistan.
Kattenburg served 23 years in the United States' diplomatic corps.
On Aug. 31, 1963, Kattenburg, then chairman of the Vietnam Working Group, attended a National Security Council meeting, which would dramatically alter his diplomatic career.
Kattenburg was the lone dissenter at the meeting contemplating whether the U.S. should support the overthrow of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem. Instead, Kattenburg advocated a total American withdrawal from Vietnam -- "It would be better for us to make the decision to get out honorably."
Several high-level Kennedy cabinet and administration officials, including secretaries of Defense and State, Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, along with the Vice President Lyndon Johnson castigated Kattenburg's proposal.
Rusk asserted, "We will not pull out!" McNamara and Johnson followed by reaffirming that "victory," already an amorphous definition as it relates to Vietnam, was the goal.
The "goal," which was never achieved, meant 12 additional years of U.S. involvement in a region it never understood.
Kattenburg's comments were rewarded by his being removed from the Vietnam Working Group and within two years he was sent to Guyana to serve as embassy counselor not far from Devil's Island.
Kattenburg is at best a footnote in history. But his proposal to withdraw from Vietnam, shining in the light of hindsight, would have undoubtedly been the best course of action for the United States.
It is with Kattenburg in mind that I wonder would anyone who advocated a pullout from Afghanistan in a real and authentic way be taken seriously?
We cling to the proposed July 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan as if it truly marks the end of America's military involvement. Even if the administration maintains its commitment, we must ask what does this mean?
It probably means the 2011 timeline could mark the end of the surge and there could be some reductions in troop levels, anything beyond that depends on the unpredictable conditions on the ground. But 2010 concludes as the deadliest of the nine-year Afghanistan war.
Unless there is a dramatic change in the current trend, there is no reason to expect U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to alter noticeably by July 2011.
Moreover, what was once abhorrent to the political left during the Bush administration is hardly mentioned now that President Barack Obama is commander in chief -- the notion of sustaining a sacrifice-free war for the overwhelming majority of Americans.
If this is indeed a noble policy, why can't the American people pay for it now and not charge it to the credit card of our posterity? Since when did fighting a war funded by future generations a good idea?
Why is the unprecedented and immoral cocktail of war and tax cuts beneficial to the nation?
The policy in Afghanistan and Iraq remain one that suggests it is in America's self-interest to continue, but not one worthy to be a dedicated line-item in the federal budget that requires sacrifice beyond a few?
Obama, like his predecessor, appears unable to impassively step back from the advice he receives to make the difficult choice going forward.
Listening to the generals on the ground may sound like the preferred method for making a judicious decision, but it also ignores the possibility that generals, like politicians, can get it wrong.
Lincoln discovered this during the Civil War, as did Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, but fortunately before the Cuban missile crisis.
Kattenburg's experience reminds us silence is preferred if one's view does not align with groupthink, especially if one has any desires to advance within a presidential administration.
I have no doubt the president receives information daily that convinces him U.S. participation in these two theaters of war is the exception to the Vietnam experience. If so, it offers little room for contrarian observations, which often are the only things preventing an administration from lulling itself into believing that only its perspective is normative.
Sadly there is no incentive to follow Kattenburg's legacy -- to engage in the risk going against the status quo with very little possibility for reward.
Why would anyone speak up today, so they can end up on Devil's Island?
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