No Matter How They Spin It, We Got Beat
by James Glaser
April 15, 2010

The 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh was the longest, deadliest, and most controversial battle of the Vietnam War. The fighting pitted the U.S. Marines and their allies against the Communist North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Both sides have published official military histories of the battle. These histories agree the fighting took place at Khe Sanh; they disagree on virtually every other aspect of the battle. Vietnam was an unconventional war, and absent conventional front lines, statistics became the measure of progress. The most controversial statistic was the number of killed (KIA) claimed by each side. If a battle resulted in a sufficiently favorable body count ratio, American commanders declared victory.

That first paragraph was written by Peter Brush in his 2006 history of the Battle of Khe Sanh. I flew into Khe Sanh. I was bringing radios from MASS 2 to what I remember as Mass 3. I stayed there about 36 hours and feel very fortunate to have left there alive.

I can still remember General Westmoreland telling whoever listened, that Khe Sanh was his, and we could go back any time we wanted. The truth is we wasted the lives of over a thousand Marines trying to hold the place. We lost the Vietnam War, and we lost the Battle of Khe Sahn. Oh, there are people who will tell you that we killed more North Vietnamese in that battle than we lost, and that is true. However, as Ho Chi Minh said, the North Vietnamese were willing to lose ten for every American killed. Their losses were acceptable, ours were not.

Now we jump forward 40 years to Afghanistan, and we are losing battles there, too. Like Khe Sanh, Washington and our generals can claim that we killed more of them than they killed of us. That's a Washington rule to claim victory, but like Khe Sahn, we are the army leaving the field, and we are leaving the field to the enemy. Here is how the New York Times writes it up:

The Korangal Outpost was the third area of eastern Afghanistan where combat outposts closed: In 2007 and 2008 two posts and a smaller satellite base were closed in Kunar's Waygal Valley, and in 2009 two posts were closed in Nuristan Province's Kamdesh region. Along with the main Korangal outpost, five small satellite bases have closed, at least two of them, Restrepo and Vimoto, were named for soldiers who died there.

Not only do we embolden our foe when walk away from the field of battle, but it also demoralizes the Troops. Our Troops realize that those who died, died for a piece of ground Washington decided it didn't need in the first place, and they start asking themselves if we need any of Afghanistan. Abandoning a base named after a fallen comrade leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of our Troops.

I don't know how many regions or areas of contention there are in Afghanistan, but if we have been pushed out of three of them at the point of a gun, no matter what Washington now says, we are not winning. In fact, we are getting beat.

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