Stanley Karnow, in his landmark "Vietnam: A History," wrote that "A Washington Post poll published a week before the (1991) outbreak of hostilities in the (Persian) Gulf indicated that while 63 percent of Americans favored the use of force unless Saddam Hussein withdrew from Kuwait, only 44 percent were willing to accept a thousand American dead, and the prospect of 10,000 killed drove the figure down to 35 percent. Thus the nation, still haunted by recollections of Vietnam, was prepared to tolerate only a bloodless war."
As I contemplate our military surge in Afghanistan, I wonder what a similar poll would yield. On Tuesday, Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Congress that capturing Osama bin Laden is the ultimate key to defeating Al-Qaida and that the United States would never defeat Al-Qaida's terrorist network until he is caught. Yet we acknowledge that Bin Laden is likely not in Afghanistan, but rather, in Pakistan along its rugged border with Afghanistan.
I am a Vietnam-era veteran who, as Karnow describes, is still haunted by what we did there and who we lost there.
How many casualties will the American public tolerate in Afghanistan before the tide of public opinion turns? One thousand? Ten thousand? Let's ask. Please, let's ask.
MICHAEL BATES, HAM LAKE
