Iraq isn't Vietnam.
Iraq is civilized, modern country, which the United States has nearly destroyed, but which is still able to re-organize itself. The situation, in Iraq, miserable as it is, might improve in time and meanwhile the USA would still control some of the world's best oil fields at what would probably be a decreasing cost to its forces.

It is said that Iraq strains America's armed forces "to the breaking point", but in fact the occupation has been "managed", by a relatively small number of professional troops and a pack of venal contractors.

Afghanistan is a completely different story: it has never been organized; it never was what you would call "civilized"... and since Alexander the Great, no one has ever been able to conquer it.

To "win" in Afghanistan would mean bringing back the draft in the USA and Europe in order to put boots on the ground of every inch of Pakistani Waziristan for the at least the next decade. It might cause the disintegration of Pakistan and destabilize all of South Asia... And still lose!!!

Afghanistan could be much worse than Vietnam.

While David I might agree with you the Afghanistan has the potential of becoming another Vietnam if we look to the Russian occupation as the model. However, we also must remember that why Russia invaded in the first place.

In April of 1978 the Marxist PDPA Party seized power executing then head of state Mohammad Daoud Khan and his family and immediately set in place Soviet style reforms and decrees. Which sat poorly with the population. A rebellion against the government started in late '78 and the Russian at the behest of the Afghan gov. sent in troops to prop up the regime in '79.

Now enters the US and funny how this came to be, I quote:

As stated by the former director of the CIA and current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in his memoirs From the Shadows, the American intelligence services began to aid the rebel factions in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet deployment.

On July 3, 1978, US President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to conduct covert propaganda operations against the communist regime.

Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated "According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise." Brzezinski himself played a fundamental role in crafting U.S. policy, which, unbeknownst even to the mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy "to induce a Soviet military intervention." In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski recalled:

"We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would...That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap..."

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.

Additionally, on July 3, 1979, U.S. President Carter signed a presidential finding authorizing funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan. As a part of the Central Intelligence Agency program Operation Cyclone, the massive arming of Afghanistan's mujahideen was started.

Unfortunately where we failed miserably was follow-up. When the Russian left so did we. Thus allowing the Taliban to fill the vacuum. A even more repressive regime than the PDPA or the Russians. Afghanistan may be muslim, but it is not nor has it ever been a highly strict muslim country, the Taliban changed that. So the difference may, and I emphasize the may, be in the fact that the Afghan people do not want the Taliban back in power. There is no US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and China propping up the insurgency.

By definition anytime you have factions within a country fighting you can label it a civil war. Will the outcome be different it well could be. It depends if we follow more of a Powell doctrine with clear goals and a clear exit strategy. How ever in this life there are no guarantees.

Actually the greater issue than Afghanistan may be Pakistan and their blind eye to allowing a haven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the northern territories.

I for one do not think we are capable of fixing as you say. It is not nor should it be our job to fix. Maybe allow the space for the Afgan gov. and the Afgan people to fix would be a better way of putting it. However, for this to happen we must not try and force them to fix it in our image. I have never been a proponent that all the peoples of the world want to be just like us or that our form of government works for all. Hell sometimes it doesn't even work for us.

Seaton is back with his usual cluster of strawmen.

First he tell you that JFK disappointed him from the grave, and then he declares that Obama is another JFK, and of course that means that Obama is bad. Nice trick that, if you want to fall for Seaton's bullshit.

JFK was in his grave, when Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, and kept on escalating in Vietnam. Kennedy was dead, so no one knows what he would have done, so Seaton is just making up a pack of lies about Kennedy having caused all those deaths in Vietnam. He was dead folks, so he did not cause any of that.

Now we get to the next Seaton deceit:

Obama wants to pull out most combat troops from Iraq, which did not attack the US, and deploy more of them to the region that actually attacked the USA on 9/11.

The US is on it's own in Iraq, but of course since Obama wants to turn the control of that nation back to it's government, then Seaton has to object. The amazing thing is that Seaton declares that the reason why we should stay in Iraq is because it has long history of being civilized and able to run it's own affairs. That makes Obama's point valid.

NATO is in Afghanistan, so America is not going it alone. We have a united front there with all our most important allies; the exact opposite of our situation in Iraq. The reason why NATO is with us in Afghanistan is because that is where we, and several of the other members were attacked from. That is why they are not with us in Iraq, because none of the NATO members were attacked by Iraq.

Obama has it right, and of course, since he is dark skinned, then Seaton has to stand logic on it's head, to try and make a case against him.