Afghaninam, Vietnamistan

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Saturday, August 7, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Afghaninam, Vietnamistan

by Larry Beinhart

There are a lot of people in the military, and in politics too, that think we coulda, shoulda, woulda won in Vietnam.

That wouldn't matter much. The past is a foreign country immune from invasion. But here we are in Afghanistan. See, US forces won every battle in Vietnam. Every damn battle. Even Tet.

For those of you who don't remember, in 1967, South Vietnam seemed to be under control. Then, in January of '68, approximately 80,000 Communist troops launched 100 separate attacks at once, including assaults on thirty-six of the forty-four provincial capitals. US and South Vietnamese forces were taken by total surprise. But they responded well and quickly beat the offensive back, except in the city of Hue, where the fighting, depicted in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, went on for a month. But there too, the Communists fell back.

"You know you never defeated us on the battlefield," said the American colonel.

The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. "That may be so," he replied, "but it is also irrelevant."
-- On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War,
by Colonel Harry G. Summers (Summers was on the US negotiating team in Hanoi and was the unnamed American officer in that conversation)

If it weren't for the damn media. The damn politicians. The Goddamn hippies. Or, to put it a different way, we didn't have the will to win. That's true. But, you have to discuss what that would have entailed. And, even more important, why there was a limit on the price we would pay. As compared to the Vietnamese, who would, and did, pay any price.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/07-3

[Chulanowa]

1. There's a major difference

We have more support from the Afghans than we did from the South Vietnamese. Maybe not a lot more, but more.
Further, the Taliban have far less support from the Afghans than the VC and NVA had from South Vietnam. The people of outh vietnam wanted communism, they wanted the land reforms and all that. The Afghans do not want militant islamism.

We've simply failed to even bother trying to capitalize on this, though.

[FirstLight]

2. In my GenX mind, this is worse than Veitnam.

but i'll tell you the article is correct in the end ...we are in a quagmire, and we are falling like the soviet union by funneling all our money and resources into endless war and leaving our own people in the dust.

when will it end? can we just pack up and leave tomorrow? who CARES about saving face internationally, we have to fix our OWN country and stop nosing around in the rest of the world's business. the terrorists are not the boogeyman that the PTB make them out to be, their tactics and attacks are not only decreased, but really not as big as the MSM would scare us into thinking. it's all just propaganda...get. out. NOW!

[IndianaGreen]

3. If we follow the same path as the one of the collapsed USSR

parts of the USA will secede, and the rest will fall under the control of gangsters and oligarchs that will comprise the government.

Time to emigrate!

[FirstLight]

4. that's not a pretty picture

i'd like to think we could do it differently, but human's evil nature may win out...

hmm...where to go...? france? or maybe tahiti...