USA/Iraq=USSR/Afghanistan

[doc03]

Just read that we lost our 54th helicopter in iraq since May 2003. So I Google up (Afghan war) and found interesting parallels with the USSR/Afghan war. I had thought the Soviets had lost many more soldiers than they actually did in Afghanistan. They lost 14453 personnel and 333 helicopters from Dec 25,1979 and Feb.15,1989. If you compare our losses of 3000 plus lives and 54 helicopters in just 3 1/2 years it appears we are fairing no better than the Soviets did in Afghanistan. Of course the Soviets sustained much of the losses because we supplied Bin Laden with the Stinger missiles to shoot down their aircraft. Now here we are whining about Iran possibly suppling the insurgents weapons to fight us kind of a double standard I would say. Check it out interesting reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan

[northernsoul]

1. good catch!

Frightening analogy, though.

[doc03]

4. Also a total of 620,000 Soviets served there

over almost a 10 year period with the average of only 80-104,000 in country at any one time. This lead to the fall of the USSR. If * gets his way we will follow in their footsteps.

[roamer65]

2. The Soviet Union also broke up shortly after Afghanistan.

[SoCalDem]

3. = US/VietNam (early stages)

When will we learn? We CANNOT win an insurgency/guerrilla/irregular war.

Our academies train based on OLD warfare. The Continental soldiers won becase they did NOT line up and shoot like the British forces..

We "knew" it then, but somehow we have forgotten valuable lessons.

[CJCRANE]

5. Russian version of 9/11:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

Excerpts:

"It was at this time when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared a war against the "illegal military units" in Chechnya. Though there was not much evidence pointing to Chechens, preparations were made by the Russian military forces to re-enter the province and to strip the Chechen government of its powers."

"The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident<6><7>. Duma, on a pro-Kremlin party block vote, voted to seal all materials related to Ryazan incident for the next 75 years and forbade an investigation of what really happened. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries".

[Kolesar]

6. USA:IRAQ::ISRAEL:HAMAS

Sorry to distract your thread. We have a new proxy war for a new century
20th Century: USA:USSR::South Vietnam:North Vietnam
21st Century: USA:IRAQ::ISRAEL:HAMAS
FSM help us

[coalition_unwilling]

7. =France/Algeria (latter stages) n/t

[roamer65]

10. Looks like it will take us twice to learn, much like the French.

It took Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and Algeria 1962 for them to learn the folly of empire. Ours will be Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan.

[xultar]

8. USA/Iraq/Afghanistan = USSR/Afghanistan or USA/Vietnam

[donco6]

9. Double standard? But, but - Iran is EVIL!

:eyes:

At least, that's what the RW would say. Everything is utterly black or white with them. There are no reasons for Iraqi resistance - they resist because they are EVIL. People join the Taliban because they WORSHIP SATAN!

Why can't these morons just go back to reading their vintage comic books and leave us all alone?

(I say vintage because modern day comics are WAY more sophisticated than any hard-wrought thought the RW could ever produce).