Monday January 21 2013
The last post garnered quite a few page views and I doubt many re read the posts so I started another separate post here for one more parallel, then and now.
American had been in Viet nam since the early 1960s. While Nixon and Kissinger claimed they had a plan to end the war, there really was no plan. Those of us that lived through those years recall the tremenodous social upheavel which was caused more by the Draft than the War itself The protestors became quite expert pointing out that Ho Chi Minh had probably turned to the Communists for help after being beseiged by first the French and then the Americans. But as John McCain says let's not fight that war again.
We have a parallel with Iraq and Afghanistan. America has been there now for some 12 years. While the draft is gone, one sees one legged veterans of this conflict all over San Antonio, for many the scars are invisible. Viet Nam famously eneded with refugees hanging from copters leaving the US Embassay. Supposedly Afghanistan will assume its own defense in 2014, at least that is what Joe Biden says. Not to be political but this is another parallel almost right to the year. Saigon fell Aril 30 1975. The recent events in Benghazi and now kidnappings in Algeria have a 40 year ring to them.
Again we are not being political but the parallels are striking. Ending such a conflict may be more difficult than one might think.
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