Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Afghanistan haunted by ghost of Vietnam
"Afghanistan is the new vietnam". In March the afganistan war will be known as the longest wat that has come in to the United States and just seems to get worse. Though overshadowed by the was in Iraq many deaths are still occuring. Why do we not care as much for this? This is brutal and we need to lay eyes on every aspect of reality and not focus on certain parts of the world especially if Obama is recalling this incident as Vietnam. Steve Clemons had a few words to say about this war and related it back to the Soviet-Afghan War. He believes that during this was the soviets fell in to a devastating trap and lead them to a loss in the war and this is what he is trying to prevent for the United States. he says the less plublicity for them the better it is and I agree. Though there are devastating risks being taken and lives are being lost having less publicity will not provoke much violence and that is what we do need. We especially do not need a nuclear war happening again just like in Cuba!
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3 comments:
There's great irony in all this.
Osama and the taliban were once our allies fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He once hailed the US as the savior, but now he denounces us as the devil. Now we're just hunting down our former "proxies" in their own lands.
"We especially do not need a nuclear war happening again just like in Cuba!"
Be careful with comparisons between the Cuban missile crisis and a war of insurgency. Those are two VERY different styles of conflict. One is between nations and the other is between people.
This reminded me of this (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/opinion/22kristof.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=afghanistan%20world%20war%20ii&st=Search) from the NY Times Op-Ed page last week.
Of American history, the column says, "The British never fathomed our basic grievance — this was our land, not theirs! — so the more they cracked down, the more they empowered the American insurgency" and then goes on to say that since the end of World War II, the US has made the same mistake ("underestimat[ing]" the "potency" of "nationalism abroad") in Vietnam, Latin America, and, currently, Afghanistan.
-Esther A
Well, also there is a bit of a difference in the two wars. Russia wanted to invade Afghanistan, which looks pretty self beneficial. The US, while not being Mr. Altruism, still has some intentions to help the Afghans heal their very poor country and establish a stable government. This at the same time conveniently helps our war against terrorism.
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