Did we withdraw from Vietnam because we ran out of political will? Is it conceivable that, at some stage of the war the American public would have tolerated more significant martial action, along the lines of Dresden or (god forbid) Hiroshima? How does today’s American perspective on armed conflict differ from that of 1969? Are we wiser? Are our attention spans or capacities for independent, rational thought diminished? Is fear of communism substantively different than fear of terrorism? Was our failure in Vietnam a failure of marketing / image management / propaganda? Or was defeat inevitable within the war’s constraints? What have we learned? Is the writing on the wall?
I am by no means a war historian and presume not the authority to posit answers or provide conclusions. These are simply some of the things I think about here in Afghanistan. Apples and oranges are both fruits.
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