NATO: Afghanistan war won’t end like Vietnam

The title of this article is false. History will show that the war in Afghanistan, just like the war in Vietnam, just like the war in Iraq, will have achieved nothing other than getting young men and women killed or maimed. But more importantly for those who run this country; this war (like those mentioned above) has put bushel-fulls of money in the pockets of politicians and businessmen.

We have been in Afghanistan for ten years now, spending over $100 billion dollars per year, and for what? We’re fighting a group of camel jockeys with walkie-talkies, rifles and make-shift bombs, yet we are expected to believe that the combined efforts of 28 countries with the most advanced intelligence and weaponry on the planet cannot defeat this enemy in a decade? Please… ! This war is being milked for political and business reasons. And at the end of the day, the country will still be in total anarchy, just as Iraq is after a decade of fighting there.

This is all BS. Of course, most Americans don’t really care, they’re more concerned over who the next “teen idol” will be. TGO

Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press Thu Jan 27, 5:32 pm ET

BRUSSELS – The Afghan army will not collapse when international troops end their combat role, in the way that South Vietnam’s did in the 1970s, NATO’s top officer said Thursday.

Italian Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola said the international community intends to remain committed to Afghanistan after NATO forces hand over responsibility to the Afghan security forces in 2014.

“About 60 countries are engaged in the broader effort,” Di Paola told reporters. “It is not just a bilateral or trilateral effort, as it was (in Vietnam).”

“The United Nations, the World Bank, many non-governmental organizations are all there,” he said. “That is the fundamental difference.”

The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan numbers more than 140,000 troops — two-thirds of them Americans. The allies hope to have trained a total of 306,000 Afghan army and police by the end of this year. They face an estimated 25,000 insurgents.

The Obama administration expects to start drawing down its forces in Afghanistan in July, when the first of the country’s 34 provinces will be turned over to Afghan control. NATO’s combat role will end in 2014, but some support units will remain in the country to help the Afghan security forces in case of need.

“The way the Afghan security forces are being trained is much better than in 1975,” said Di Paola, who heads NATO’s Military Committee — the alliance’s highest military body.

On Thursday, during a conference of the chiefs of military staffs of NATO’s 28 nations and their allies, he said “the overwhelming conclusion was that we are on the right track, that overall we are moving forward” toward the goal set for 2014.

In South Vietnam, U.S. and allied troops pulled out in 1973, after almost a decade of war. Two years later, the South’s army — which the Americans and French before them had trained for almost 30 years — collapsed within a matter of weeks during a communist offensive.

Some historians say the two wars are fundamentally similar. They have drawn parallels between Afghanistan’s deeply flawed elections, and the failed effort in Vietnam to legitimize a military regime lacking broad popular support through an imposed presidential election in 1967.

In August 2009, President Barack Obama’s then-envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and the top U.S. and NATO commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, contacted a key Vietnam historian to discuss what to do in Afghanistan.

The historian, Stanley Karnow, told them the main lesson of Vietnam was that “we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

About The Great One

Am interested in science and philosophy as well as sports; cycling and tennis. Enjoy reading, writing, playing chess, collecting Spyderco knives and fountain pens.
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2 Responses to NATO: Afghanistan war won’t end like Vietnam

  1. If the military forces in Afghanistan are more than the number of enemies, if the weapons used are more sophisticated than those of the enemies’ then why can’t this war end as soon as possible? It is a war that has cost millions of money for which all the Americans will have to pay back for many years to come. I still believe this is a futile war.

    • TGO says:

      Precisely my point. The United States is “milking” this war for all it can. The sad part of it is, Americans don’t care. This has become a land of idiots who are more interested in trivial crap than what goes on in the world around them or even their own back yard.

      These wars are nothing but business ventures, with the guise of anti-terrorism and the creation of democracies among Muslim nations.

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