Is Britain a part of a new Vietnam?

[Y'man]

In Afghanistan & Iraq, have we been pulled into an unwinable war? Can we really accomplish our goals against the invisible enemy?

[Santerme]

It is completely facile to make a comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam

There is never a military solution to an insurgency

[mockney piers]

"If all troops left [Afghanistan] It would be Saigon all over again with helicopters collecting the last one's out from the roofs"

"It is completely facile to make a comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam"

;-P

Though I agree they are very different conflicts and there is very limited usefulness in comparisons the bottom line remains that neo colonial powers are propping up a client state that is rapidly losing the support of it's populace and pushing ever larger numbers into an insurgency.

It is unwinnable militarily and that's the lesson that needs to be learned from Vietnam. I think the endgame here will be very different especially with the Taliban having lost and abandoned it's heavy weapons and with a change of heart in Pakistan.

We'll not see the Taliban tanks rolling into Kabul ever again, we will see some elements of this insurgency (call them taliban or not, unimportant really) form part of a government wihin the next two years.

[????]

Aren't we out of Iraq anyway?

[Santerme]

My comment on the helicopters was purely a theatrical image of the last days of chaos

Vietnam was part of the domino effect followed by containment and rollback of Communism

Afghanistan is geo economic and strategic in nature

IMHO

[mockney piers]

I was only puing your leg santerme.

But Wow, I don't think anyone thinks Vietnam was part of a domino effect, that's one of the most discredited historical

theories around.

And how was containment not geostrategic, surely it was the very essence?

[Santerme]

On my iPhone having braved the London tube and off to Derby so joyous day

I agree the Domino effect was discredited but it was the initiating factor in terms of US foreign policy

I am still feeling my way around the senses of humours of the various participants here so forgive me if at times it appears my responses are over sensitive

Cheers

[Crona]

I wonder what people thing about the reasons we are in Afghanistan. It has been 8 years now...

[Chick]

Crona Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I wonder what people thing about the reasons we

> are in Afghanistan. It has been 8 years now...

First it was to catch Bin Laden, then to topple the Taliban so girls could go to school, can?t remember the third, now it?s to bomb them into democracy. In the meantime there is nice new gas pipeline in place that the US gas companies wanted from 1995(?) but the Taliban wanted too much money for.

[Crona]

I don't think you mobilise your army to a far country like Afghanistan to catch one terrorist (even to prove you are doing something after 9.11). It is like attacking Ireland to catch IRA. There is something more sinister. The gas pipeline looks an interesting option though.

[mockney piers]

Actually to be fair I think in the immediate aftermath the USA had to be seen to punish someone and not look weak or vulnerable. Toppling the government that harboured your enemy and dropping lots of bombs on al qaeda was a pretty understandable reaction.

I dont think that's sinister at all. I do think that the likes of Cheney and his PNAC buddies thought it a great opportunity for some neo colonial spread as a bulwark against potential renewwed Rusiian dominance or possible Chinese dominance of the area.

Cynical perhaps but again hardly sinister.

Afghanistan has been a trickier prospect than they figured (though frankly entirely entirely predictable). Iraq exposed the limits of American power rather than demonstrated the US was not to be messed with, and Georgia was the final nail in PNACs policies. Expect a rollback of American influence in the ex soviet stans to follow.

On other words the neocons couldn't have got it more wrong if they'd tried.

[Magpie]

I think you have to separate the two.

At the time of the Afghanistan invasion the majority of world opinion was in favour of US action. The Taliban were hardly the nicest people around. I remember a piece in one of the Sunday papers before 911 saying how terrible the place was and how the West was ignoring it. The decision to move to Iraq, with less public and international support, and before effectively stabilising Aghanistan can, with hindsight, be seen as serious error of judgement by the Bush and Blair administrations, which ultimately cost Blair his job and the Republicans the presidency. Iraq, notwithstanding the recent car bombs, now appears relatively stable and the US are leaving. One can hope that a similar outcome can be achieved in Afghanistan but I doubt it. Iraq pre-Gulf war was a relatively developed country with an educated population. Afghanistan is pretty much a medieval society, especially outside Kabul.