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Given a time when everyone was told there was a great threat from the aggressive expansionism of the Soviet Union and China, they felt they had a good reason. T
by hnhg 14y ago
Given a time when everyone was told there was a great threat from the aggressive expansionism of the Soviet Union and China, they felt they had a good reason. They thought Vietnam would result in a domino effect across the region.
I don't think it was a great reason and most now don't, but then again I thought Afghanistan could never work, and there were very few of us who would say so. It's easy to get swept up by militaristic arguments it seems.
- darklajid 14y agoAnd Afghanistan did 'work'?
- toyg 14y ago"few of us" were actually quite a majority... Of people who knew what they were talking about. And we were right: Afghanistan cannot be "conquered" or "fixed", as 10+ years of failed occupation have proven.
- dabeeeenster 14y agoIt's more like 70 years of failed occupation...
- bergie 14y agoIt is even longer than that. The first British adventure there was in mid 19th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War
- hnhg 14y agoHow can you effect a change in culture down the barrel of a gun while claiming to be friends? That was the gist of the plan at the time. Anyway, we're probably straying too far from the point of the article...
- jakeonthemove 14y agoTry 20 - the USSR has been there for 10 years, with thousands of lives lost from every state in the union...