Afghanistan is a lot more like Vietnam than is Iraq. Iraq qualifies as key terrain. Our prescence in that locale combines with the existence of Israel to make a caliphate impossible.

Afghanistan is a salient. Just like Vietnam was. Then the analogy breaks down. As Afghanistan was a hideout, it became a necessary-to-occupy salient. Vietnam was an unecessary and exposed salient that weakened and endangered our positions elsewhere. It came about as a result of John F Kennedy’s chemical dependence.

That does not mean I regret my times(s) in VN. Had the generality of American youth behaved less like me and more like, say, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan would never have become President and the Evil Empire would still be in business. Thus, VN was time well spent.

As to the latest prounouncements about dire straits in Afghanistan: Did those words come from Barack McNamara or Robert Strange Obama? “Whether uttered by white or black/this equestrian excrement/will credibilty lack.”