An occasional series deploring pundits’ determination to treat the curret Afghan campaign as though it were a replay of the Vietnam War. Today’s episode disappoints me since I have a considerable regard for Ben Macintyre. Nevertheless, his column in the Times today is, right from the get-go, a classic of the genre:
Oh dear.An unquiet ghost stalks the White House Situation Room as Barack Obama, increasingly Hamlet-like, ponders what to do in Afghanistan: it is the spectre of the Vietnam War, America’s enduring historical hang-up.
The most important parallels with Vietnam are neither tactical nor practical, but cultural and emotional. Americans are not backward-looking by nature, but the trauma of Vietnam is seared on the national memory like no other event in US history.
Oh dear, oh dear.
To be fair, Mr Macintyre does his best to refute his own argument by admitting that a) casualty rates in Afghanistan are nothing like those suffered in Vietnam b) President Obama can hardly be traumatised by a conflict that ended when he was 13 years old and c) domestically, just about any comparison between the United States of the Vietnam era and contemporary American society is laughable.
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