Friday, April 30, 2010

Lest We Forget: The Fall of Vietnam, April 30, 1975



And that's the way it was.


The NY Post remembers, too.
Posted by (c)2014 Richard L. Kent, Esq. (MichiganSilverback at gmail dot com) at 11:09 AM

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 30, 2010 at 3:53 PM

    30 Apr 75 is what we inevitably end up with when we hang the success of our geopolitical strategy on the survival of a corrupt, under-resourced, faction-ridden regional client semi-state with very slim military traditions, little popular education or social discipline, and horrible terrain. A place that has long since been exhausted by war, grows lots of drugs, and has determined, ruthless enemies not only near-at-hand, but in many cases difficult to distinguish from, and intermixed with, the general populace. an enemy which, despite our best efforts, still enjoys significant "safe harbors" in a neighboring country. Sound like anyplace we're involved in NOW?

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  2. (c)2014 Richard L. Kent, Esq. (MichiganSilverback at gmail dot com)April 30, 2010 at 4:03 PM

    30 Apr 75 is what we inevitably end up with when we place command powers in the hands of a clique of corrupt, pusillanimous individuals utterly lacking in military experience who fear an American victory more than its defeat. Sound like any regime we are ruled over by NOW?

    BTW, there is a radical difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Vietnam, as part of a worldwide struggle with the Soviet Union we had to defeat both the internal enemy (the Cong in country, the left back home) AND the neighboring communist states, backed ultimately by the aforesaid Soviet Union, which last time I looked is still sitting in the ashheap of history.

    OTOH In Afghanistan, all we really need to do to "win" from our POV is keep just enough troops in country to keep an eye on any attempts by Qaida or their cohorts to build training camps, so that we can wipe them out with random raids as necessary. QED: any day Qaida can't travel from Khandahar to New York City on a not-quite-one-way trip is a good day.

    As for the rest, well, if the Pushtuns want to spend their time buggering one another while dragging dead sheep behind their camels for sporting purposes (or whatever it is they do in their spare time), as they have since Alexander the Great's day, I could not possibly care less. We don't have to build a nation, and we should not try. All we need to do is brew up the bad guys.

    And there ARE bad guys in this scenario.

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Keep it clean for gene.

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