It's official: Afghanistan is Vietnam

[DaShi]

Wasn't it the Northern Alliance, not the Taliban, who arose from the mujahideen fighters who threw out the Soviets?

No.

[MrFun]

You have to wait until people know who the **** you are before you can start talking ****.

**** that

[Drake Tungsten]

We all know who you are, Funsie.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Overly literal reading

QFT

[Blaupanzer]

This fight started when I said:

The Taliban seems to be made of sterner and more fanatical stuff [than the Iraqi Sunnis, who were bought off, I noted]. They threw the Russians out. Undoubtably, NATO doesn't look all that different to them.

DanS corrected this by noting the Taliban were not part of the anti-Soviet war. In this he is absolutely correct; so the subsequent fight is silly.

The point I was driving at, lost in the Taliban reference, was that European invaders appear very similar to Afghans. They recently beat the Russians. To them, NATO is just the next set of invaders.

Afghanistan only unites, to the degree it ever does, when it is invaded. All the rest of the time the tribes and factions fight each other. Constant Guerilla warfare for 2300 years. Most of its borders are rugged and open to foot-smuggling. This smells like a quagmire, making Afghanistan a strong candidate for "another Viet Nam."

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The point I was driving at, lost in the Taliban reference, was that European invaders appear very similar to Afghans. They recently beat the Russians. To them, NATO is just the next set of invaders.

I don't disagree in broad terms, but would point out:

1) They did not beat the Russians. They fought the Russians to a stalemate, which is still incredibly impressive but a bit different.

2) US money and arms, along with Pakistani money and logistical support, made that stalemate possible. Without it, the Russians would have triumphed.

3) Afghanistan is overwhelmingly anti-Taliban, but it took NATO to actually throw the bums out.

My point is that Afghanistan may hate invaders, but modern history shows that, without outsiders, they're actually f*cked. Of course, they may be f*cked anyway, but that's another story.

[Elok]

and not every war can be vietnam. Maybe we'll have another Korea someday.

We were sorta hoping it'd be the Spanish-American War. We should be thankful, though, that at least it's not WWI.