As President Obama met with his war council to consider the next move on Afghanistan over the past three months, a growing chorus of dissenters worried that the eight year conflict is in danger of becoming a quagmire like the one that cost the lives of 50,000 U.S. soldiers more than 30 years ago. In his speech outlining his new plans for the Afghan conflict this evening, Obama confronted those critics head on.
The “argument” that Afghanistan is becoming another Vietnam “depends upon a false reading of history,” Obama said.
From the speech:
Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border.