News, The Surprising Lessons of Vietnam. (war, general, country, United States)

[JD59]

Stanley Karnow is the author of Vietnam: A History, generally regarded as the standard popular account of the Vietnam War. This past summer, Karnow, 84, picked up the phone to hear the voice of an old friend, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Rereading Vietnam May Help Prevent Same Mistakes | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com

[stillkit]

The problem with any counter-insurgency strategy, whether it be in Vietnam or Afghanistan, is that you only control the countryside and keep the enemy at bay so long as you are physically there.

So, the question isn't whether or not such a war is "winnable," (disregarding a definition of winning), but how long you're willing to stay.

[Fred314X]

Of course, if the United States hadn't gallantly stepped in to get the French out of the mess that Vietnam had become by 1954, the whole chapter in American history would never have been written in the first place.