( . . You'll Always Get What You Always Got.")
Drawing analogies between Vietnam and our current situation in Afghanistan has been difficult - they are two different wars under two different circumstances. The similarities go as far as our insistence on winning a war that we have no logical basis for being in are the same. The similarities are a Foreign Policy that has been a dismal failure since after World War One. Yet, as the definition of insanity goes - we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. In Afghanistan, as with Vietnam we are stuck in a damnable situation where we are in fact, damned if we do and damned if we don't. It's what happens when you pay the price for arrogance and deceit.
In 1972, with all other seeming avenues failed, the Nixon administration resorted to mining Haiphong Harbor in an attempt to cut off supply lines to the North Vietnamese. Vietnamization was deemed a dismal failure.
Pres. Nixon: “All entrances to North Vietnamese ports will be mined to prevent access to these ports, and North Vietnamese navel operations from these ports. United States forces have been directed to take appropriate measures within the internal and claimed territorial waters of North Vietnam to interdict the delivery of any supplies. Rail, and all other communications will b cut off to the maximum extent possible. Air and navel strikes against military targets in North Vietnam will continue.”
Shortly after this announcement, NBC Radio ran a Special Report entitled "Vietnam: The War That Will Not End".
It echoed a sentiment that a weary nation was feeling. That war, like this one seems destined to have no happy ending.
