Drawing parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan

Lost in Transformation made a post about a poll cnn took that found most Americans believe the war on terror has become similar to the situation we faced in Vietnam. It is pointed out that a main difference is that Americans can link the war on terror to the attacks that occured on 9/11. This war is fought by volunteers, no one is being forced to die for a cause they don't believe in. And although any of our servicemen losing their lives is a tragedy, we have faced a mere fraction of the casualties experienced in the Vietnam War.

According to the blog post 59% of the public disagrees with sending more troops to Afghanistan, but at the same time 2/3rds of the public believe that without sending troops in, we will not be able to "prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a operation base for planning future attacks." If people are not willing to send more troops, but believe that without troops we endanger our safety, it is no wonder Americans believe that we are working our way into a war that we will not be able to pull out of successfully.

The poster believes that by speeding up fighting in Afghanistan we can avoid another Vietnam. But that is too convenient. It would be great to blink your eyes and the situation goes away, but that is not happening. Killing more people faster is not going to change their culture in a way that makes us safe from terrorism. There has to be a change from the ground up in the civilization.

The biggest factor is yet to be seen. If we stay another 8 years and end up leaving with our tail between our legs this may even be worse than Vietnam. However, if we can succeed in changing the culture and their view on our society then maybe the war will be able to end positively.