Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam

CNN.com asks if Afghanistan can be compared to the Vietnam war?

Much has been made in recent media reports about the conflict in Afghanistan surpassing the length of the Vietnam War, becoming the United States’ longest war. Some would dispute that, and few would suggest the two wars are comparable.

Unlike the Vietnam War, the beginning of the ongoing war in Afghanistan can be dated very precisely to October 7, 2001, when U.S. and British forces launched an invasion to remove the Taliban from power and rout al Qaeda from its mountain sanctuaries along the border with Pakistan.

Operation Enduring Freedom was unprecedented in that it was the first time the United States mobilized its military might to respond to an act of terrorism.

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Today, 104 months later, about 1,000 U.S. servicemen and women have died in Afghanistan (the exact number depends on the criteria you use) along with very nearly 300 British military personnel and others from NATO countries that have contributed to the International Security Assistance Force.

Most of those deaths have occurred in southern Afghanistan, and more can be expected as coalition forces try to drive the Taliban out of Kandahar, which they still consider their spiritual home. Most of those U.S. troops have died in the past two years; it is a casualty rate that has risen sharply compared to the years following the invasion.

But the Afghan War can’t really be compared to the conflict in Vietnam, which claimed some 58,000 American lives and involved more conventional warfare, including pitched battles for major cities, as well as guerrilla combat. The Tet offensive in 1968 involved some 80,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers in a series of coordinated attacks on cities in South Vietnam.

I'm not even sure I agree with them on the duration.

The first names on the Vietnam Memorial date from 1959. The last ones added are from the Mayaguez incident in 1975. We haven't been in Afghanistan nearly that long.


By: Brant