Is Afghanistan the New Vietnam? Gordon Goldstein and Lessons in Disaster

http://www.mslaw.edu
Excerpts from the Massachusetts School of Law's program, Books of Our Time, in which Dean Lawrence R. Velvel interviews Gordon M. Goldstein on his book: Lessons In Disaster - McGeorge Bundy And The Path To War In Vietnam. Mr. Goldstein discusses McGeorge Bundy's conduct in office as well as the parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Mr. Goldstein is a scholar of international affairs whose articles have appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, and The Washington Post.
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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Gordon M. Goldstein
• McGeorge Bundy
• Foreign Minister Gromyko
• Laos
• George Ball
• EXCOMM
• Vietnam
• Afghanistan
• The Domino Theory
• Sigma 1
• Sigma 2
• William Westmoreland
• General Maxwell Taylor
• David Halberstam
• James C. Thomson Jr.
• Robert McNamara
• Dean Rusk
• David Shoup
• President Obama

[Detoxicsify]

@treon123456 Do you realize less people take you serious when you type in all caps? People thing "Oh, I see caps, Probly some 12 year old, next comment."

[POOLSCLOSED4AIDS]

jew bullshit

[salman125]

It will be worst then vietnam, as Nato has allowed india to play its dirty game....the solution is..get out!!!!

[treon123456]

AS IN AFGANISTAN.....IN VIETNAM....BILLIONS WERE BEING MADE BY THE BANKERS/MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! THESE MEN WERE ALL OWNED BY THE ROCKEFELLERS!

[Genghiskhanese]

塔里班幹你娘基八！

[laynearlina]

beware of the subtitles as they are not correct!

[convict9653]

Dean Velvel referred to the tragedy of 58,000 U.S. soldiers killed without mentioning the millions of mostly civilians murdered in Vietnam, Laos, & Camboida as a consequence of the U.S. agression. Also offensive is the omission of any discussion of the U.S. government's central role in undermining the 1954 Geneva Accords -- in particular a provision calling for a national election in 1956. "Our" government knew that Ho Chi Minh would easily prevail in such an election.Hence the military option

[Treblaine]

cont.

To clarify, massive aerial bombardment, conscription and overwhelming force worked well in WWII/Korea but with that thinking in Vietnam it was almost certainly the wrong tactics.

What I am worried about is we are trying to fight the Vietnam war in Afghanistan when really it is a whole new war needing a whole new mindset in politicians and the public.

[Treblaine]

Well then that would be a debate on the public's perception of the war...

But this is an in depth analysis which really should be defined by wider military academia, though I still think this is mostly on point as it can always help to realise America's shortcoming in Vietnam and fix them.

Yet it is all to easy to end up trying to fight the "last war" rather than facing up to the realities of this current conflict.

Part of the problem with Vietnam was a military thinking stuck in Korea/WWII.

[Scout140]

well the most intuitive answer I could give to your first question would be that people can identify with, and thus understand the horrors of, modern, asymmetrical warfare. Not nearly as many Americans are familiar with the history of Afghanistan or South Africa as they are with that of their own country, and certainly none are alive who lived through the other two conflicts you mentioned.