Getting Afghanistan right:: Overcoming the Vietnam stigma.

Since the Vietnam War, Americans have insisted that any future involvement in military ventures be short, relatively low on the cost of live, and cheap. While wars fought since then have been relatively speaking low on the cost of lives, some (like the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq) have not been cheap and have gone on for years.

Will we get Afghanistan or any of the other areas we are involved in right. There is no assurance any strategy that is adopted will work. However, the one the President will surely propose this evening probably will do little more than ensure a stalemate on the ground where we occupy half the country and the Taliban have the rest. This would create another situation like Korea (check recent headlines to see how that is going) or Germany from 1945 to 1989. If that is the way to ensure peace, then Americans should be educated to accept this for the foreseeable future. We have to remind our citizens that sometimes to promote peace and stability, our forces need to remain stationed in certain parts of the world. We still have troops in Europe. We still have troops in South Korea. We still have troops in the Middle East. We still even have troops in Cuba. The people need to understand that the United States and our values is necessary to help maintain the peace and shine as an example for some nations to look on. Sometimes these commitments take longer than we would like and sometimes it takes more resources to get it right.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/politics/donald-trump-afghanistan-speech/index.html