Forgetting History, Repeating Mistakes

BY THE TIME I entered high school, having long since deduced that the Viet Nam war was an unwinnable, useless display of American imperialism, I decided that I would register for the draft, use my draft card as I.D. to buy beer, and, if necessary, flee to Canada. I got lucky, got a high number, and in January, 1973, the peace treaty was signed. I turned 18 in April, got my draft card, graduated in May, and spent the summer, playing tennis, preparing for college, watching the Watergate hearings, regretting my senior year support of Nixon, becoming a Democrat, and drinking beer with my classmates. Five years later, feeling safe from liquor stores and draft boards, I burned my draft card, just so I could say I did it. Viet Nam was a civil, in which the United States and everybody else should not have been involved. The United States lost the war. Everyone agrees on that now; on the hippies and war protesters did at the time, those long haired traitors, as they were known. Treaty in hand, the U.S. withdrew its military forces from Viet Nam. North Viet Nam waited a couple of years, then invaded and conquered the south, winning the war, merely by breaking the treaty. There was little resistance. Gerald Ford went to congress, seeking permission to reenter the war, but, no dice, it was too late, the American people were sick of was, had turned against it. Whatever lesson the U.S may have learned from this disaster, it soon forgot. The next American quagmire was Iraq and Afghanistan, two more mistakes. Now we seem to have a peace treaty with the Taliban. Problem is, the government of Afghanistan is not part of it, and has no intention of participating in a prisoner exchange, of releasing thousands of Talibani prisoners who would simply return to their homes and rejoin their militarized compatriots. The Taliban must be anticipating the removal of American troops with glee, much as the North Vietnamese did two generations ago. Now, all they have to do is wait a couple of years at most, then retake Afghanistan, and rule it under strict Islamic law, as they did before the U.s. invaded eighteen years ago. We Americans will have slouched out of the country, defeated, impoverished, wondering where we went wrong, and why we didn't learn our lesson, yet again.