The Old Vietnam Mirage Visible in Afghanistan 
Tunney used the word to accent what he perceived as a wrong-headed view of the United States being able to resolve conflicts through a continuing military commitment. The people of Vietnam would see that the best hope for their future resided in linkage to American power.
The Vietnam War ended with over 59,000 U.S. losses. The foreign losses, counting Cambodia as neighboring offshoot as well as Vietnam, is unknown in any kind of precise calculation but estimated at 2.5 million or more according to some estimates.
The tragic human suffering did not end with the termination of life. The dropping of Agent Orange to remove the heavy jungle forestation that U.S. strategists were convinced would make it easier to fight a hit and run smaller guerilla force did not deter a determined enemy that engaged and disengaged under its own strategic terms.
Meanwhile Agent Orange victimized returning U.S. military personnel as well as the Vietnamese, where grotesque mutations resulted in deformed births in the Southeast Asian nation. Significant numbers of illnesses caused by Agent Orange were experienced by returning American military personnel.
The red flag necessary to observe by those in 2009 seeking to learn from the lessons of history and eliminate repeating mistakes in the context of an expanding Afghanistan U.S. military role is how Johnson and Nixon evaluated America's Vietnam effort.
At a time when the U.S. was en route to obliterating aerial destruction tonnage records of World War Two discussion abounded, including numerous mainstream media analyses, that America was operating within limited constraints. The paramount goal throughout, it was consistently stressed, is that Vietnam be protected from enemy invasion and be allowed to function in at least a reasonably democratic fashion.
Ho Chi Minh's father was active in the effort to overthrow French colonial rule and achieve independence. At one point his son, who sought to banish foreign control whether it be French or American, had adopted George Washington as a role model based on his leadership of the American Revolution.
Richard Nixon had come to power in 1969 after promising to "end the war" and championed a disengagement program he called Vietnamization, proclaiming an exit strategy while prolonging the conflict. It took a Nixon weakened by Watergate and a steadfast young Congress to respond by a then deafening chorus of Americans to withdraw from Vietnam and end the American effort.
A comparable picture is now observable in Afghanistan. Based on media expectations President Obama is said to be ready to increase the current troop level in Afghanistan while proclaiming to Americans that this is but a temporary measure and that an exit strategy will be implemented.
Has "exit strategy" replaced the Vietnam War phrase of "light at the end of the tunnel"? Can anyone who has studied the tragic history of Vietnam be anything but skeptical of current exit strategy talk in the wake of an expanding commitment in Afghanistan?
KEYWORDS: Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Ho Chi Minh
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