re: #148 William Lewis

But how many more decades and how many more lives will we waste there while pretending we learned anything from the Carnage and Waste of the American War of 1955 to 1975?

Basically? Forever.

About the only real “lessons” the US learned from Vietnam were:
1. It’s politically dangerous to draft citizens for an unpopular war.
2. Don’t get involved in open-ended interventions*, but if you do,
make sure it’s with a volunteer military (see lesson 1).

*I’m not sure the original (2002) intervention in Afghanistan was intended to last as long as it has. Too bad, but reality has a nasty habit of getting its own way all too often….