Posted on 12/05/2010 9:19:45 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Kerry: 'Afghanistan is just not Vietnam' By J. Taylor Rushing - 12/05/10 11:33 AM ET
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Sunday gave a firm defense of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, rejecting any comparison to the Vietnam War in which he served.
Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" to host David Gregory, Kerry said the Obama administration has acted correctly in continuing the war in Afghanistan and should be able to withdraw troops as planned in 2014. Gregory had played Kerry a video clip of his 1971 testimony before Congress in which Kerry famously called the Vietnam War "a mistake."
"In my judgement, Afghanistan is just not Vietnam," Kerry said. "We shouldn't have been in Vietnam. It was a surrogate war, it was a cold war. There are any number of reasons it was a gigantic mistake. In Afghanistan, we're there for a purpose. I don't believe the size of the footprint we have doing everything we're doing, as I've said publicly many times, and I don't think the president, in the long run, wants to do that, which is why he has committed to this transition.
"I believe the president and our military are on the right track, which is to turn this over to the Afghans as rapidly as possible in a way that meets their needs to have sufficient stability and capacity to survive, and our needs to prosecute counter-terrorism efforts. I think you can do a lot of counter-terrorism with a smaller footprint and still manage the progress of Afghanistan.
"Can we do it by 2014? Yes, I believe we can, and I think the president is absolutely intent on preventing this from being the mistake that begged the question that I posed in 1971."
I think you are right Sub, I recall he was part of a USO show with Jane Fonda at Da Nang or something like that.
Spent Christmas in Cambodia just across the river ... it was burned into his mind he says ....
Jon “Halp me” kerry: Useful tool of America’s enemies then and now.
Yes he did although he has spent more time in Afghanistan while visiting troops during Easter and Christmas.
It is so because our soldiers can't shoot back, can't interrogate prisoners properly, and we can't nuke every valley and hill top in that God forsaken country.
Probably took his 16mm movie camera and ‘boonie’ dress to recreate his combat action there.
Yes, and shot a kid in the back.
Did any Communist vice president in Viet Nam disappear with over $40 million US dollars????
Karzai’s did.
Right next to Jengis Khan.
It was like it, before it was not like it.
yes his code name was “LT. NEEDERMEYER”
Right - seared into his mind. I also read about his river adventure - how he took off and left some guys in the water.
Correction! I believe it was the show Lurch and Jane Fonda put on at the Hanoi Hilton!
Our biggest weakness in Afghanistan is the safe haven in Pakistan with open cooperation between the Haqqani's and Pakistan Army. The enemy in Afghanistan could be defeated in one year by crop dusting Roundup Herbacide on all the poppies and arresting Karzai and his corrupt entourage and replacing it with a NATO administration.
Yea did’nt he award himself a medal, for getting a scratch, as a war hero?
If we can't do that, pull back to garrisons, do raids and UAV strikes, bribe everyone for information and minimize our own losses.
He still has the hat.
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