The democracy that we have exported to Afghanistan...

... is on par with the democracy we once established in South Vietnam.

Now I'm down to waiting a few years to watch scenes of the last American helicopters departing Kabul, because Harmid Karzai is turning into the Taliban's secret weapon.

My only remaining questions are:

1) Is Karzai best considered as Ngo Dinh Diem, Duong Van Minh, or Nguyen Van Thieu?

2) Who will ultimately emerge as the Taliban's Vo Nguyen Giap?

3) When will the first parallel biography comparing Robert McNamara to Robert Gates be published?

Comments

G Rex said…

1) I think Karzai is General Minh, in as much as he was hastily picked to fill the vacuum created by the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masoud 2 days before the 9/11 attack. As with Big Minh, we thought it was a good idea at the time.

2) Osama bin Laden is already the Giap figure, having decided early on that he was in total war mode against the West, no matter what the cost. I believe the Vietnamese translation is dau tranh.

3) I though Rumsfeld was MacNamara?

September 6, 2009 at 11:27 AM

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