Is Afghanistan Our Children's Vietnam?

With all the (primarily media) comparisons between Vietnam and our military presence in Afghanistan (and to some degree, Iraq), do our children now have to deal with a "wrong war" as we did at their age? Is President Obama right to be so tuned into the perceived similarities as to be rendering himself immobile as he "assesses the options" for the umpteenth time?

It seems that we think so more than they do. And they're the ones fighting it.

The most obvious difference is the attacks on us that precipated our military response in the Middle East & particularly Afghanistan (where Al Qaida thrives along the borders with Pakistan) vs. the total anti-communist paranoia that underpinned Vietnam. Even in Iraq, our military response was supported by a surprising source - Elie Weisel, Nobel Peace Prize winning holocaust survivor - who believed that we could not ignore the genocide taking place in Iraq as we ignored that in Germany prior to WWII. Not the "trumped up" reason used by the Bush Administration that parallels Vietnam.

Then, there's the frightening fact that left unaddressed over there, there will be more attacks over here - with our presence there we are still uncovering/thwarting attack attempts over here. The Vietnamese were no threat to our borders.

Finally, the world in 2009 is so very different from the world in 1969. Much smaller and far more interdependent. Many countries now nuclear-armed did not have such weapons of mass destruction then. In 1969, those who would kill based on religious ideology were confined to small pockets of their own countries, had no money, and had access to no technology; today they are exported around the world, with sophisticated technological capacity and well financed. If Al Qaida, or their pals the Taliban, get hold of nuclear materials from next-door Pakistan, the world is in serious danger. This was not a concern in Vietnam.

The answer, then, my fellow Boomers, is: no. There are no credible parallels between Vietnam and our military efforts now in the Middle East.

Other than those we trump up.