I don't think you can compare Vietnam and Afghanistan. Two totally different scenarios.

I do believe that it's time to get out of Afghanistan though and that we've stayed too long and gotten bogged down in the "nation building" thing again.

Those people are still living in the stone age over there and we ain't gonna change 'em. All they understand is brute force and when we use the touchy-feely liberal approach of "let's all be friends" they feel free to kill us.

Wanna control the Afghans? Tell 'em if we even think there is any terrorism being conducted in Afghanistan or tolerated by or fostered by them, we will come in and wipe out all their poppy fields and spray them with defoliant.

There are a lot of parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, mainly because we got stuck in both countries. But Vietnam was plagued by very, very different problems.

But the worst part is our dumb Rules of Engagement in the country. I don't believe we should force our troops to put themselves in extra danger that is not necessary, and you know what, we've forgotten how to effectively fight a war. I am generally non-interventionist, but I supported the effort at the beginning. We gave our troops the most ineffective rules of engagement, and it's putting them in more danger than they've ever been. 2 examples - If they get fired on, they have to ask the people who shot at them if they knew they shot at them before responding. They also have to tend to wounded ENEMY COMBATANTS before each other, if the enemy combatant is more likely to survive. Are you kidding me??? So our troops should save jihadists lives before each other? Under almost no scenario can I think that's appropriate.