The analogy isn’t exact. But the war in Afghanistan is starting to look disturbingly familiar.
About a year ago, Charlie Rose, the nighttime talk-show host, was interviewing Lt Gen Douglas Lute, the military adviser at the White House coordinating efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan,” Lute said. To even casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo. One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Col. Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers recalled it, he said, “You never defeated us in the field.” To which the NVA officer replied: “That may be true. It is also irrelevant,” reports The Newsweek. Continue reading »
Climate change is “largely irreversible” for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).