Arguing Afghanistan, Arguing Vietnam

In case you missed it (not likely), the New York Times featured dueling op-eds from both Lewis Sorley and Gordon Goldstein on the lessons of Vietnam as applied to Afghanistan. One of the reasons I suggested an end to the reductio ad Vietnamum on the blog this weekend is because the lessons of that conflict as they apply to Afghanistan are far from clear, as these op-eds demonstrate. Two smart people could both carefully read history and arrive at two different conclusions as to what we should do in Afghanistan.