Friday, November 11, 2011

Afghanistan ... and Viet Nam

So now we're getting out of Afghanistan...



 To Hear this Sound Clip

... And now, of course, we're leaving Vietnam... We're leaving through Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. It's the overland route. It's the long way out. Ya gotta go through China and Russia to get out that way. What'll we tell them, man? "We'll only be here six weeks. Just looking for the Ho Chi Minh Trail!" Wow. Maybe they'll buy it, y'know. Of course, you have to remember why we're over there in the first place...
Oh, yeah! It always comes to me. To free those people...
So they can have industry- yeah! US industry- YEAH! Those are the middle two letters of the word 'industry'..US. And that is our job around the world. Run in, free some people and whip a little industry on them. "Here's your industry. Cool it awhile, willya?"
...
Then you have to have to remember the sexual side of Vietnam which a lot of people don't notice. ...  But they're always afraid of pulling out. That's their big problem, y'know? "Pull out? Doesn't sound manly to me, Bill. I say leave it in there and get the job done!"
'Cause that is, after all, what we're doing to that country, right?

George Carlin
*1972*

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

                   Afghanistan                               Viet Nam

US

'begins'        October 7, 2001                       November 1, 1955

'ends'         'Home by year's end' - 2011        August 15, 1973

'duration'    10 1/4 years                              19 1/2 years

troops        131,000 (Coalition total)             536,000 (US)

deaths        2713 (Coalition total)                 58,220 (US)

%               .02 (1 in 48)                             .1 (1 in 9)

Canada

'begins'        October 7, 2001                     unofficial

'ends'         'End of  December' - 2011        unofficial

'duration'    10 1/4 years               

troops            3,000                                 '30,000'

deaths            158                                    '117'

%            .05 (1 in 19)                            .004 ( 1 in 256)


Data gathered from Wikipedia, so should be considered 'soft'


I was intending to wax poetic about 'never should have done it'.
But those numbers should depress the hell out of anyone reading them.

One
in
Nineteen




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