War cannot solve anything

War cannot solve anything

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013LettersWar cannot solve anything



Photo: AFP

Ted Rudow III, MA, Encina Ave, Palo Alto, CA
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 in an attempt to prop up a communist regime beset by civil war. Afghan rebels fought the Soviets to a standstill, wearing them out much in the same way that Vietnamese forces wore out U.S. forces in Vietnam. More than 2 million Afghans were left dead in a war that ultimately saw the ouster from power of the communists, though war continues in Afghanistan to this day.



After more than 33 years of war and chaos, Afghanistan is really a mess. Despite all the American aid and promises to rebuild the country, it's a wreck. America is trying to remake the world in its own image with its own form of government, but different peoples and nations simply need different forms of government. War is rarely necessary and never glorious. That's one thing Americans should have learned from their experiences in Vietnam, and from seeing the daily horror and carnage of that war televised in their living rooms every night.



What a sad litany of carnage, killing, destruction and woe! Such is the history of the supposedly "enlightened" 20th century!






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