This all sounds sadly familiar. Didn\u2019t the US train and arm the indigenous Mujahadin in Afghanistan in the 1980s, to counteract the Russians, who had invaded? Do I recall correctly that the Mujahadin eventually morphed into the Taliban, who are now regarded as our enemies, and who have kept us pinned down in a useless conflict in Afghanistan for 15 years, with no end in sight? Aren\u2019t we still \u201ctraining\u201d Afghanis, and dying in a quest whose ultimate goal is vague and undefinable?<\/p>\n

What about Viet Nam? Ken Burns\u2019 latest documentary opus vividly reminds us of the early days of that conflict, when US \u201cadvisers\u201d trained and accompanied South Vietnamese troops on missions to thwart the North Vietnamese from \u201cCommunizing\u201d the South. One episode of the documentary, which I watched, coincidentally, last week, tells the story of the first American death in the Viet Nam conflict\u2014a single Green Beret adviser on a mission with South Vietnamese soldiers. It was eerily similar to what just happened in Niger. Fifteen years later after that first death in Viet Nam, we were still fighting, and 58,000 American troops had died.<\/p>\n

I am not an isolationist. And I\u2019m not an expert in US foreign policy. Maybe there\u2019s a good reason to be in Niger and other African countries, on a limited basis. If so, I\u2019d like to hear it. I’d also like the US press to report on this policy as often and as thoroughly as it analyzes Donald Trump\u2019s inane, meaningless Twitter blurts.<\/p>\n

But even a layman\u2019s look at the parallels between US involvement in Afghanistan, Viet Nam and Niger is enough to make one shudder. Individual, concerned citizens like me need to know more, and unless there is a compelling reason to continue these international military follies, perhaps our military needs to do less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was surprised to learn that last week, four US soldiers were ambushed and killed in the northwestern African nation of Niger. I was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1383,265],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n