CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq … Iran War is Deja Vu All Over Again

Photograph Source: Tech. Sgt. Carmen Cheney – Public Domain

If you’ve been around long enough to remember any of the wars in the last 60 years, the latest “excursion” in Iran by a demented old president will bring back many memories — and none of them good.

You likely have silver in what’s left of your hair if you recall the early days of Vietnam, when we were told the war was necessary to prevent the “Domino Theory” — a fiction in which all of Southeast Asia would fall “like dominoes” to the communists.

Not a word about how the French, who had colonized Vietnam and plundered its resources, had been ignominiously defeated and kicked out by the Viet Cong guerrillas in black pajamas, sandals, and AK-47s.

So in we came, carpet bombing from B-52s, dropping massive amounts of deadly Agent Orange defoliant on the jungles, gardens, and villages of the Vietnamese, raking them mercilessly from helicopter gunships, while infamously claiming we had to........

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