Speaking of Robert McNamara and, by association, Vietnam...and, by association, the idea that the government should be run by "the best and brightest" minds who see government as a powerful tool to effect real and meaningful change both at home and abroad...
Speaking of all that, it's tempting to draw parallels between the Kennedy administration and the Obama administration. Tempting and certainly not scientific. But, you know, interesting. And Kennedy -- for all his best-and-brightest, all his hope and optimism -- pretty much started the Vietnam War.
So here's a link to an article in today's Washington Post. It's an extensive consideration of the Obama administration's new, hard(er) line approach to Afghanistan, in particular to its increasingly controversial leader, Hamid Karzai.
I'm not smart enough to know what the true parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam are (if there are any at all). I do know that that part of the world -- the higher-ups in the administration call it "Af-Pak," thereby throwing the ever-more volatile Pakistan into the mix -- presents some majorly thorny geopolitical issues (as did Vietnam), and it could all very well blow up in our collective face (as did Vietnam) if'n we're not careful.
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