Afghanistan War Now Our Longest Ever? Not Yet

Posted by | June 7, 2010 21:31 | Filed under: Top Stories


The war in Afghanistan has now lasted 104 months, besting for length the Vietnam war, and now standing as the longest war in American history, says much of the press.

American forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Kabul fell that November, and America’s attention shifted to the war in Iraq. It wasn’t until after the 2007 troop surge in Iraq and, after that, the 2008 election that America refocused its attention on Afghanistan, but our troops were there all along.

But Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, points out that the Afghanistan war is our longest only if you date it from the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

HOLBROOKE: You want to tell that to the families of the people whose names are on the Vietnam War Memorial? The first names are from 1961, if I’m not mistaken. And the last are after 1973. And I think we should respect the sacrifice and risk everyone took in Vietnam.

Wars are fought even when undeclared, and we have the body bags to prove it. Let’s hope the Afghanistan war doesn’t become the longest-ever in American history.

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Copyright 2010 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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