US defeat in Afghanistan and Vietnam

LAST Sunday's triumphant entry of the Taliban into Kabul brought to my mind the vulnerabilities of even the strongest army in the world. In recent history, this is the second major defeat in war of the much vaunted United States military. The first defeat was in Vietnam in 1975 when the Viet Cong and the regular soldiers of North Vietnam defeated the combined armies of South Vietnam, the United States and its allies.

The Vietnam war is so far the bloodiest war that the US has ever been involved in. In this war, which was waged to keep our part of the world secure from the inroads of communism, the US Army casualties numbered more than 58,000, with around 153,000 injured. Between 2 to 3 million Vietnamese lives are estimated to have been lost, and nearly half of these were the deaths of civilians caught in the fighting.