Vietnam War revisionism revised

Yes, I had noticed how those at Catallaxy who think The Left-Liberals in Politics Have Been And Always Will Be The Source of All Evil and Failure in Society are fully on board with the idea that the Vietnam War was just a failure of American will, not American military power, and if it weren't for those goddamn liberal newspapers publicising leaks about how the Generals weren't always telling the truth about things, it could have all been wound up with great success by 1970.

I've always thought that this sounded like a rubbish argument, and this column today in the New York Times by a historian explains that it's always been a minority view amongst his peers, and he gives some explanation as to why.

The big question is how similar Afghanistan is to the Vietnam situation.

In some sense, I would have thought it's pretty similar - both the North Vietnamese communist leadership and the Taliban are ideologues of the most entrenched kind. 

On the other hand, I think (from what little I know) that the Afghanistan government being propped up is not a corrupt or unworthy government in the way the South Vietnamese one was. 

But back to a similarity:  the locals in Taliban controlled areas are (I think) often sympathetic to the Taliban.  What's the point of winning those dirt poor territories if they are going to resent their "liberation" anyway?

As I was pondering all of this while shaving this morning, a thought did occur to me - surely one big difference is the military supply lines that the North Vietnamese had was not going to stop.  But where does the Taliban get its weaponry from?   Is it just that they don't really need that much to cause mayhem, and a little goes a long, long way?

As for the Jason Soon question raised yesterday - why support Afghanistan at all - the issue of the Taliban/IS taking over most of the country and having nuclear armed Pakistan next door does sound a reason to worry about giving up on it entirely.