Documentary Review - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ‘The Vietnam War’
Documentary Review - ‘The Vietnam War’ by George Will - Washington Post
Many Americans’ moral vanity is expressed nowadays in their rage to disparage. They are incapable of measured judgments about past politics — about flawed historical figures who were forced by cascading circumstances to make difficult decisions on the basis of imperfect information. So, the nation now needs an example of how to calmly assess episodes fraught with passion and sorrow. An example arrives Sunday night.
For 10 nights on PBS, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s “The Vietnam War,” 10 years in the making and 18 hours in length, tells the story of a war “begun in good faith by decent people, out of fateful misunderstandings,” and “prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through than admit that it had been caused by tragic decisions” during five presidencies. The combat films are extraordinary; the recollections and reflections of combatants and others on both sides are even more so, featuring photos of them then and interviews with many of them now…
U.S. Plan for New Afghan Force Revives Fears of Militia Abuses
U.S. Plan for New Afghan Force Revives Fears of Militia Abuses by Mujib Mashal - New York Times
Around the time President Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan, a delegation of American and Afghan military officials arrived in New Delhi.
They wanted to learn more about the Indian Territorial Army, which has been deployed in contentious areas to ease the burden on India’s regular army.
The American military has turned to that force as a potential model for how to maintain the Afghan government’s waning control — without too high a cost — in difficult parts of Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban are resurgent.
But diplomats and human rights groups worry that the proposal looks much like an older model — the Afghan Local Police, local militias who were trained and paid by the Americans but were accused of a long series of human violations, including abuse of civilians and sexual abuse of boys.
The size of the new force is yet to be finalized, but it could number more than 20,000, according to a senior Afghan official who was granted anonymity because the concept is still being discussed…