Nebraska's Sen. Ben Sasse said on Sunday that President Biden relied on “happy talk” instead of acknowledging the reality of the situation in Afghanistan. “There is clearly no plan. There has been no plan. Their plan has basically been happy talk,” Sasse said.
If only the senator was old enough to remember the Vietnam War's "happy talk." When I graduated from high school in 1966, I knew what was happening half way 'round the world. Three years later, when the first Vietnam-era draft lottery took place, there still was no end in sight to the fighting. Why? Because General Westmoreland and his direct reports kept giving "happy talk" updates to Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Had the general been more truthful about that endless war, I believe many of the 58,000 American deaths suffered in Vietnam could have been avoided.
Today's endless war in Afghanistan is all but over. Every one of the 2,372 military deaths there is heartbreaking. If he was old enough back in the 1970s, I wonder what Sen. Sasse would have said about the original "happy talk" from Vietnam?
-DF