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History Repeating

I often hear the phrase, "Those who do not pay attention to history, are condemned to repeat it". There are times that deciphering the message is less than easy. We (people) like to believe that the situations that apply to us are unique and therefore have no parallels. There are also times when the real point of history is hidden under a useless distraction. I was curious if anyone else sees the parallel movement of history with what is now setup along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border?

History is a time frame. The time frame to begin with is the mid to late nineteen-sixties; The place is along the Cambodian/Viet Nam border. One of the difficulties American troops were having was that of attacks on US fire bases along the Cambodian border. The NVA/Viet Cong would attack, then flee back across the border into Cambodia. During those years US forces were not allowed to cross the border. There was no policy of "hot pursuit". The enemy fled into the jungles and rubber plantations and regrouped for another attack.

The staging for the repeat in history of that time frame, came about a couple of weeks ago when the Pakistani government signed some sort of agreement with the Islamic fighters in an area of Pakistan known as North Waziristan. In relation to the overall area of the border it's not a very large area, approximately 15,000 square miles, But it does allow for expansion. The southern region from North Waziristan is Southern Waziristan; together they are part of what is called Federally Administered Tribal Lands. This is an area that stretches along the Afghan border from north of the Kyber pass south and encompasses an area of maybe 70,000 square miles. An area larger than Cambodia. Just like Cambodia, it will now be under control of a group who care only of themselves and their particular ideology. Are they as vicious and lacking in conscience as the Khmer Rouge? Only time will show us that.

However, the repetition that I wish to point out is that the taliban/al queda (Islamic fighters) now have a base with access for raids and cross border attacks into the true front lines of terror, Afghanistan. There is another tag line of history that has popped up. That of body count. This past week it was reported that over 1,000 Taliban fighters had been killed. To me there was an immediate flash of pentagon policy, tell us how good you are doing at killing the enemy. But, I was just curious if anyone else saw history repeating.

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Michael Sherer