Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!inmet!janw
From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Asymmetry
Message-ID: <7800452@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 00:11:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800452
Posted: Wed Sep 18 00:11:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Sep-85 15:57:36 EDT
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #N:inmet:7800452:000:1118
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Sep 18 00:11:00 1985


> Larry Kolodney (USENET) ...decvax!genrad!teddy!lkk (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa
> What the Soviets are doing now in Afghanistan is at about the same level of
> terrorism as what the U.S. did in Vietnam (operation Phoenix, napalm, Agent
> Orange, etc.).

 This statement seems to proceed from a desire for symmetry - at least,
I see no other foundation for it. Symmetry is intellectually attractive,
but hard facts take precedence.

 A huge, indisputable fact, staring you right in the face,
completely disproves the Vietnam-Afghan analogy. 
 A quarter to a third of the population have fled Afghanistan.
Vietnam had its exodus, too, but that one occurred as a result of
American GI *leaving* the country.  
 Surely, the people themselves are the best authority on who does what to them.

 I've put it into a jingle, so we won't forget again:

	
	   How can we know what to believe
	   Of distant lands, so weird and rum ?
	   Well, webs of words aren't hard to weave -
	   But here's a simple rule of thumb :

	   The people flee when the Commies COME.
	   They also  flee when the Yankees LEAVE.

		
		Jan Wasilewsky