Just a bit of historical reflection, which may or may not be connected with events of today. I suspect a lot of readers and viewers will be familiar with the first of these interviews, in which President John F. Kennedy declared about the conflict in South Vietnam, “In the final analysis, it is their war.”

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I doubt many are familiar with the follow-up, however. A week later, President Kennedy made clear to another interviewer:

What I am concerned about is that Americans will get impatient and say, because they don’t like events in Southeast Asia or they don’t like the Government in Saigon, that we should withdraw. That only makes it easy for the Communists. I think we should stay.

We should use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw.

2 SEPTEMBER 1963: PRESIDENT KENNEDY WITH WALTER CRONKITE OF CBS

MR. CRONKITE. Mr. President, the only hot war we’ve got running at the moment is of course the one in Viet-Nam, and we have our difficulties here, quite obviously.
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Is President Obama preparing to stall out the military’s request for 25,000 more US troops to Afghanistan?

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