It took a long, long time for the United States to come to terms with the fact that we had lost the Vietnam War. Now here we are, almost 20 years after the start of the war in Afghanistan, and we don’t really accept that we lost this war and, in fact, the Taliban won it.

The weak and corrupt government of Afghanistan that we have supported for so long will collapse with the departure of our remaining troops.

Another attempt at regime change through military action failed.

Mary F. Warren, Wheaton

Vietnam once again

The news that the last American troops will be leaving Afghanistan by September 11 reminded me of what was said when our country signed an agreement (calling it a “peace deal” would be misleading) to end our military involvement in Vietnam:

“We agreed to leave. They agreed not to stop us.

In the absence of a US military presence in Afghanistan, I expect any positive changes that have been made there to dissolve faster than the positive changes made in South Vietnam.

The sad irony is that if Vietnam or Afghanistan had the capacity to locally become what we hoped they could be, our presence would probably have been unnecessary.

Curt Fredrikson, Mokena

Output video

A police officer at Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, shoots a citizen and within 24 hours a video of the incident is released. It is televised for all to see. A Chicago cop kills a citizen and, as usual, the city stalls for over a month before releasing video of the incident, and only after making countless excuses for withholding the video. What should Chicagoans think about this disparity?

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park