A ‘Vietnam war’ moment?

Student power: Columbia University students staging a ‘camp-in’ on their campus to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their school to divest from Israeli companies. — AFP

IT has been half a century since the humbling of the world’s mightiest military, the United States army, by Vietnamese guerilla warriors.

It was, by all accounts, the most tumultuous defeat in the history of modern empire. If the Viet Cong routed US troops in the trenches, Washington lost the battle for hearts and minds at home.