So, Getting Back to That Iraq-Vietnam Comparison
Those who are fully onboard with the Bush administration’s grand plan for defeating evil think things are going really well in Iraq. Austin Bay, for example: A war we are winning. (Update: See also this AP story: U.S. moves in Iraq, Afghanistan commanding respect of foes even as old allies alienated by aggressive superpower.)
Obviously, I’m not so sure. To me, this thing feels more like Vietnam all the time. Yes, I realize we are way short of where Vietnam ended up. But this sure looks to me like the path that leads there. Consider this article from Knight-Ridder’s Ron Hutcheson: Some see troubling parallels between Iraq and Vietnam.
See also this opinion piece from former Senator Max Cleland: Mistakes of Vietnam repeated with Iraq.
(Cleland, by the way, is the triple-amputee Vietnam vet who lost a narrow re-election bid to Saxby Chambliss, after the latter ran ads questioning Cleland’s patriotism and equating him with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein because Cleland had voted against Bush’s version of the Homeland Security bill. More on how Cleland is feeling about that is available in this Washington Post article from a few months ago: Political veteran; there’s also some interesting discussion in the comments on this piece at Hit & Run: The lighter side of Max Cleland.)
