http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8202434/

Anyone who doubts that any parallel exits between our situations in Iraq and Viet Nam should read this:

http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH41/Friedman41.html

If one reads the entire text of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings on Viet Nam in 1966 the obvious dilemma that our leadership faced becomes apparent. To escalate the war would force the Chinese hand and potentially draw us into a land war with them that we could not win without the use of nuclear weapons. The alternative, advocated by other respected foreign policy minds like former Ambassador George Kennan, the so called “enclave strategy” also had its pitfalls. “Like the hawk argument, the dove position contained its share of convenient omissions. Most obvious was its utter failure to account for–or indeed more than glansingly to acknowledge–Soviet and Chinese aid to Hanoi. Since they ultimately would judge Saigon’s legitimacy by its ability to resist Northern aggression while maintaining the niceties of U.S.-style democracy, doves held America’s ally to rather a high standard”.

Quite the reversal of today where hawks believe as the doves did then, that our allies, the “elected” government of Iraq can legitimize themselves only by “maintaining the niceties of U.S. style democracy” while defeating the insurgency, which they cannot do without our assistance. Today’s doves on the other hand see our current course as drawing us into an endless conflict with the backers of the insurgency i.e. terrorists and former Baathists, one that we cannot win without resorting to tactics that we find abhorrent.

The point of all of this is not to rehash the mistakes of the past or to even debate the wisdom of involving ourselves in either of these conflicts in the first place, but rather to illustrate that the level of the debate must now rise above the current level of partisanship.

All of our leaders, Democrat and Republican as well as the majority of the American people who supported this endeavor either through their advocacy or their apathy must take responsibility for their decision and began debating in earnest the future course of our policy. They are unlikely to do so as long as the American people are divided along party lines and radically divergent ideologies.

Note to “Rise Against”: Forthright racists and genocidal maniacs do not deserve the courtesy of your acknowledgement.

For your Information Mr. “Stool Sample”, My Mathematic Skills are fine, and I have a Commercial Pilots licence to boot !!

You really need to think about the 780, it really isn’t much when you consider how many of the Bastards there are out there !!!