They understood that they couldn’t act on that understanding. I know people say that Bush should have prepared the country better. I don’t think there is anything Bush could have said that would have worked around the extreme historical and military ignorance of large blocks of the public.

I recommend that you get a copy of “The Sling and The Stone”, as well as “Imaginary Weapons”. Neither have a lefty feel and both appear as mostly unbiased discussions about what was happening in the Pentagon post-9/11. It really does appear, based on those and some other discussions, that the Pentagon felt that insurgency was a low risk and that High Tech war in typical battle scenarios was the future. It’s not surprising though. Almost all nations fight the last War, not the current one. During WWI, for example, the final movements by the Germans were 2nd Gen Warfare, yet everyone was surprised when they burst into WWII with these tactics refined. The same could be seen moving from WWII to Vietnam, Korea etc. Our soldiers seem to get the shifts pretty quickly, but the Pentagon and the decision makers tend to lag way behind.

Your interpretation is more charitable than mine. I think he’s incapable of remorse, except where his acts deprive him of the perfect and complete adulation he expects. Maybe that’s not remorse, but a practical kind of regret for having screwed up. Guilt assumes a conscience, and I see nothing in this relentlessly mean and ugly man which proves he has one.

I was present at the creation (1945-to today), and I’m g-damnned sick of Them, too. Have been for forty years.

I’ll be 41 next month Terrye, and yes, from time to time I have wished the boomers would either shut-up or just die already. Not out of evilness, but simply out of 1960′s fatigue.

Only a little bit. I think you are only edging into “blather” territory on this issue. I was commenting more on the Wash Post take, and their fellow travelers. I have developed a strong, *personal* dislike for the kind of people that will consign thousands of people to misery and death for the sake of their own vanity, ignorance, and will to power. Note I’m talking about the crowd that refuses to confront the reality of our opposition–not the nature of the opposition, but the fact that it is opposition of a kind that cannot be reasoned with–and then accept what that means.

“However, beyond all of that… my initial point stands. Vietnam and Iraq do share some similarities, particularly that we failed to understand who the enemy was, we failed to understand how the enemy fought and we failed to understand what the requirements for victory were.

Iraq is not like Vietnam in two very important ways. 1) We don’t have nearly the dead and wounded that we did in Vietnam. 2) All of the boys there are volunteers and thus chose to be in harm’s way.”

And I guess I’d add a couple of ways, that somewhat lesson the relevance of the ones you listed:

1. It’s similar in that I now understand why certain people in the 60′s developed a personal dislike for each other. I understood it academically as soon as I read enough history, but I didn’t really feel it until recently.

2. For a variety of reasons, the populace as a whole refuses to face up to reality. In short, as a country, we aren’t serious yet. In my terms, Biden is wrong about Iraq, but is still serious about. Kennedy is not serious about Iraq, and thus can only be fundamentally correct by accident.

The more we succeed in Iraq, the less serious Americans will be about it. The less serious they are about it, the more people will get away the preening and ignorance and will to power. Iraq can only become Vietnam if we fail to understand ourselves. And I guess that’s another similarity, since that’s what did it in Vietnam, too.

And to reiterate, I don’t think the Pentagan, Rumsfeld, etc. failed to understand what you are talking about, at least not the big picture. They understood that they couldn’t act on that understanding. I know people say that Bush should have prepared the country better. I don’t think there is anything Bush could have said that would have worked around the extreme historical and military ignorance of large blocks of the public.

I’m not sure if the ‘blather’ you mentioned was directed at me… if it was I think you may have misunderstood what I wrote. I did not say that we should have started a “counter-insurgency” earlier. I said that we should have planned around the potential problem from the beginning. However, its obvious from statements made before the invasion that the decision makers didn’t believe that there would be an insurgency, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. So, as I said, like Vietnam, the powers that be failed to recognize the sort of war we were dealing with. The Marines (then and now) seem to get it. The SecDef and Generals didn’t.

Gen Zinni’s position would have probably resulted in an environment that was far less likely to support the necessary ingredients for an insurgency to have gained momentum.

However, now that we’re stuck, we need to understand the situation. Insurgencies, particularly the sort that are considered 4GW, don’t have the same criteria for victory as 3GW did. It doesn’t matter if we put 100,000,000 troops in Iraq, an insurgency is not a war of attrition. The insurgents will simply rejoin the civilian population until they can again assert their power. Its how Mao, Ho, the Sandinista and all the rest worked… we have to be smarter than in the past.

That being said, I’m not against Bush’s current plan to raise troop levels. At least its an attempt to do something. Based on what I understand about the situation, I’m not sure that it will help… but I’m often wrong, so maybe it will…

However, beyond all of that… my initial point stands. Vietnam and Iraq do share some similarities, particularly that we failed to understand who the enemy was, we failed to understand how the enemy fought and we failed to understand what the requirements for victory were.

Iraq is not like Vietnam in two very important ways. 1) We don’t have nearly the dead and wounded that we did in Vietnam. 2) All of the boys there are volunteers and thus chose to be in harm’s way.