For What?

There's an old adage that goes, "Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it". The following words were written during the Vietnam War by a WWII general - but eerily, they fit like a glove when applied to the situation in Iraq today:

"The enemy are pestering our troops like mosquitos until we scratch ourselves to death."

"We’re letting technology drive tactics. The helicopter is an example. We let the use of the helicopter dictate tactics instead of formulating tactics to make use of the helicopter."

"The same goes for body counts as a measure of whether or not you are winning the war. You do not count bodies and add them up and let the arithmetic determine strategy or tactics."

"The same goes for the base camp concept. Not only do you have to take territory, but you must own and defend it; Without domination of territory you have done nothing but waste lives in pursuit of a corrupt policy in the futile quest for a hollow victory."

"You can not expect to control territory if you expend men, munitions, equipment and resources by day only to abandon the territory to the enemy by night."

"When you try to substitute technology for people on the battlefield you only make war a logical and inevitable choice in the furtherance of policy."

Our 'leaders' would do well to recall the hard lessons learned thirty years ago in Vietnam. They are however, narrowly focused on an agenda which ignores virtually all the lessons from the past. Unfortunately and tragically, the American people, and especially our young men and women in the armed forces are paying the price. Over 1724 dead so far, and nearly 13,000 wounded. *(1661 since "Mission Accomplished"!)

Pardon me, but for what?

* http://icasualties.org/oif/

And the whole "Mission Accomplished" bull turned out to be just another publicity stunt - which the White House then lied about:

*http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/29/iraq/main580661.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/08/politics/main552894.shtml