Bush sez "Iraq = Vietnam"

Well, not exactly, but...

It's going to be a mostly PM blogging day, but this one's too good to put on hold.
I know a lot of folks say they're tired of talking about Vietnam, and I understand the sentiment to a large extent. History provides valuable lessons, though, and no matter how boring it is to hear us greybeard yammer on and on about our war, it's worth noting that the new war has some remarkable similarites.

I know it, you know it, and so does George W., it would seem.

Atrios rescues this gem from Meet the Press from the memory hole. Bush to Russert...

"The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War."

He was right, of course, except that he obviously hasn't learned a damned thing. Starting with Rummy's effort to shove every General officer who deferred from the Bushco war plan to the sidelines and right up to the recent retreat in Najaf, politics have been the ruling consideration in every step of the war in Iraq.

Does anyone really believe that the Marine Corps commanders on the ground are responsible for the repeated decisions to retreat just short of their objectives, time after time? That our Marines are unwilling to pay the price for victory?

Putting aside considerations of whether we should be in Iraq, the Bushco policy of being unwilling to pay the political price of expanded body counts on both sides of every battle required for military victory has disgraced our soldiers and Marines.

If every one of the lies our invasion was based on had turned out to be true, the disgrace brought to brave men by the political meddling of cowards should be reason enough to reject this pack of fools in November.