ANOTHER VIETNAM?

Hardly. An interesting piece...worth a look.

Iraq is not another Vietnam. It is said we always prepare to fight the last war. This, however, is a new war, with new tactics, new enemies and hopefully a different ending. Sept. 11 changed this nation forever. We realize now we are targets even if we pull out of Iraq. We must win and show the agents of terror we will persevere and overcome.

Radical Islamists or two-bit dictators will not improve the average Iraqi's life, but a new government based on principles of democracy and the rule of war will do so.

We should heed the words of the Chinese sage Sun Tzu in all matters military -- "No nation has ever benefited from a protracted war."

And then there is this one by James Robbins at NRO

It was a seven-year struggle against diehard indigenous guerrillas, a controversial war that helped bring down a Democratic president, a hard-fought jungle conflict in which both sides committed atrocities, and the sentiments of the domestic peace movement were echoed by disenchanted soldiers longing for nothing more than a ticket back to the world. Yeah, you guessed it: I'm referring to the Second Seminole War. Every day I watch the coverage of events and Iraq and pray that the United States has not gotten itself into another Florida.

O.K., so maybe the comparison is far-fetched, but it is as valid as the Vietnamization that is creeping over discussion of Iraq. It seems a media gospel that every conflict must be compared to Vietnam sooner or later, so anything that could prompt the analogy triggers a flashback to the '60s....

The Vietnamization of the storyline kicked into high gear when the president stated that the recent rash of attacks in Iraq were a sign of desperation, which struck some as a kind of Johnson-era doublespeak. But the president's statement recognizes a fact that is often overlooked when analyzing terrorist incidents — that terrorism is a weapon of the weak. If the terrorists could wage guerrilla war, conventional war, or anything more substantial, they would. If they are reduced to suicide car bombings and assassinations, they are on a downward spiral.

He goes on to note the targets of the terrorists (as we've noted here) are not so much the US Troops - but softer and easier to hit. Very good stuff...read it all. .