Iraq = Vietnam

[mainer]

From the Portland Press Herald (Maine):

"It's all beginning to sound familiar. The Iraq adventure may have been a strategic mistake, our intelligence and tactical calculations may have been faulty, the cost in money and blood may have exceeded estimates, the expectations for success may have been inflated, but we can't reverse course now.

"There will be no retreat," President Bush told the annual American Legion convention in late August, adding that America's only option is "total victory." He repeated the theme a week later, telling a Labor Day gathering the United States cannot and will not back down in Iraq, no matter what.

If those who were around in the 1960s think this sounds like Vietnam revisited, they're right - even down to the infamous domino theory. The domino theory, for those not up on their recent history, held that if Vietnam went communist, other Asian countries would soon follow, one after the other, like a series of falling dominoes. Either we stopped the Red hordes there, or they would soon be in Hawaii and, ultimately, be landing on the beaches of California."

http://www.portland.com/insight/stories/031019eyewash.shtml