VIETNAM

I have not read Christopher Hitchens' "This Is Not Vietnam" piece over at Slate yet. I am about to...

I hereby predict that that it will go after the analogy in terms of actual events on the ground, our "winning" and "losing", and so on, rather than the analogy Kennedy was making that brought the 'Nam question to the fore, that being the way the misinformation peddled by the administration plunged us into the war on false pretenses.

Now, to click on the link...

Here is the reason that it is idle to make half-baked comparisons to Vietnam. The Vietnamese were not our enemy, let alone the enemy of the whole civilized world, whereas the forces of jihad are our enemy and the enemy of civilization. There were some Vietnamese, even after the whole ghastly business, who were sorry to see the Americans leave. There were no Lebanese who were sad to see the Israelis leave. There would be many, many Iraqis who would be devastated in more than one way if there was another Somalian scuttle in their country. In any case, there never was any question of allowing a nation of this importance to become the property of Clockwork Orange holy warriors.

So, what do I win?

So anyway, Hitch writes about a strawman for a while, and we move on.