[rrpjr]

Neverminding your facetious thanks, your last (and least important, really) rejoinder is the most disingenuous. I'm sure we both know that the essential escalation in Vietnam, the fateful decision to turn a smattering of advisors into a crucible of US credibility, took place under Kennedy and Johnson. Though clearly both parties have more than enough to be ashamed over in this matter.

You are comparing Islamicists to communists, not I. If you can't see the difference, or wish to fudge the difference for your specious analogy, I'm sorry. But the differences are profound and pressing and demand attention. The VietCong never attempted, declared or in fact intended to commit large-scale terrorism against the West in the West. Also, Reagan's vilifications of the Soviet in the 1980s (which were correct, incidentally) have nothing to do with this argument, the salient and meaningful likenesses between Vietnam and Iraq.

No, thank you for responding. Your and others punctilious insistence on comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam (I suppose because the latter amounted to a US defeat) complete with such silly sub-comparisons as the Tonkin incident to 11 years of Hussein's UN resolution violations, genocidal deracination of the Kurds with biological weapons of terror, attacks of US and British planes in the no-fly-zone and other assorted criminal acts which incurred the determined outrage of politicians of both parties -- until, that is, one decided to do something about it -- is a perfect procrustean bed of bad reasoning based on wishful thinking. But of course, time will tell. After all, Vietnam went on for more than 10 years, and we're in our second year in Iraq.