[dd74]

About the tanks: yes, I wondered about their absence. In fact, when I first saw a tank in the movie, I thought that that was what the troops needed in the first place, and funny as this is, once I saw "UN" painted on the tank's front (hood?) I said to myself, "Well that's a losing cause."

Goes to show what the UN represents in wartime scenarios, at least for me.

As for what you say about the high hopes for the U.S. and Iraq, there still and most obviously has not been enough study on the Iraqi infrastructure that existed before the war to bring the country back to a working entity. Almost all of the leaders in the country who have risen out of the sand to help rebuild Iraq, have been implicated in some scandal or the other, and rendered inadequate. Again, there just seems to be a lack of planning going on there.

In fact, I have to disagree about this NOT being similar to Vietnam: Iraq has all the makings of another Vietnam in as much as this IS a war of attrition and re-establishment. It simply occurs on a different timeline than in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the idea was to stop the influx of Communism from the north, while in Iraq, the influx of a bad nature (terrorist state, whatever that is) has already occurred.

And with the term "exit strategy," I can't think of any major war where we have employed a successful exit strategy. In Vietnam, we evacuated. As for Germany, Japan, and Korea, we have yet to exit.

I can compare Iraq to Somalia based on Hollywood effects and the hot, dusty terrain; a broken-down city teeming with snipers and guerrilla fighters - maybe not as many as in "Blackhawk Down," but a sizeable amount to kill more U.S. soldiers than were killed before the end of hostilities was declared by Bush in San Diego.

But the bigger picture is a Vietnam of sorts: all the markings are there: 1) Lack of intelligence as to the indigenous people; 2) Lack of planning once warfare has started and completed; and 3) Lack of understanding by the media, coupled with the Administration's thwarting of the media's quest for answers. What does a liberal media then do? They take their own hostilities to the public, state over and over the rising death count, the lack of information coming from the Administration, the lack of resolution to the problems, and finally, the fact our soldiers aren't home yet.

It takes the American public to listen to these points, however by way of Bush's approval rating, they don't seem to be listening. Either that, or they simply don't care...