The real parallel between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam is that they were based upon cultural conflicts of politics and economics. The US "intervention" in Iraq wasn't based on protecting the human rights of the Iraqi people or even their neighbors, just as fighting the North Vietnamese wasn't about protecting the South Vietnamese or their neighbors. The enemy that was socialism and communism has now been replaced by a broader target -- it's anything that's anti-capitalism, anti-consumption. This makes Islam a target. It's why the Bush Administration hasn't taken Boykin down, he gives voice to their beliefs.

It is Vietnam, all over again. At what point will we realize we cannot force our political will on people who live in a different reality? At what point will we understand that our politics and social structure may not be best for everyone? As if our killer fast-food-overworked culture hasn't already been sending us clues...

It should be noted that I was not attempting to point out all the similarities. I am sure that such a project is beyond my allowable time.

Yes that whole, we are simply helping the Iraqis overthrow a tyrant is the worst type of speciousness. As in everything the US does there is no doubt a sliver of truth to that but we did not invade Iraq to overthrow a tyrant because it was the right thing to do. That's a lie.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, of course, on the whyfore of Iraq II.

It gets my goat that Friedman -- an otherwise intelligent man capable of holistic, systemic though -- signs on to this crap, believing blindly that this administration will somehow make a silk purse of a sow's ear, when they were really intending a sow's ear remain so all along. The only intention this administration had was making the sow's ear their own.