From: Adam 

Monte Davis wrote:
> Adam  wrote:
>
>> At some point you'll leave unless you're thinking of turning Iraq into
>> the 51st state of the Union.
>
> I think I've posted it before: sometime in the late 1980s my brother
> and I were moving a footlocker with his mementos, including a copy of
> the divisional newpaper. Its lead story was about a successful search
> & destroy mission in an area that had been _de facto_ enemy territory
> for some time; it ended with a colonel saying "We've showed Charlie
> [by that time NVA, not VC] that we can go wherever we want and do
> whatever we want, whenever we want."
>
> My brother added: "Bravo. And he showed us the same old thing: when we
> left, he'd still be there."
>
> There's only one similarity that really matters between Viet Nam and
> Iraq: the slow discovery that knowing how to prevail in combat is not
> the same as knowing how to bring about a political state of affairs
> that (1) can sustain itself, and (2) satisfies your war aims.

They had war aims? I thought that a good war to cheer everyone up post 9-11
was the aim.

Adam

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