foreign policy

It's really foreign to me, how we can send our best and brightest to die (3562 as of today) in some failed state halfway around the world. More and more I think back to the days of my youth, and remember what 'they' said about 'Nam. The new Foreign Policy quotes a CIA memo from the Viet Nam War, with Iraq substituted for VN, and the results are scary.

1. At some stage in most debates about the Vietnam IRAQ war, questions like the following emerge: What would it actually mean for the US if it failed to achieve its stated objectives in Vietnam IRAQ? Are our vital interests in fact involved? Would abandonment of the effort really generate other serious dangers?

34. A more challenging question is whether the Soviets IRANIANS might not make a reappraisal of American power which would tempt them into rashly aggressive moves.

37. We doubt, however, that such impulses would result in a much more widespread and serious Communist insurgency TERRORIST problem than would obtain in any case, either in Latin America THE MIDDLE EAST or elsewhere. If Communists JIHADISTS in some countries temporarily acquired more will to fight, the odds for or against success for such ventures in any particular national setting would remain essentially the same.

In the aftermath of that setback (Tet offensive), Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, was replaced and American strategy shifted from conventional operations to counterinsurgency. In many ways, the shift in strategy came too late to alter the outcome of the war. Thirty thousand additional American troops were killed in Vietnam before the United States finally withdrew.

So what will happen in Iraq (or here) that will finally drive home the fact that we must leave without 'winning' before losing 30,000 more young men and women.