Don't mention Vietnam, baby boomers, Iraq is a very different war - Opinion

The Soviets, a military superpower controlled by the Communist Party, invaded Afghanistan and lost that war just as easily as the USA lost the Vietnam War. They didn't lose because their liberal media or leftist anti-war movement undercut the will to win or that their leaders wavered. The Soviets lost Afghanistan because they had poorly defined objectives and operated with an ignorance of the Afghanistan's ungovernable history.

So read thus Australian opinion piece and think about the Soviet Afghanistan occupation. Why did they lose?

Don't mention Vietnam, baby boomers, Iraq is a very different war - Opinion: "Vietnam was a defining war not just for those who opposed it.
For the budding neo-conservatives, some of whom had initially been opposed to the intervention in Vietnam, and who would become a major intellectual influence during the Reagan presidency and later, of course, in the Bush Administration, Vietnam and in particular the nature of the anti-war movement was their great awakening.
The Vietnam War was lost because America had lost confidence in itself, because the '60s cultural revolution, of which the anti-war movement was a part, had undermined American institutions and shared values.
For them, the lesson of Vietnam was not that the war was a mistake based on a fatal misunderstanding of Vietnamese nationalism and the historic antipathy between Vietnam and China, which meant the war was always going to become a bloody, aimless quagmire.
Instead, never again meant that never again should the US fight a war that it was not prepared to see through to victory, and that US security depended on a confident and assertive, militarily unassailable America.
To be confronted with the accusation that - far from fulfilling their pledge of never again - the mistakes of Vietnam are being repeated in Iraq, enrages the intellectual architects of the Bush doctrine of a confident, engaged and dominant America spreading democracy and freedom, if necessary, by armed force.
In the wake of the reality of regime change in Iraq, the ascendancy of the neo-conservatives and their faith in American power and American exceptionalism that, in part, came from their reaction to Vietnam, is over.
But Iraq is not Vietnam and the world of 2005 is nothing like the world of 1968. There are no lessons from Vietnam that apply to Iraq. And the Cold War, which was the context and the pretext for the American intervention in Vietnam, shares no similarities with the war on terrorism.
"

ha ha

Eschaton: "

Penis Glennvy (n.) - The belief that by linking to Instapundit and his posts, rightwing bloggers can extend their influence and reputation into the
blogosphere. Indeed. From Reynolds, Glenn. (GFW)
"

Bush attends Little League game: It's hard work.

CNN.com - Bush attends Little League game - Aug 14, 2005: "The world's most powerful former Little Leaguer watched several innings while players from Bryant, Arkansas, and Lafayette, Louisiana, competed for the southwestern regional championship.

Bush welcomed the players, coaches and families to Texas from the pitcher's mound. He then threw out the ceremonial first pitch and watched from behind home plate with the first lady and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

'Play hard, play fair, play to win,' he said. 'God bless you all and may God continue to bless our great country.'"

...

"The game was being played just about 20 miles from the ranch where Bush is spending the month of August. Bush traveled to the game by helicopter, missing the throng of anti-war protesters gathered on the country road leading to his ranch.

The demonstrations began August 6 when Cindy Sheehan of California came demanding to ask Bush about her son -- a soldier who died last year in Iraq. (Full story)"

It's hard work being The Preznit. And he has to get on with his life - can't be dragged down by death and grieving Mothers.

Bush SS FUD created 'a crisis without a solution'

Funny how you can say and intend one thing and have an all-together unintended outcome.

USATODAY.com - Public remains anxious over economy, war: "Another factor in the president's low approval levels on the economy may be his talk about a Social Security crisis, some analysts suggested.

Bush crisscrossed the country saying that the national retirement program was headed toward bankruptcy. But he drummed up little public support for his prescription for fixing it, which includes individual investment accounts for workers under age 55,— in exchange for a reduction in future promised benefits.
you don't keep real confidence in the economy when you hear that the Social Security system is going broke,' said Thomas Mann, a scholar on Congress and the presidency at the Brookings Institution. 'Americans weren't persuaded by his solution. So we got a crisis without a solution.'

An Associated Press poll conducted this month found Bush's economic approval rating at 41%, his lowest rating yet in that poll and down from 47% in January."

Can it get worse for him?

Yes.

Gasoline in SanFrancisco is over $3.00 a gallon at some stations. I assume prices will drop with the Fall but if they do not then The Preznit will be punished in the polls and that will be ugly. Today's baseline of 41% is pretty low to start with.