Iraquagmire

Fucking unbelievable post here by Glen Greenwald showing how very similar government statements regarding Vietnam were to statements today about Iraq. I mean almost verbatim. We're always "a few months away from victory," we'll always "never surrender," the enemy is always "growing weaker and more desperate by the day." It's absolutely stunning.

I wasn't alive for Vietnam, but I've learned enough about it (particularly from a fantastic Vietnam War history class in college) to recognize these similarities. I guess I didn't realize how completely similar they were. In many respects, these are the fictions society must forever tell themselves in order to allow wars and mass casualties to happen. We need to believe that we're winning and that the end is in sight and that any day now we'll be able to throw the ticker tape and make out with USO girls in the middle of Times Square. Chris Hedges' amazing book,"War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," should be required reading, and deals with this very subject.

That doesn't allow us to assess the truth of whether or not victory indeed is around the corner, in Vietnam or in Iraq. But it's important for everyone to know that governments simply guzzle out the bullshit about it, out of necessity. We're forced to draw our own objective conclusions, because the conclusions of the government are simply not valid.