Related to a subject I discussed yesterday -- the inability and/or refusal of our leaders and many Americans to admit that a profoundly awful mistake has been made -- James Wolcott says what I said better (which is absolutely typical, damn him):

One of the advantages of living through enough history is that you hear the same rationalizations and excuses return like a bad melody. During Vietnam a point was reached in which the press and the public, which had supported the war for years during the escalation, recognized it wasn't working, we weren't going to win, and that the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train. And yet--we couldn't"bug out,"" cut and run," choose your own vernacular phrase. Why? Because America would lose face and stature in the world. Because our enemies (then, the Communists) would be emboldened. And, this was the clincher moral argument, because it would mean that those who died in Vietnam had died in vain.

We're hearing some of that now, and we'll hear more of it ahead. But face it, those troops in Vietnam did die in vain, as did the Marines who died in the barracks in Beirut, as do most of the men and women who die in war. Most wars are unnecessary, waged on the basis of lies, power, and fear; to justify the unnecessary deaths, the funeral services float the soft consolation that the body lying in the flag-draped coffin died for Peace, or Democracy, or the Good of the Country. When often they died because too many fools wouldn't admit they had made a ghastly mistake and kept perpetuating that mistake even after they and all the world recognized the mission was futile. How many more soldiers and civilians are going to die in vain in Iraq to prove that those who died before them didn't die in vain?

On a lighter note, try this Wolcott entry, which concerns the cultural collision of religious holidays and certain spiritually enriching products provided to us courtesy of the sex industry. I'm sure you'll only find it of academic interest, but worth noting on that score.

Academic interest. Yes, that's the ticket.