Yet another comparison to Vietnam. Richard Cohen gets in several good points:

"In almost every way but one, Iraq is not Vietnam. Here's the one: We don't know what the hell we're doing."

-snip-

"In the first place, minorities make revolutions, not majorities." (this is in response to the point that the majority of Iraqis are pro-American)

-snip-

"These were the hard truths of Vietnam. This is how the base barber, the smiling guy who kidded with GIs as he cut their hair, could be Viet Cong. This is how the trusted legman for some American news outlet could be an enemy intelligence officer, now available for interviews in Ho Chi Minh City cafes. This inability to read the culture, to discern friend from foe, is what produced such frustration and the occasional war atrocity. Even with our eyes open, we were blind as a bat.

It is the same in Iraq. We went to war for the wrong reasons, and with too few troops and too few allies. Just about every expectation turned out to be misplaced. The occupation has not been financed by oil revenue, as we were assured. The Iraqi army and police are not, as promised, up to the task of maintaining order. Americans were often greeted as liberators, but also as conquerors. The United States did not commit enough troops to intimidate looters and the civilian leaders we backed turned out to have larger followings in Georgetown than in Baghdad. Victory remains possible, but first we'll have to figure out what victory is."

and lastly:
"The lesson of Vietnam is that once you make the initial mistake, little you do afterward is right."

In other news, I have this research paper due in a few weeks on Influenza. I'm supposed to be updating my professor's computer simulation model for determining how best to vaccinate the public. Problem is, there isn't a lot of literature out there on the specific questions he's asking, and I'm somehow supposed to come up with 10-15 pages! I went to see him today, with the hopes I could knock it down to 3-5 pages, but he explicitly said he didn't want 5 pages. So now I'm going to end up with 3-5 pages of useful information with an additional 5-7 of crap filler. And he's "really looking forward to my paper because it's something he's very interested in and will hopefully help with the work he needs to do this summer." So no pressure or anything. Sheesh.

And since I know we all have oodles of time on our hands these days (/sarcasm) bake a little something for your local Bake Sale for Democracy this Saturday, then hop on a bus headed to DC for the March for Women's Lives next weekend!