Cyetain, trying to drag us into the black hole?
From the London Times:

SCIENTISTS HAVE a phrase for the point at which the known universe ends, and a black hole begins. They call it the event horizon. In recent months it has become clear that a similar phenomenon is at work in media coverage of foreign affairs.
There is a particular point at which knowledge appears to end and a huge black hole begins. It seems to occur somewhere in the 1960s. The specific event beyond which most commentators now find it difficult to see is the Vietnam War.
It has become the dominant reference point for discussion of any current military campaign. The war to liberate Afghanistan had barely begun before sceptics were suggesting that a “Vietnam-style quagmire” loomed. And from the moment plans were laid to topple Saddam’s regime, cynics were certain that the Iraq war would lead, if not to Apocalypse Now, then to the quagmire to end all quagmires.
In the past few weeks the number, and weight, of those concluding that the Iraq war has been a foolish adventure has grown. And many of the weightiest, including John Maples, the former Shadow Foreign Secretary, writing on these pages last week, have invoked the long shadow cast by the Vietnam War Memorial. Can we not learn from history, they ask, and recognise we have made another error to rank with that error-strewn conflict in the jungles of South-East Asia?

Cyetain, just about every article you link to on Iraq, as well as your to this point slight editorial commentary, suffer from this problem. You present the bits and pieces of coverage that conform to your apparently dim view of the endeavor and its prospects for success.

Gathering together often questionable press clippings does not an argument (or a discussion) make. Or are you being meta, posting these brief snippets of articles to make a subtle and nuanced point about journalism and war, reporting/observation and truth? In either case, you're starting to resemble a bad news wire service, and there are already enough of those.

If you're interested in hearing some important reasons why Iraq is not Vietnam, and why those reasons might lead one to expect a different outcome, I recommend that you read the rest of this interesting article.
- posted by Anonymous @ Tuesday, January 18, 2005