The Wrong Lesson

One of the most obscene stories of the past week was George W. Bush insisting that Iraq has parallels to to Vietnam and that the lesson to be learned from the earlier conflict is to stick it out until you are able to achieve victory. This is typical of American political and military leadership, who believe that our might alone makes right, and thus we can never be defeated unless we allow ourselves to be. Abraham Lincoln, of course knew that right makes might, not the other way around, and he led the nation (or at least the northern tier of it) through a brutal civil war humbled by the hard struggle. But then, even as a volunteer in the Black Hawk War - where the only wounds he received were from mosquito bites - Lincoln knew more about war than the Texas Air Guard deserter currently in the Oval Office.