(Note: Few will also miss the bitter irony of being lectured on “the lessons of Vietnam” by a guy who spent that war hiding out in the Texas Air National Guard, drinking beer and malingering by skipping out on monthly drills. (It was good to be the son of a powerful Texas congressman.)

Those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, or have since studied declassified documents from the Johnson and Nixon administrations, have walked away with much different lessons:

Super-power status is meaningless against a enemy fighting on and for their own land and willing to incur and take unlimited casualties.

1. Puppet governments set up under foreign occupying forces are viewed by their own people as illegitimate and therefore cannot govern.
2. The hurdle for an occupying army is very high – they need to win. The hurdle for an indigenous insurgency is much more achievable – they simply need to not lose.
3. When the vast majority of Americans cease to support a foreign war, that war is lost – period.
4. Retreat from Vietnam did not result in a “domino effect,” in the region, as threatened.
5. When we retreated from Vietnam the Viet Cong did not “follow us home.”
6. Our retreat from Vietnam did not result in permanent estrangement, just the opposite.
7. The only Vietnamese who “followed us home,” were refugees who have since become among some of the most highly educated and successful American citizens.

George W. Bush learned none of the real lessons of the Vietnam War. Because Bush and his Neo-con co-dependents insulated themselves from the those lessons by soaking their gray matter in the Koolaide of denial – that it was the “liberal media” and “liberals in Congress,” that cut the ground from under our troops. In other words, as far as Bush et al are concerned, we didn't lose in Vietnam, we cut and ran before the job was done. They surely believe to this day that, had we only stuck with it a few more months, surged a few more times, that we would have won. The light was right there they say, at the end of that tunnel – a tunnel that never itself seemed to have not end.

And if you believe that, then I have a war in the Middle East to sell ya.

We've gone through so many iterations of the Bush doctrine with Iraq that I've lost the thread. But this appears to be a whole new version of the Bush doctrine: Never give up. Never admit defeat no matter how many soldiers are dying each week (especially since none of them are related to you.) Keep fighting.... no matter the cost in treasure or to our nation's soul. Because, as long as we keep fighting no one can say we lost. No one can say we cut and ran.

It's not a new idea. In fact it's just a reworked version of the military doctrine of another George... George Custer.

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