I grew up reading comic books wanting to be a superhero. Comics taught me that those who speak the truth are heroes, all the rest are liars.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Vietnam Redux?

Take a walk sometime this fall through the VA hospital here in St. Paul. It’s full of young people who are now amputees or sightless or head injury cases. It’s not pretty and the numbers are growing...

The number of wounded troops in Iraq is growing significantly.More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty.

The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam.

The surge in wounded comes as U.S. commanders issue increasingly dire warnings about the threat of civil war in Iraq, all but ruling out cuts in the current contingent of more than 140,000 U.S. troops before the spring of 2007.

Vietnam redux? or does it go back further...
"Beyond the Euphrates began for us the land of mirage and danger, the sands where one helplessly sank, and the roads which ended in nothing. The slightest reversal would have resulted in a jolt to our prestige giving rise to all kinds of catastrophe; the problem was not only to conquer but to conquer again and again, perpetually; our forces would be drained off in the attempt." Emperor Hadrian AD 117-138

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