We didn't lose in Viet Nam; Kerry and his ilk, along with the Media, destroyed the will to proceed with lies and blatant propaganda -- much as we're seeing today from the same players. The real problems are the abject lack of support from the EoP and his Cabinet Heads, primarily State. Too many hold-over socialist bureaucrats from the prior administration in the name of compassionate conservatism. The fact that we failed to contain or eliminate Saddam in the first go-'round was the biggest failure -- that would have put the brakes on Syria, Iran, the PLO, and the Taliban, and likely cut back severely on Al Qaida.
Hindsight is wonderful; it allows you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.
The difference that we have today from the Vietnam era perhaps explains the reluctance to serve outside the military by those top achievers in the military.
In the Vietnam era, in addition to the subversion you cite, the prior decades leftovers from WWII and Korea were the upper officer cadre and they had become seperated (to a large, but not total extent) from the lower ranks they commanded. This came about due to the amount of time they were fulfulling cold war political positions in the Pentagon and elsewhere.
To them, their team was the political team and not the war making team.
Middle officers and junior officers that lived through that era, learned from the problems and in the retrenchment years of 74 to 84 retooled the officer corps thinking and organization such that from Grenada, through Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom they kept themselves from being subverted by the political commmand in their thinking of how to use the war-fighting machine they commanded.
Biographies abound as to how this happened and even the more political such as Powell recount how they and those they led profited by this improvement.
There are those that naturally adhere to the political, such as our former NATO commander, Wesley Clark and others that show what happens when you have a good officer, well educated and smart, that is more suited to the political role. Shudder.
Hey, Brit , how ya doin?
My perception is that the main objective was to get Saddam.
From that the Iraqi’s were supposed to be so falling over themselves grateful, that the whole she-bang was going to be a cakewalk.
People who have never experienced freedom don’t seem to be able to handle it.
Without a definite plan of action, the Iraqi’s merely reverted to their divisive ways.
We should have left then.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, except for people who can’t seem to be able to find their A$$ with either hand.