The insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results* …

Interesting column today by WaPo style writer (?) Henry Allen, who argues that we should give Bush enough rope to hang not only himself, but also American military adventurism for years to come …

The problem, if we lose in Iraq, is that America is apt to keep on doing what it's been doing for decades when it loses, which is to say learn nothing and have years of hissy fits about who's to blame. And set itself up for another fiasco someplace else. […]

… our combat fiascos are coming to define America both to the world and to itself. They are also demonstrating that we are incapable of winning ground wars against some of the poorest people on Earth, if those wars last more than a week.

After Vietnam, one hoped that we could salvage pride in the courage with which our soldiers fought, and in the knowledge that we had learned our lesson well enough that we would never again send them to die in such a doomed cause.

As we watched our helicopters abandon our terrified allies on the roof of our Saigon embassy, it seemed reasonable to assume that the shame of that moment would lead to a new sanity.

Just a little trivia; now let's return to our column already in progress…