The Lessons of History

It's kind of ironic that 40 years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident that started the whole tragic Vietnam war, the NSA has published communications from Navy ships at the time that might lead one to believe that the intelligence presented to Lyndon Johnson and the Congress was seriously skewed. Some historians for years have disputed the fact the Navy ship had ever actually been fired upon. Now the documents have been declassified and you can read them yourself at nsa.gov.

Wow. So have any of the wars in my lifetime been based on real undisputed intelligence? And having gone through the horrors of the Vietnam war, have we learned nothing from history?

At least this latest fiasco in Iraq has taken us only two years to realize that we made a mistake, and it might only take us two more years to become extricated from the mistake.

I guess you can call that progress. We are slow learners.

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