Ah, the old Vietnam war 'We would've won it if it wasn't for you meddling kids' defense.
Hardblogger Rick Francona argues that the politicians, specifically John Murtha, are about to tie the hands of our military with statutory limitations on how military funds are spent. He argues that this is the exact same sort of "betrayal" our troops experienced in Vietnam.
For example, for years we were not permitted to bomb North Vietnamese targets north of 20 degrees north latitude – even when the North Vietnamese Air Force built an airfield just north of the line.
Bombing our way to victory? Care to place money on which branch of the military Francona served in?
There are a ton of lessons to be learned by the Vietnam war, of course. Unfortunately Francona expresses none of them in his piece. He could have argued the importance of the Powell Doctrine, or of expressing skepticism towards politicians and wariness of jingoism. Instead he chose to argue a wives's tale. Worse; he chose to invoke that wives's tale in order to attack a straw man.
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