Our Tunnel Vision - Richard Choen

— to consider whether the remedy for Iraq is not more American troops, as he insists, but fewer and fewer . . . and then none at all. Iraq is not Vietnam, but America is still America — and we still don’t know what in the world we’re doing. 

…we did not notice that in all the hoopla just before Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s Firdaus Square came down in 2003, the crowd went silent after an American flag was draped over it. The crowd came to life only when the Iraqi flag replaced it. Had we noticed that, we might have learned something about Iraqi nationalism and the fleeting gratitude awarded to liberators. One minute you’re a liberator, the next an occupier.