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1) You said that "Dean is an idiot if he thinks Iraq resembles Vietnam in any meaningful way."
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Yes, and my belief is reaffirmed by the article Cyrus mentioned.
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2) Cyrus pointed out that Melvin Laird disagrees with you.
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That's where I think Cyrus is wrong. I agreed with pretty much the entire article. I don't quite see how Cyrus understood the gist of the article to be anything but supportive of what I said.
Here's the article I believe Cyrus is talking about. To me, the gist of it is Iraq is not another Vietnam but could become similar if we do or don't do x, y, and z (some of which are suggested by the anti-war crowd). This doesn't contradict what I said.
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3) Ignoring the whole point of the article, which was to explore in what ways Iraq does and does not meaningfully resemble Vietnam, you lifted one quote from the first page to support the untenable position that the article was simply implying no meaningful resemblance.
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Perhaps I should have said significant instead of meaningful. There may be an event or small piece that is comparable, but Iraq is not Vietnam in the sense that the anti-war crowd makes it out to be.
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4) Cyrus pointed out that obviously no war will be exactly like another and therefore, on some level, it will always be difficult to say X is another Y.
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The comparison sure does come easy to people like Ted Kennedy et al. My point, I guess that there are many meaninful or significant ways that Iraq does not resemble Vietnam and the ones that do, if any, are dwarfed by the larger picture.
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5) You then responded by changing your original point, asserting to have said Iraq is not another Vietnam when you actually said that it bore no meaningufl resemblance.
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I call it clarifying sense andyfox asked what I meant by the statement.
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Then you repeated your misreading of the article. Then you attacked Cyrus personally.
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Are we reading the same article? I read the entire thing and to me, the theme was Iraq is not Vietnam and here are some lessons from Vietnam to make sure Iraq doesn't turn into Vietnam.