What SHOULD be a very sobering thought/observation:

It was a big day for a general on Capitol Hill yesterday, as Gen. David Petraeus made his long-awaited “progress report” to a joint House committee. But one congressman remembered the last time a general’s testimony drew such public attention. It was on April 1967 that Gen. William Westmoreland made his speech to Congress about how much progress we were making in Vietnam. Later, in November 1967, the general spoke to the National Press Club saying, “With 1968, a new phase is starting … we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view.” It was in that speech where we heard the historic phrase about the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Then, January 1968 saw the Tet Offensive and the beginning of the painful end of Vietnam.

U.S. deaths in the war from 1956 to 1967 totaled 19,560. But after 1968, there were 38,633 more (including those who died from wounds after the war ended with the ignominious departure of U.S. troops in 1973). More than twice as many of the names on the black wall that is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial came after it had become clear that the war strategy had failed.

God’s Politics – Jim Wallis blog, faith blog, religion, christian, christianity, politics, values

We learn nothing , apparently,  from history