Quotes of the Morning

"’Quagmire,’ ‘attrition,’ ‘credibility gap,’ ‘Iraqification’ - a listener to the debate over the situation in Iraq might think that it truly is Vietnam all over again . . . But Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2003 is not 1975 or 1968.”
-New York Times, November 9, 2003

“The difficulties of achieving [U.S.] objectives, then and now, have led a range of military experts, historians and politicians to consider the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq . . . Nearly two years after the American invasion of Iraq, such comparisons are no longer dismissed in mainstream political discourse as facile and flawed, but are instead bubbling to the top.”
-New York Times, January 29, 2005

“For the next three hours, soldiers armed with assault rifles and election fliers moved warily through al-Whada's muddy streets, trying to get Iraqis to embrace democracy...
The 1st Platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Jason Shick of Grand Rapids, Mich., questioned the man on the second floor. ‘Is he going to vote in the upcoming elections?’ he asked the interpreter.
‘Yes, they are going to go vote,’ the interpreter said after consulting with the couple.
‘Good. Tell him thank you very much,’ said Shick, heading back down the stairs. ‘And make sure he votes. If he votes, we leave. Americans go home.’"
-Washington Post, January 28, 2005

“The U.S. Army expects to keep its troop strength in Iraq at the current level of about 120,000 for at least two more years, according to the Army's top operations officer.
While allowing for the possibility that the levels could decrease or increase depending on security conditions and other factors, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr. told reporters yesterday that the assumption of little change through 2006 represents ‘the most probable case.’"
-Washington Post, January 25, 2005

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." -President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt