Katie Couric's Notebook: Vietnam and Iraq
Video: Today, President Bush arrives in Vietnam while, here at home, more people than ever connect America's old struggle there to our newest struggle, in Iraq.
According to polls, at least forty percent of the country sees a clear comparison to Vietnam: an expensive, unpopular conflict that seems, to many, unconnected to the larger struggle that the president claims is at stake.
That larger struggle -- terrorism -- seems much harder to contain than communism.
Even if--as the White House says--Iraq is an "entirely different situation" from Vietnam, how did our country repeat so many of the same mistakes?
It was President Bush himself who warned in 2000 that "a generation shaped by Vietnam must learn the lessons of Vietnam."
What happened since then?
9/11.
We have to wonder if that tragic day led our leaders to forget such an important history lesson...that now seems to be repeating itself.
That's a page from my notebook.