One of the series recording is John Adams on HBO. But the Military Channel is running an excellent series of documentaries called Revolutionary War, which I’m also recording. I just started it playing to clear off the hard drive.

Read more: And Speaking Of TiVO

After years of Congress demanding the Bush administration release documents on torture, the Justice Department finally released a legal opinion John Yoo wrote March 14, 2003 as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Just reading this memo shocks the conscience, and it is the declassified version. When I read it, I cringed and thought about my father and the horrific torture he endured as a POW in then-Yugoslavia during WW II.

Read more: A Shock to Humanity

Iraq war is the most expensive in terms of human and material costs in the US history after the Vietnam War. The official statistics released by the US Congressional Budget Office on 4 December shows that the Administration had spent some US $350 billion for military operation in Iraq. Recently, the US Congress approved an additional amount of US $70 billion for the war against terrorism, in which US $50 billion is to be reserved for the war in Iraq.

Read more: Results of US Invasion of Iraq

The most interesting conversation I had that day, however, was not with journalists or city officials. As I was sitting in an underground shopping center, looking over a map of the city, an old man sat next to me and stared at me as I looked at the map. I have had this experience quite often in Korea and it usually leads to fascinating conversations with retired men who love to share their experiences during the Korean war, their interactions with Americans during the Korean war, their belief that Park Chung-hee was the best thing to come out of Korea since the hangul writing system, and that the coming of democracy has sent Korea off its rails.

Read more: A Japanese Speaking Chinese Officer in the Korean War

And during the first world war, they didn’t know anything about the concentration camps. Someone told one soldier, along with his fellow soldiers, there is a ‘Jewish camp’ over there, the way they were directly headed. They wondered what the heck that person meant when he said, ‘Jewish camp’. When they came upon the first camp, they were absolutely horrified. I can’t imagine having found out like that.

Read more: The Jewish Americans - PBS Documentary

During WW I, when he was 16, my Dad, John Bryan, ran away from home and joined the Texas National Guard. That particular unit had been called up for duty in France. He was loaded on the train in Waco, headed for overseas training, when his Dad, My Grand Dad, Peyton Bryan, appeared and physically drug him off of the train. It took him 5 years and many letters to finally get a discharge from the Guard so he could join the Marines.

Read more: What's The H Stand For Johnny?

I say all this with a bit of self experience. I’ve been in the authors’ shoes. When I protested the Iraq war, I was called both anti-American and anti-Semitic. I remember going to synagogue around the time of the Iraq war and hearing a sermon on why Saddam was our generation’s Hitler and so we needed to invade. I went to the Rabbi to express my disagreement on the substantive merits of whether we could succeed in Iraq after Saddam was toppled. The Rabbi told me that I was not a loyal Jew.

Read more: Foxman Full of Hot Air

One of the interesting revelations from that brief flurry of commentary on the president's attempt to frame an Iraq-Vietnam analogy of his own was that the rightish and leftish segments of the American commentariate have fundamentally differing historical meta-narratives of the Vietnam War and its progression. They agree on names and dates, but little else and they are weighted very differently.

Read more: Council Catch Up

Eighteenth century petitions to Boston produced few results, prompting the local Wampanoags to send one of their own - Reuben Cognehew - across to England to speak directly to King George III about the plight of the Mashpee Indians. Though the King granted them some degree of autonomy, Mashpee's right to self-government was rescinded with the American Revolutionary War.

Read more: A Man Named Apes

TOne thing I don’t quite understand with Iraq is what it is we’re going to win. The most common metric (there’s that “M” word again) I hear when I ask pro-war people this question is something along the lines of, “when we can leave with a stable government and without massive bloodshed and ethic cleansing.” A corollary I often hear is that leaving—à la Bush’s new argument—would be a strategic blunder comparable to how withdrawing from Vietnam ruined America.

Read more: On Winning

Early in the winter, twenty years ago in a small living room on the Argentine Pampa, a family I don't remember had another guest that evening besides myself and my missionary companion. The old man, upon learning that I was an American, was thrilled to meet me. He had been a soldier in the Italian army in the Second World War and had been captured and interred in Texas as a prisoner. "It was great there," he effused. "I would go back in a second if I could. As a prisoner again if I had to." Never before did I so swell with pride for my nation.

Read more: An Ex-POW Meets a Missionary from America

Some British born humorist over at the HuffPo is calling for General Pace to remove President Bush from his elected duties as Commander-in-Chief thereby removing the military from civilian control.

Read more: Coup De Disgrace

But while that PR machine cranks out the lie that Kermit the Frog is writing bad lines, another is turning loose another message issued by an Iraqi war veteran who lost his legs in Iraq. Utilizing imagery from the 9-11 attacks that have nothing to do with Iraq. Because that old lie still has 2 out of 5 Americans convincingly deceived.

Read more: The Perpetual War of Pandora Box Bush: the sequel

Vietnamese are pissed off at Bush’s Vietnam remarks:

Read more: Hearts and Minds

America’s past wars have usually required a tremendous sacrifice of life. 13,000 of the 78,000 soldiers in the Mexican-American War died. Over 360,000 soldiers died in the Civil War. About 115,000 died in World War I, 405,000 in World War II, and 36,000 in the Korean War. If Iraq were truly like Vietnam, we would be on schedule to lose 58,000 over ten years rather than about 8,000.

Read more: Winning a War Means Losing Soldiers