One of McNamera's "lessons from Vietnam" was that it's crucial to understand the mindset of your enemy. We saw Vietnam as a fight against Communism, whereas the Vietnamese saw it as a fight for their freedom, a fight against the latest foreign occupying power.

The same thing is happening today in Iraq. The Middle East views our fight against the "insurgents" as a fight against Islam itself. We are bombing their mosques. It's a holy war. Regardless of whether that's objectively correct, I'm afraid that's how it's perceived, and that's what matters the most.

Bush in an idiot. He doesn't have the intellectual curiousity to even begin to understand the historical, political, or religious impact of what he's done. And I'm afraid he's got no one around him, save Colin Powell, to tell him otherwise.

The American people should be spending this long weekend seeing this movie and then seriously re-examining their beliefs about this war. Instead they'll be "remembering the Alamo" and celebrating the resurrection of a man who died 2000 years ago.

We live in Disneyland. We expect the rest of the world to see things exactly as we do, and then when they don't, we're confused.