Tokyo's angry reaction to the threatened retaliatory killing by Iraqi militants of three young Japanese civilians taken hostage this week reminds one of how much the impasse in Iraq parallels the 1960s quagmire in Vietnam.
As in Vietnam, we get the same boilerplate platitudes about refusing to bow to "terror" when guerrilla forces of the other side try to end what they see as the cruel and illegal occupation of their country. We see the same inability to realize that desperate people resort to desperate means.
These are not the only parallels with Vietnam. The lies and pretexts needed to prosecute both wars were equally transparent. As in Vietnam, the crudity of the U.S. intervention -- the absence of clear goals, ignorance of the language and the culture, disregard for civilian casualties -- guarantees probable defeat. And sure enough, once again we are being bombarded with the same mindless "fight to the finish," "light at the end of the tunnel" slogans that we saw in Vietnam.