Think twice before calling Iraq “Another Vietnam” : “It’s commonplace in the US media and in some policy circles to hear the conflict in Iraq described as ‘Another Vietnam.’ As an academic who has done extensive research on Vietnam, including its wars, I recoil from the phrase. Popular as a polemical device, it flunks as an analytical tool. Comparison of different cases is sometimes helpful; glossing over complex differences with a label never is.” — William S. Turley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the author of The Second Indochina War, writing in —Yale Global. However, this is one of those issues that may be too important to be left to the academics, it strikes me. His level of detailed analysis ends up finding that the details are significant and the generalities are, well, just generalities, with the word used as an epithet. It is a no-brainer to expect that academic analysis will reveal a myriad of differences between Iraqi and Vietnamese history and context. But the similarities — oops, the generalities — are instructive, illuminating the uncanny American capacity for arrogant unilateral imperialist bullying in the guise of omnipotent do-goodism. How about some detailed academic analysis of why this is such a perennial defining characteristic of American foreign policy across decades and party lines?