[BREAK] As if there weren't enough similarities between the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Kennedy's "Whiz Kids", who were often referred to as "The Best and the Brightest", were likely the most educated groups of advisers ever to aid a President in the conduct of a guerrilla war. While it is always good to have intelligent advisers, people working under a President often conform their advice into something palatable to the Commander in Chief. Asking them for advice on how best to escalate, when that can only move you deeper into a quagmire, is, as Vietnam proved, just a way to lose more young American lives so the tough decisions are left to future administrations. JB ===== [/BREAK]

Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort - washingtonpost.com Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A01 Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.

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