A lesson from Vietnam

Since we are reading about guerrilla warfare, I wanted to post a graph that everyone should be aware of. This is our troop levels in the Vietnam War:

Notice that we had half a million troops in Vietnam, but we still lost the war to guerrillas.

Now consider a few quotes from our leaders, and ask if they have learned any lessons from Vietnam.

"I don't believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary." -- Richard Perle

"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark." -- Donald Rumsfeld

"If you put two brigades on the ground right now with U.S. forces, they would push ISIS back into Syria in a heartbeat." -- Gen. Anthony Zinni

"For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three." -- Barach Obama

(A brigade has up to 5,500 troops.)