Here's a new entry: Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt.

I had to go with the crusades. It was the willy nilly killing of brown people with little effort made to distinguish Muslim brown people from Christian brown people or any other societal delineations and AND, it was all done under the guise of doing Gawd's work. (thereby identifying Gawd as the blood thirstyist being of all time by a wide margin)

CAFKIA

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

As Think Progress and others have noted, just three years ago historian Bush rejected a comparison with Vietnam:

QUESTION: How do you answer the Vietnam comparison?


BUSH: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy.

Oh noes! Did War President Bush embolden "The Enemy" today by using the "V" word?

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Its got to be the Crusades, the similarity is scary, christans vs muslims.

NPR interviewed several historians (and I don't think they looked very hard to find some--the one they interviewed apparently didn't give the question very much thought) and asked them this question.

My own response was that it was something of a combination of two wars fought almost contemporaneously about a hundred years ago. Neither of these would be a particularly good model for us: The Philippine Insurrection, which followed our takeover of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War--one historian calls it the 'Last of the Indian Wars', and the Boer War, which the British fought in South Africa at great cost (lives) and great cost (money-wise).

Personally, I think the question is much too simplistic, based as it is on a misconception that real historians try their best to disabuse undergraduates from perpetuating, that 'history repeats itself'. Obviously it doesn't, but that hasn't prevented the idiot-in-chief from presenting it as the basis for his latest sophomoric historical analogy. I think he needs to get a smarter speech-writer.

The Viet Nam War and the Crusades. It could be a bit of both.

Vietnam, but Bush isn't nearly as politically astute as LBJ and nowhere near as shrewd as Nixon.

At least the latter had a sense of shame.

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I'm a guy in a Reagan mask -- and I'm running for President!

I wish I'd said Crusades instead of Hunnnert Years dangit. Stupid history. Note to self: Wikipede before answering. This is HARD WORK!

Oh well, some say they're still debating these wars. Maybe all of them were worthwhile!

It's really just the latest installment of the Great Imperialist War.

It's hard to keep track of the correct historical comparison--seems like it changes every week.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.