Opinion (Tom Engelhardt): In Iraq, the fix is in

Paul Van Riper, left, and Millennium Challenge '02, above

THIS IS an old tale. But like all good political bedtime stories, it's well worth telling again.

It concerns a retired general named Paul Van Riper. In 1966, as a young Marine officer and American advisor in Vietnam, he was wounded in action; he later became the first president of the Marine Corps University. When he retired from the Corps as a lieutenant general, he took up the task of leading the enemy side in Pentagon war games.

Van Riper was a freewheeling military thinker, given to quoting Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu and dubious about the ability of the latest technology to conquer all in its path. If you wanted to wage war, he thought, you should, at the very least, study war seriously (if not go to war yourself). It seemed to him that the United States took a risk any time it dismissed its enemies as without resources against its awesome power. As he pointed out, "Many enemies are not frightened by that overwhelming force. They put their minds to the problem: 'How can I adapt and avoid that overwhelming force and yet do damage against the United States?' "

Read the rest at the LA Times