Lessons from WWII

If you don't read Belmont Club everyday you are missing out on some of the most insightful commentary on the War on Terror availible on the net. Today's post by Wretchard is no exception:

While Midway is enshrined in popular glory, it was really Guadalcanal that represented the graveyard of Japanese forces, the Island of Death upon which Japanese naval and military reinforcements were dashed heedless and seriatim, until there were no more left to send. But no one knew it at the time; and when US forces embarked on a final sweep of the island they discovered to their surprise that the remainder had been totally evacuated by Japanese forces. The most popular account at the time, Richard Tregaskis' nearly-forgotten Guadalcanal Diary is useless as a work of history, written too close to the events and burdened by the misconceptions of the time, though it faithfully preserves the atmosphere of the early 1940s. Officers rarely use historical comparisons without intending some point and Powl leaves us in no doubt that he means Iraq to be the graveyard of the global Jihad.

Was it a mistake to fight at Guadalcanal? Obviously not, but we didn't know we were winning that fight until it was won. Don't forget that lesson