Responding to the 2 History questions

We were talking about how and why we study history about a week ago and there were a few things I wanted to add to what was said.

I think that we study history in order to use it as a tool for general understanding, but not to make any definite conclusions. I disagree with the notion that we should use history as a comparative guide for what we are to do in the future. For example the war in Iraq. I absolutly hate when people compare Iraq to Vietnam. Why? Because Vietnam was 40 years ago. It is in a different area of the world, there are different people in charge and different civilians. How can one say that we have made the same error in going to Iraq as we did in Vietnam? Yes, the death toll is climbing in Iraq and the battle for liberation is going almost nowhere, but times have changed. People always say that history repeats itself. In a general sense it kind of does, but when one nails at specifics obviously it will not repeat itself. Because Society is filled with an indefinite number of variables it is impossible to say that what happened in Vietnam is happening in Iraq. We could end up staying in Iraq for 100 years, a new president may rush us out of there, or democracy might actually plant foot and begin growing at some point. Today however is much different than yesterday and much more different than 40 years ago. A turn might be taken at anytime. So for those who roll back their eyes at George Bush and know the general perspective of Vietnam, take into consideration that as long as we compare now to then, we will end up in the same defeat, but if we look at what happened then and do a little different now(if we are for say in the same scenario) history may not repeat itself. We will not know for a long time however because not enough time has past to successfully compare the two.