Via Jeff Goldstein, I see that Ted Kennedy is in high dudgeon over, over...

Well, over a quagmire:

"I'm talking about misjudgments, gross errors and mistakes. Those are on your watch. Isn't it time for you to resign?" Kennedy asked. "Our troops deserve better, the American people deserve better. They deserve competency and they deserve facts. In baseball, it's three strikes and you're out. What is it for the secretary of defense?"

Rumsfeld replied: "I've offered my resignation to the president twice and he's decided that he would prefer that he not accept it. That is his call."

Kennedy also got the attention of the panel when he called the situation in Iraq a "seemingly intractable quagmire ... with no end in sight."

"Well, that is quite a statement," Rumsfeld responded. "First, let me say there isn't a person at this table who agrees that we're in a quagmire and there isn't an end in sight."

"The presentations today have been very clear. They've been forthright. The suggestion by you that people like me or others are painting a rosy picture is false," Rumsfeld added, repeating an oft-made complaint that his words are often taken out of context and used against him.

Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, called Kennedy's description of the situation as a quagmire a "misrepresentation of the facts" and suggested it was an insult to the Iraqi people.

"You have an insurgency with no base of support, and Iraqi security forces are fighting and dying for their country every day. That is not a quagmire," Casey said.

"I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago" and that "in terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it was the same as it was" six months ago.

Let's assume, though, that even having the enemy replaced as fast as they're being killed constitutes a quagmire. Does that mean that the best way to stop the quagmire is to stop killing the enemy? That would work, and it would certainly end all talk of a quagmire, because the enemy's numbers would increase, and without anyone to kill them, doesn't that simply mean the enemy would win?

In whose interest is that?

Let's play Devil's Advocate Ted Kennedy and assume this is a quagmire. There are only two ways to end a quagmire: give up (and pull out), or slug it through. I'm constantly reading about polls which show that Americans are tired of this war.

Guess what? I'm tired of this war too.

Does that mean we should consign Iraq to Vietnam "quagmire" status, followed by defeat? I have friends who were very antiwar in those days who think we should, and I've also seen Vietnam veterans against the war who've been quoted extensively on Iraq.

What I was suprised to see, though, was a report in USAToday that Vietnam veterans serving in Iraq see an "entirely different war":

If there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, these graying soldiers and the other Vietnam veterans serving here offer a unique perspective. They say they are more optimistic this time: They see a clearer mission than in Vietnam, a more supportive public back home and an Iraqi population that seems to be growing friendlier toward Americans.

"In Vietnam, I don't think the local population ever understood that we were just there to help them," says Chief Warrant Officer James Miles, 57, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who flew UH-1H Hueys in Vietnam from February 1969 to February 1970. And the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were a tougher, more tenacious enemy, he says. Instead of setting off bombs outside the base, they'd be inside.

"I knew we were going to lose Vietnam the day I walked off the plane," says Miles, who returned home this month after nearly a year in Iraq. Not this time. "There's no doubt in my mind that this was the right thing to do," he says.

The Army says it's impossible to know exactly how many Vietnam veterans are serving in Iraq, and there might be only a few dozen. Most of them came to Iraq last winter with the 42nd Infantry, a National Guard division headquartered in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

"There was a lot more action in Vietnam than there is here," says Chief Warrant Officer Herbert Dargue, 57, of Brookhaven, N.Y. But the danger in Iraq is higher for those who are shot down but survive. "There's no such thing as a POW," he says, referring to the terrorists' penchant for executing Westerners.

The enemy in Iraq has "absolutely no value" for life, Dargue says, who flew Huey helicopters in Vietnam from June 1968 to June 1969.

Miles says the biggest difference he saw was that, over time, Iraqi civilians grew more positive toward U.S. forces. He says he saw more people smiling and waving near his base here than there were 10 months ago when he arrived.

1st Sgt. Patrick Olechny, 52, of Marydel, Del., an attack helicopter crew chief and door gunner in Vietnam from March 1971 to February 1972, says the most important difference to him is the attitude of the American public.

"Vietnam was an entirely different war than this one," he says. The basic job of flying helicopters is the same, but the overall mission now is clear when it wasn't then. "We thought in Vietnam we were doing the right thing, and in the end it didn't seem that way," he says.

How do they want it to seem?

UPDATE: Here's another view of the insurgency -- from Michael Yon in Iraq:

The insurgents here are not trying to topple an established and oppressive government. The converse, actually--they are trying to prevent a new democratic government from gaining a foothold in the sand. The zealots employ proven methods of past insurgencies by engaging in operations that destroy the economic infrastructure and destabilize and discredit the government, thereby undermining its ability to govern. While the insurgents have seriously hindered the process of reconstituting Iraq, the new government is getting stronger by the day, making insurgency a game of diminishing prospects. The insurgency does not appear to be weakening, but the government is definitely getting stronger. (Via InstaPundit.)

UPDATE: Much more discussion here, particularly about the wide disconnect between the troops in Iraq and folks like Linda Foley and the quagmire club.