Here is something interesting: As of today, the US has spent longer fighting the Iraq war than it did fighting in World War II. We have been at it for three years, eight months.

The only wars to last longer than this one are:The Civil War (Four Years), The Revolutionary War, (Six Years Nine Months), and the Vietnam War, (Eight Years Five Months).

Bush has claimed that the Iraq war would last longer than his presidency. This was, of course, before his ass was handed to him in the midterm elections, so his attitude may have changed somewhat since then, but lets assume that estimate holds. He has two years left on his term, plus a little less than two months till a new president would be inaugurated, so even if that president, let’s call him President Obama for the sake of the hypothetical device, pulled all troops out of Iraq on his first day in office, that would put this conflict at five years ten months. The third longest war in our history by a long shot. It only has to last a year past that to take the number two spot. Think about that. Two of our top three wars would be long pointless quagmires. Two wars we lost. Our record is starting to suck.

America has been involved in twelve wars, if you count Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and this Iraq mess as separate wars, which I really don’t. But for the sake of the math let’s say they are different. We have lost two, Iraq and Vietnam, putting our war success rate at about 83% That’s a low B average. If you consider only wars since the mechanized age, which I will call 1900 and up, our average drops to about 71%. A score that, weirdly enough, begins to resemble Bush’s typical academic performance.

I guess we should have expected no better.