Arnold (a.k.a. "Sweetie") was napping by the TV and turned to ask me, "Doesn't anyone make the connection?"

Ho Chi Minh looking "down" upon George Bush

To Mr. Bush's credit, he properly congratulated Vietnam for its movement towards joining the rest of the world ... and its movement towards a market economy. It's also to his credit that he made no direct mention of the war that dominated US headlines during the 1960s and 1970s. Of course, that allowed no possible connection (mental, logical, political or otherwise) between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.

Clearly, he was "congratulating" the Vietnamese for their successes at home that were made possible by the withdrawal of our military forces between 1972 and 1975.

The unspoken question: "Will Iraq ultimately develop as a country in a more stable Middle East whether or not we stay for a short (or long) while longer ... dying at a rate of roughly three soldiers per day and after the deaths of countless Iraqi civilians as the occupation of Iraq drags on?" If so, and if the number of Iraqis who die over the next ten years would be roughly the same either way ... why are we continuing to witness and sustain such sad losses?

Will some future president sit at an economic conference in Baghdad in 2019 with a bust of anti-American cleric and 2006 militia leader, Moqtada al Sadr, looking down upon her as she "congratulates" the Shiite Kingdom of Iraq for its move towards greater accommodation with the Sunni Shiekhdom of Iraq ... and for hosting the second (or maybe the third) Middle East-European-North American Economic Cooperation (MEENAEC) summit?

If so, some aging 87-year old blogger's 12-year old cat lying by his owner's five-dimensional holographic television set might well ponder the question, "doesn't anyone notice the irony of that conference in Baghdad in light of the US-Iran War still raging in its seventh year?"

"Yes, Arnold!"

"purrrr ..."