Easy to get into, difficult to get out of

Even in the rare admissions of flaws in the planning for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, the spinners in Washington and London seek to carve out the initial attack, overseen by George Bush's friend General Tommy Franks, as a singular success. Today's kidnappings of foreigners in southern Iraq highlights once again a catastrophic flaw in the Tommy Franks invasion plan -- it never secured the supply line from Kuwait to Baghdad. The track record of invasions of Russia must not be anywhere on the US military strategy curriculum.

UPDATE 29 JULY 2007: Just a note about this kidnapping -- the victims (Joshua Munns, Paul Reuben, Jonathan Cote, John Young, and an unnamed Austrian) have never been found. In strategic terms, they fell foul of the Bush-Franks invasion plan. But in tactical terms, they had the misfortune of working for an unscrupulous employer, the kind that apparently thrives in Iraq.