This war has in that sense become the Gulf War of the 2020s: a "good war" that rehabilitates the image of US interventionism for a war-weary public. Just as the 1990 Gulf War was used to get Americans over what warmongers called "Vietnam syndrome" — a healthy aversion to interventionism following the horrific disaster of the Vietnam War — the war in Ukraine is being used to wear down the public's collective immune response to interventionism built up after the 2003 Iraq invasion.

"It's a proud day for America, and by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all," the elder President Bush said after winning his war/propaganda operation in the Middle East. 

Of course, we all remember what happened after that, don't we?

Reading by Tim Foley.