That was some excellent info you provided. It did leave out one important factor - unlike Vietnam, this time we're fighting to win.

Victory was never a goal in the Korean War or in Vietnam, at least not in the conventional sense of actually defeating your opponent. In both cases, the goal was to maintain the prewar status quo of "North" and "South" versions of the countries. McArthur tried to defeat North Korea, and in the process, not only did the Chinese come into the war, he lost his job. In both cases, due to the Cold War, it appeared the State Department was calling the shots more than the Pentagon.

Even in the 1991 Gulf War, we achieved our goal of restoring the prewar status quo of an independent Kuwait instead of trying to defeat Iraq. This was due to international pressures from the UN and from many of our Coalition partners. They were afraid of a power vacuum in the region, so they didn't depose Saddam and fell short of supporting the uprising against him. The result was about 100,000 Iraqis being slaughtered by Saddam's forces and years of mistrust that has lingered to this day. This is the reason why the Iraqi people were so slow and cautious about welcoming liberation and who can blame them?

No more, though. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the goal is victory. Rebuilding the countries afterwards is a long and difficult process. Some people tend to forget how many years it took to rebuild Japan and most of Europe after WWII and to transition to new governments. For example, rationing didn't fully end in England until 1954, 9 years after the end of the war.