There is no comparison between World War II or the Civil War in the United States to the conflict in Iraq.
I myself was intent on writing a comparison between the war in Iraq and Afghanistan with the so-called 'war on street crime' announced by Boris Johnson, and others before him, and the relative collateral damage and loss of young lives.
"This fierce campaign that Israel is launching on the Palestinian people and leadership must end, this campaign that is unjustly based on a comparison between the U.S. war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Israel's war against unarmed Palestinians who are resisting occupation".
There is a deeper point of comparison between Scarlett's war and our own.
Last week a senior aide to Vice President Cheney, Mary Matalin, dismissed any comparison between the Gulf War restrictions and those of the moment as "apples and oranges" and said that there was "no new directive" to limit information.
Here's further proof from Irish reader John Hanamy of Limerick whose letter arrived in my mail bag in Beirut last week with the following stunning comparison between Italy after the Napoleonic wars of 1815-1848 and the Middle East after the Cold War.
(He would have been in good company had he opted to revisit the material: Euripides originally addressed the subject matter in "Hecuba," and in it and "Trojan Women" he draws comparisons between the Trojan War and the contemporary Peloponnesian War).
Others drew a comparison between the pressure to go to war in Iraq a decade ago and similar pressure to become involved in wars in Syria and Iran today.
Correction: January 5, 2003, Sunday An article on Dec. 15 about the changing nature of war, with a comparison between the power and position of the United States today and that of the British Empire 100 years ago, misstated the year that Gen. Charles Gordon of Britain was killed in a Khartoum battle by Sudanese Mahdists.
Though the comparison between private industry and a cold war political-play may be imperfect, the point is that lenders to Africa are still not critically evaluating how well yet another round of aid will work, even after more than $1 trillion in aid, given over the past 60 years, has largely failed to achieve its intended effects on the continent.
