I HOPE IT'S NOT LIKE THE LIBERATION OF PARIS:

Over the weekend, as this Washington Post editorial reminds us, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) exclaimed that the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed over the weekend was equivalent to the "liberation of Paris."

I don't want to be too picky, but wasn't the liberation of Paris more of a symbolic victory, pushed by de Gaulle and resisted by Eisenhower, than an actual military victory? If I remember correctly, Eisenhower preferred the following plan: encircle Paris, continue pursuing the German army, and conserve the resources that would be necessary to fight in Paris as well as provide materially for an embattered population. De Gaulle resisted, partly because it was Paris, after all, and partly because he was looking toward enhancing his presitge in the postwar period by countering Communist resistance fighters as quickly as possible.

Paris was liberated in order to make de Gaulle happy. The move had little military value. Or that's the story I remember, at least. I don't think Goss meant to invoke that kind of story.

[The lingering questions: what would victory in the war on terrorism look like? How long are we going to be at war with terrorism? Forever? Certainly longer than the time between the liberation of Paris and VJ-Day. Does anyone really think otherwise? Why are people invoking the relatively comforting symbols of WWII (and badly)?]