That means you, Christopher Buckley. And you, Andrew Exum. Even though you were just telling Buckley to pipe down, and I commend that as both a general proposition and in this particular instance, it’s probably better to just ignore this one, like you would a street preacher.

But I recognize there’s a certain demand here. Clearly the Vietnam analogy has lost its pizzazz as a hackish pseudo-explanation of the war’s complexity. So I propose instead a new matrix of misleading Afghanistan historical analogies. The first commenter or fellow-blogger to tease these out will win a special prize. To wit:

1. Afghanistan is like the Mongol conquest of Baghdad, because _________

2. Afghanistan is like the Shays Rebellion, because _____________

3. Afghanistan is like the 1969 border clashes between the USSR and the People’s Republic of China, because __________

4. Afghanistan is like the Yom Kippur War, because _______