I think that Paul Lam is painting a very simplistic picture in his letter American imperialism ultimately a paper tiger .

First of all, historically speaking, many of the US military 'losses' that Lam claims indicate that the American forces are more of a boast than a real power must be set in the context of the Cold War.

The Korean and Vietnam wars were not wars where the US only faced off against a small country and lost. They also faced off against the superpowers of China and the Soviet Union, both of which were nuclear armed by the time of the Vietnam War and the Cuban Crises.

In the case of Cuba, far more was at stake than the 'subjugation' of Cuba. There was also the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with the Soviet Union.

And despite the large number of soldiers and casualties, the US was never really fully committed to winning the Vietnam War. Finally, the US never committed troops like on the scale of Vietnam or Korea to the civil war in China so I'm not sure why that is even included in the list.

Thus, the 'strong minds' of Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro were not the only factors in the lack of US successes in these conflicts. Besides, a comparison of these people to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is something of an insult to these three personages whose initial dreams did not include the killing of their own people through despicable acts of terrorism.

The insurgents of Iraq are not altruistic freedom fighters waging a David vs. Goliath war of justice. They are power-hungry, bad people (or at least their leadership is) who are either seeking to regain the Baathists' power for themselves or to install the next Saddam (or the same one) to have iron control over the people of Iraq. Alternatively, they are theocrats trying to create an oppressive Iranian Sunni-style system.

In addition, American propaganda is not the only thing that comes out of the US where freedom of speech allows for a multitude of opinions and media exposure to shed light on government's actions - which is more than we can say for the many countries mentioned in Lam's letter such as North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam.

In one regard, Lam and I agree and that is that American imperialism does not exist. I'm not nave enough to believe that American intentions are purely altruistic but I do not believe that given their democratic history and character, empire-building is part of the American foreign policy.

The Americans' truest friends are democracies like themselves, not puppet regimes and the US knows this. The Americans will eventually leave Iraq yet the insurgents are doing everything in their power to keep them there longer.

The longer they are there the more people like Lam and others will raise the spectre of American imperialistic aspirations. See the pattern?