There is a book I recently read which was really really good and offers some perspective in this conflict. The book is by Tom Clancy and it is called Shadow Warriors, and it mainly deals with the life of the Special Forces, and the military life of one of their commanders. For someone in their late twenties it was interesting to hear about conflicts and missions that I was too young to really understand but remember. They talk about Vietnam, Lebanon, Iran, and Panama among others. I'm not really sure when this book was written, but one thing that was striking is how much praise this guy had for people like Cheney, Rumsfield, and Powell, and how much experience that these three individuals had in dealing with tough conflicts, especially Lebanon.