Just heard a clip on the radio in which Secretary of Defense Gates, in his testimony before Congress today, quoted Sun Tzu.  Gates was urging legislators to fund the war for a full fiscal year and not break up the funding into shorter periods (which would put Bush on the spot: he would have to ask Congress repeatedly for spending authority for the unpopular war).  The audio is not yet available at NPR, but his comment was the same as this statement made a couple of weeks ago before the House of Representatives:

As Sun Tzu said more than 2,500 years ago,
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s
not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance
of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our
position unassailable.”

     Wise words.  But while we’re at it, why not pay heed to other wise words from Sun Tzu.  Like the "know your enemy" idea, which the US has fundamentally failed to do over the entire course of the Iraq war.  And if he did act on that admonition, Gates would then have to accept this Sun Tzu passage as well:

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must
fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in
victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s
bidding.
(X.23)

    Even if Bush, the "ruler," wants to fight, Gates should understand the futility of the fight, the harm it is doing to the military and society of the US (not to mention the horror and death it brings to Iraq), and he should resign.

     Bush lost the war.