The American Spectator

The Vietnam analogy seems to be a “pick and choose” work among the opposition to the Iraq war. I suppose they “want what they want” and will support it with what they want, rather than a hard and uncompromising stare into the facts.

p>I’ve been seeing another analogy out of American history lately. Back in 1876 or so — I’m doing this from memory so my own knowledge of the facts may be a little off — a war-weary North decided to end Reconstruction and withdraw Federal troops from the South. How many people died because those troops were withdrawn? br> — Robert Nowall br> Cape Coral, Florida /p>

Invoking the specter of Vietnam, James Bowman writes:

“There is no way to “redeploy” American troops, to use a favorite euphemism of the Democrats, so long as there is still fight in the enemy, without surrendering. And surrender is always a dishonor. For us to surrender to the terror campaign — whether “al Qaeda” or “civil war” makes no difference — would be to devalue America’s word in the international arena forever.”

Yet the Cold War was not lost in Vietnam — it was won in Afghanistan, and so must this one be. The War on Terror cannot be lost in Iraq, for though our forces are a magnet for militant Islamists, the conflict with Al Qaeda is a mobile one whose strategic locus, tempo and polarity we control.

To say this is to defy the neoconservative common wisdom, and ignite the ire of those whose mantra is “Stay the course.” But what would the scowling portraits of a certain 20th century Prime Minister adorning their walls have to say?

Great men author grand follies, and great as Churchill’s in launching an armada against Gallipoli, President Wilson would have been a greater fool to enter the Great War by joining it instead of projecting American forces into the trenches of Flanders.

Confronting and occupying our primary enemy’s most distant and dubious allies in order to avoid the savage pain of confronting and hunting him on his own turf, be it the iron gated mountains of Afghanistan, or Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier, is no way to win this war.

p>We must not forget that only brigade-sized forces engaged at Tora Bora, and that despite his pretension to be a latter day Saladin, Osama Bin Laden and his scant praetorian guard in reality more resemble the Assassins or the Forty Thieves. His mountainous hideaway may present a tactical prospect no more pleasant than Moser bank vault doors and Tommy gun armed guards did to Willy Sutton, but that’s where the money was. Whatever happens in Iraq, will elude America until 9-11’s authors are brought to the bar of justice dead or alive. br> — Russell Seitz