There are two great op-eds in today’s The Washington Times.

The first is from Cal Thomas:

What do those favoring a pullout of our troops from Iraq think would happen if the president followed their advice? Do they seriously believe the U.S. would be safer and no longer a target of fanatical religious extremists, who believe they have a mandate from heaven to forcibly wipe out all things Western, secular, Jewish and Christian? If they believe peace would then be given a chance, they are naive at best, and idiots at worst. [emphasis mine]
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Recent history — from Vietnam, to Lebanon, to Mogadishu — has shown quitting before the job is done means more, not less, trouble for the United States and for those it promised to help. Those retreats emboldened the likes of Osama bin Laden, who has said America does not have the stomach for protracted warfare. Why shouldn’t he believe that when he has seen the U.S. choose to cut and run, not stand and fight?

And the second is from William Hawkins:

The United States won militarily in Vietnam but lost politically at home. The defeat of the communist offensive in 1968 was falsely reported by the liberal media as an American debacle, just as today the press hypes every terrorist act as if it were a Napoleonic victory. Yet, after Tet, the U.S. drove the North Vietnamese army (NVA) into the hinterland.
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To create the myth the war was unwinnable, partisan critics had to make sure the war was lost. Congress cut aid to South Vietnam by two-thirds in the years after the Paris Accord. Saigon’s military was starved for ammunition, aviation fuel and other equipment and supplies. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was arming North Vietnam to the hilt (Russia’s Vietnam veterans meet annually to celebrate the victory over U.S. imperialism
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If Iraq were sold out, Baghdad would be another Saigon awash in blood with the entire region condemned to backwardness.

Both sum up what I have been saying. See past posts:

So They Want Another Vietnam?
Here’s a Quarter
Note To Gary Heart