Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Every once in a while a liberal passes on a falsehood so egregious and obnoxious that it simply requires a response:

Much of the American population is too young to remember how it was that the combat phase of the Vietnam War dragged on from 1965 until 1975, with virtually no progress, culminating in clear American defeat.

Glenn Greenwald then goes on to make a particularly longwinded comparison of Iraq to Vietnam that reminded me of that old song about the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations ("...both 'Kennedy' and 'Lincoln' have seven letters...").

Well Glenn, from one of those who actually is old enough to remember, there was a little process called "Vietnamization", that culminated in 1972, by which time virtually all US troops had been withdrawn, (not 1975) and was successful (there was also a major American victory called the "Tet Offensive", but that's another story). Successful, that is, until Congress voted to withdraw all funds from the South Vietnamese government. ARVN forces were down to three rounds per soldier and were washing soiled bandages for re-use when the communists in the North launched a Soviet-backed invasion using more armor than the Wehrmacht had had at their command.

A "clear American defeat", yes, but it was suffered in the halls of Congress, not on the battlefield. Glenn and his fellow defeatists would hand the Islamist terrorists an identical victory. This time, though, the victors will pursue their advantage on American soil.

Update: Glenn has fired back, first wailing piteously about being called a "liberal" (if it walks and talks like a duck), then claiming that we fought the "North Koreans" in Vietnam. I take that as a rather clear sign that my knowledge of history is superior to Glenn's.

To help young Glenn further his education, I recommend the book, The Myth of a Liberation, by Truong Nhu Tang, former Justice Minister of the Viet Cong provisional government. If he reads with an open mind, many of his liberal paradigms will be shaken.