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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, May 6, 2010

NORTH from 9

ing Leatherneck Aviation Museum, at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, in California. Among the pi- lots and aircrew who gath- ered for the celebration were those like retired Col. Gerald Berry, who saved the U.S. ambassador and helped rescue more than 7,100 Americans and our allies during the frantic hours of Operation Fre- quent Wind. There were even more attendees who were veterans of the cur- rent war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But no mat- ter where or when they fought, nearly all had a common refrain: “This war shouldn’t end like Viet- nam.” It doesn’t have to. There are pundits in the so-called mainstream me- dia waxing eloquent about parallels between Viet- nam and Afghanistan, but those making the compari- sons ignore some very in- convenient facts. Most im- portantly, the adversaries confronted in both wars are radically dissimilar. In Vietnam, U.S. troops

and our allies faced near- ly a quarter-million con- scripted but well-trained, -disciplined and -equipped NVA regulars and upward of 100,000 highly orga- nized Viet Cong insurgents from 1966 onward. Each year of the war, the NVA launched multiple major campaigns against U.S. and Republic of Vietnam forces in accord with or- ders issued by authorities in Hanoi. When the Viet Cong collapsed in the af- termath of the 1968 Tet offensive, the NVA -- sup- ported by the Soviet Union, Communist China and the Warsaw Pact -- simply in- creased its numbers. The Republic of Vietnam

didn’t succumb to an in- surgency 35 years ago this week. It was invaded by the army of a hostile neighbor. None of that is happening in the shadows of the Hindu Kush -- yet. The 10,000 to 25,000

Taliban currently operat- ing in Afghanistan have cross-border “safe havens” in Pakistan and receive some military training, equipment and logistics support from Pakistan and Iran. Taliban leaders once counted on financing from

radical Wahhabi Islamists and received support and direction from elements of the Pakistani intelligence service. Today the Taliban are a narco-insurgency, funded almost exclusively by opium. Their “warriors” and zealous “martyrs” claim Muslim purity, but their “military campaigns” are limited to planting improvised explosive de- vices, suicide bombings and murders. They aren’t about to overwhelm Ka- bul -- or even a provincial capital. That, of course, doesn’t

mean this war can’t be lost, for there is one very important similarity be- tween Vietnam and Af- ghanistan -- a parallel promise of withdrawing American troops and as- sistance. In 1973, Presi- dent Richard Nixon with- drew all American troops except for a handful of advisers from the Republic of Vietnam. The follow- ing December, Congress cut off all military aid to Vietnam. Four months later, U.S. Marines were making desperate sorties to the roof of our embassy

in Saigon. On this 35th anniversary

of that event, President Barack Obama and his advisers would be wise to remember where the Viet- nam War was really lost. It wasn’t in the paddies or triple-canopy mountains of Southeast Asia. Vietnam was lost in the corridors of

27

power in our own nation’s capital. That never should happen again.

Oliver North is the host

of “War Stories” on Fox News Channel, the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance, and the author of “American Heroes.”

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