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"The year was 1975, not 2004, and the city was Saigon, not Fallujah. "

Oh please. No comparison...

"It raises hackles and reminders of an humiliating American fiasco not easily forgotten for those of us who lived through it."

Today also bears absolutely no resemblance to Saigon 1975.

I've posted on the whole Vietnam 'debunking' story. The fact is, the USA spent a lot of lives and treasure *winning* a peace in 1973. Thanks to anti-war defeatist Democrats, in 1974 and 1975 we threw away that peace and that victory, and did not lift a finger to help South Vietnam.

A huge army swept from the North to the South. With B-52s we could have destroyed that army and South Vietnam could have, on the ground, done the rest... but we did nothing.

bugging out of Saigon was a foregone conclusion of our unwillingness to fight this new war that broke out 2 years after we achieved peace in Vietnam. Our air support could have saved South Vietnam at virtually no danger to the US.

"But, given the pattern in Fallujah to date, I would feel much better hearing it from the Chairman of the JCS, and on national television."

We got better than that 3 weeks back. We got a message of resolve and a vision from President Bush. We also have had plenty of words of resolution from CENTCOM and the whole chain of command. They are *VERY* clear about the mission. A free and democratic Iraq based on the political process that CPA and IGC and UN and Iraqis have agreed upon.

This will succeed, unless these terrorists derail that process.

We have the resolve to win, and we have an acheivable vision - a democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors.

What we are discussing now is the Strategy to achieve that. Some of us dont like that Marines were not allowed to finish the job in fallujah. Okay, but dont imagine that just because that hell-hole has thugs running around that town that our political process will fail.

This is far different from 1975, when the anti-war Democrats had hollowed out our resolve and had no vision for Indochina except to leave it to the whims of Communist predators. That made Communist victory a foregone conclusion.

You're preaching to the choir on this one, on your general points. Nearly everything you say is correct about the *history* of what actually occurred in Vietnam (actually, I just said that to stroke your ego and make this go easier; it's clear that you know very little about the history of the Vietnam War, or the context of the wars America engaged in before it. Sorry).
But this is what you don't grasp: the same "ohhhh, puhhleeze--there's no comparing the two!!!" attitude you post with is the same thing many of us heard when comparing the "die-for-a-tie" Korean conflict with the then-current activities going on in Southeast Asia, circa 1969.
Well...you fellow's are back! And as assertive and arrogant as ever! This time it's not the Yalu River or Tet you're lecturing us about--it's Fallujah, Iraq. And it's the same old "go-along-to-get-along" crap; "we've got to let the enemy win *here*, in this particular place, because the [World Community; the Soviets; the Arab World; etc., and etc., fill-in-the-appropriate-blank] might be offended, and we can't have that!"
Obfuscation and puling cowardice, plain and simple. Given your tatterdemalion standards of how to wage war, Hitler & Tojo's spirit would live on today in Germany and Japan, and the Nazis would split the world with the Imperial Japanese Empire, given your hair-splitting "can't-we-all-just-let-the-enemy-win-just-this-one-victory?" attitude. As I stated previously, I'VE HEARD YOUR PECULIAR BRAND OF GARBAGE BEFORE. Please spare me any more of *that* kind of special pleading about what a geopolitical genius you are regarding this matter. It simply doesn't wash with those of us who've seen it all before.