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Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democrat party, has proclaimed "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." Democrat Ned Lamont, running to unseat Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, has made "Get Out Now" his campaign slogan. A public relations organization associated with MoveOn.org is recruiting active-duty soldiers to organize in petitioning Congress to withdraw "all American military forces and bases from Iraq."

All of this might not matter -- except for that "flashback" to Vietnam. The anti-American, anti-military slogans and epithets of today are remarkably similar to the kinds of things being written and said routinely by Democrats back in the 1970s -- and they ended up having their way. The outcome was a Congress that voted to de-fund the war and eliminate all aid to the Republic of Vietnam. The result was a disaster.

In the November/December 2005 issue Foreign Affairs magazine, Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense from 1969-1973, wrote, "when I served as Secretary of Defense, we withdrew most U.S. forces from Vietnam while building up the South's ability to defend itself. The result was a success -- until Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally."

The cut off Laird describes was contained in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress over the objections of a Republican commander in chief. At the time, President Gerald Ford complained, "In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there."

The Democrat majority in Congress didn't care. The "pull out" was complete by January 1975. Four months later helicopters were lifting the last Americans off the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon as enemy tanks crashed into the compound. Let us pray that the Congress we elect next Tuesday doesn't make Vietnam a "flashback" for what happens in Iraq.

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Oliver North is the host of "War Stories" on the FOX News Channel.

COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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