Pournelle on Vietnam and Iraq

Some good stuff on Jerry Pournelle's site: a compare-and-contrast essay on Vietnam and Iraq. From the essay:

Viet Nam fell, not because we turned over operations to the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN), but because the Democratic Congress in 1975 smelled blood in the water and turn on Nixon and all his works; by denying ARVN support in the face of a Russian supplied armored army as large as the one lost in 1972, the Democrats assured North Viet Nam of victory, and we got the shameful scenes of the helicopters leaving Saigon. Democrats can all be proud of that: it was their war from Kennedy through Johnson, and their loss in 1975 when they voted the ARVN 20 cartridges and 2 grenades per man with no US air support -- to face a Russian supplied armored army. Had the US responded in 1975 as they did in 1972, Saigon would still be Saigon, not Ho Chi Minh City. And the Boat People would not have begun their tragic voyages. So it goes.