Am I even reading this right?

As he awaits a crucial progress report on Iraq, President Bush will try to put a twist on comparisons of the war to Vietnam by invoking the historical lessons of that conflict to argue against pulling out.

On Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, Bush will tell members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that “then, as now, people argued that the real problem was America’s presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end,” according to speech excerpts released Tuesday by the White House.

“Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left,” Bush will say.

WTF?  Who in the HELL, other than him & his fellow absolute nutjobs, would seriously claim the problem with the Vietnam War was that our involvement wasn’t long enough?

“Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields,’ ” the president will say.

Bad enough he’s invoking it at all, but this is to whitewash it.  Anyone who’d go as far as to claim our withdrawal was primarily responsible for the death of innocents is apparently unfamiliar with the phrase “we had to burn the village to save it”.

The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today’s terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam, according to the excerpts.

“Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently,” Bush will say. (emphasis mine)

This isn’t the time for cherry picking.  What about the quotes — plural — where Bin Laden & his #2 have both said they hope we NEVER leave Iraq because we’re playing into their hands?