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Interview | Disinformation author Richard Miniter debunks 9/11 myths | Marvin Olasky

Last month a 14-letter word emerged like an obscene blast from the past: "Vietnamization."

That was supposedly what America faces in Iraq, but a new book by Richard Miniter, Disinformation (Regnery, 2005), calls the Iraq = Vietnam equation one of 22 "media myths."

For the United States, Mr. Miniter points out, the Vietnam War started small and ended up large, as North Vietnam's effort escalated from guerrilla warfare to tanks and infantry-division assaults. The Iraq War, though, began with U.S. soldiers quickly defeating tanks and infantry and now facing guerrillas, but not many of them: We are actively opposed by probably 10,000 fighters in Iraq, compared to the 1 million—100 times as many—under North Vietnam's control in 1973. In Vietnam the United States was a counter-revolutionary force upholding a corrupt regime and facing the popular Ho Chi Minh, but in Iraq we are bringing about a revolution against generations of oppressors, while facing terrorist thugs who now wage war against their own people. Mr. Miniter discussed this and other "myths."