QUESTION: Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —

THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the South, the North Vietnamese army. They’re not, they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the, of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable . . .

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What a bunch of malarkey. It’s from the President’s press conference yesterday. Mr. Biden lectured the press on how wrong were Vietnam veterans — that’s what we think the questioner meant by “Vietnamese” veterans — to spy parallels between the betrayal of those who rallied to our common cause in Afghanistan and in Vietnam. “None whatsoever . . . zero . . . not at all comparable”? Whom does Mr. Biden think he’s kidding?

The fact is that Afghanistan is rife with parallels to our abandonment of Vietnam in the middle of the fight. It wasn’t the lifting of people off the roof of our embassy in Saigon that was the essence of what happened in April 1975, though that is certainly an indelible news image. The parallel is our leaving in the lurch allies who would have to stay in the fight and bear the consequences alone.

We’re not suggesting that the logic of our retreat from either war — and Iraq — is undebatable. America gave thousands of lives and huge treasure in these wars. The war in Afghanistan is now in its second generation. Those born on 9/11 are now of military age. We are suggesting, though, that our retreat from Afghanistan has to be looked at in an unblinkered, honest way. That discloses plenty of parallels to Vietnam.

Starting, in our view, with the fact that we entered both conflicts without a proper declaration of war. Instead, we used mere “authorizations” by Congress. We weren’t required by the Constitution to get a war declaration from the solons. We’ve come to the view, though, that it would have been wiser to get one, or not to go to war at all, because it would, in our estimate, be much harder to weasel out of a properly declared war.

We’ve written many times on this head. The Tonkin Gulf resolution, on which we went to war in Vietnam, and the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, on which we went to war at Afghanistan, sounded similarly tentative notes. They said it was okay for the President to go to war. They didn’t, though, require him to do so. Contrast that with the language of, say, the declaration on which we entered World War II.

The joint declaration by Congress on the day after Pearl Harbor was only 168 words long. It said that the state of war which has been “thrust upon the United States” by Japan is “formally declared” and that the President is not only “authorized” but also “directed” to use our military forces. And not just some of them but “the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government.”

And then the famous words: “. . . and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.” End of declaration, which, in our view, is how war declaring is supposed to be done. Let the enemy take note. We offered no such signal to the communists stoking the war in Vietnam or the Islamists who were holed up in Afghanistan. We waffled from the start.

As we did in Iraq. The authorization to use military force on which we went into Iraq was festooned with nearly 2,000 words of conditions and caveats. So it was suddenly easy for summer soldiers like, say, Senator John Kerry to confess (or boast), as he did, that he’d voted for more funding for the war before he voted against it. Mr. Biden ran for Vice President plumping for a pullout from Iraq.

In the vice presidential debate, the doughty Republican nominee, Governor Sarah Palin, nailed Mr. Biden on his war policy. “Your plan is a white flag of surrender,” she said.* In the event in Iraq, the Obama-Biden administration did, just like the Democrats in Vietnam, force a premature retreat. It will be on Mr. Biden’s watch that the final ignominy of our retreat from Afghanistan will take place.

There were flashes yesterday that the press is onto Mr. Biden. “Mr. President,” one journalist asked, “if this isn’t a ‘mission accomplished’ moment, what is it, in your view?” To which Mr. Biden replied: “No, there’s no ‘mission accomplished.’” So the reporter asked: “How would you describe it?” Replied Mr. Biden: “The mission was accomplished in that we get, got Osama bin Laden, and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world.” He did refrain from uttering the words “Peace is at hand.”

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* Mrs. Palin did, in the debate, express honor for Mr. Biden’s son Beau, who was serving in the Army National Guard and who would be awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Iraq.