Baghdad: The New Saigon?

[bemildred]

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Arabs are not ignorant of history. They know that when we pulled out of South Vietnam, a Democratic Congress cut off aid to the Saigon regime, and every Cambodian and Vietnamese who had cast his lot with us wound up dead, in a “re-education camp” or among the boat people in the South China Sea whose wives and children were routinely assaulted by Thai pirates.

In that first year of “peace” in Southeast Asia, 20 times as many Cambodians perished as all the Americans who died in 10 years of war.

In Iraq, a collapse of the government and army in the face of an American pullout, followed by a civil-sectarian war, the break-up of the country and a strategic debacle for the United States – emboldening our enemies and imperiling our remaining friends in the Arab world – is a real possibility.

Yet what Edmund Burke said remains true: “No war can be long carried on against the will of the people.” And the American people are losing, if they have not lost, the will to continue this war. They are weary of the daily killing and dying, and of the endless talk of “progress” when all they see is death. They believe the war was a mistake, and they want to come home.

Information Clearing House

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Ugh.

Buchanan via World Nut Daily via Information Clearing House. My, what a twisted web of bullshit.

[happyslug]

2. My reading of this is the problem is the whole war was a blunder.

And when Countries make historic blunders innocent people die. Buchanan is just making an observation. The fact is that the majority of Americans want US troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, and the sooner the GOP accepts that fact the sooner the US will get out. Furthermore the fact that people will die do to the US withdraw should NOT stop the withdraw. The fact people will die when the US withdrew was decided WENT WE WENT IN. The cause of these future deaths is NOT that we withdrew but that we went in and as such the fact people will die when the US withdraw is NOT grounds NOT to withdraw US forces.

Buchanan is anticipating the GOP's argument about staying in Iraq, that it will be WORSE if we withdraw. Buchanan is saying that such deaths are the result of the US invading Iraq in the first place NOT the result of the US pull out. That overall the longer the US stays, the more Iraqi and Americans will die and you will STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM OF INFIGHTING WHENEVER THE US WITHDRAWS. Thus the best thing to do is to withdraw and suffer the losses and get over it.

Lets face facts, Two and half percent of all Iraqis have DIED since we invaded Iraq. If we would withdraw NOW, you would have three to six months of bloodshed but then the sides will work out some sort of understanding and peace (as much peace as you can have in the Middle East) will return. I see no more than 1% of Iraqis dieing is such fighting (and probably less). On the other hand if the US stays, we will have to stay another 5-10 years to put down the Guerrillas, killing at least 10-15% of the total population of Iraq during that time period. IF we kill that many Iraqis we may withdraw without Iraq going to Civil War, but I give that chance only a 50% chance of occurring (And that is if we are bloody enough so that they are basically no more fighters available to each sides to fight, i.e. the US Kills all males between 14 and 60).

Buchanan was a young Nixon staff writer during the fall of Vietnam, he saw what happened then. It will happen again for the US is NOT politically capable of genocide on the scale needed for US forces to leave Iraq without a subsequent Iraqi Civil War. The blunder was GOING INTO IRAQ in the first place, the subsequent Civil War will be another cost of Going into Iraq.