Henry Imler January 13th, 2007

Ron Rosenbaum :: Haunted by Cambodia

If the Iraq : Vietnam comparisons are true, then would not Post Withdraw Iraq : Cambodia?

Ever since the news of the genocidal scale of mass
murder in Cambodia reached the West, I’ve been trying to figure out how
to relate it to my previous opposition to the Vietnam War.

At first it was self-exculpatory: No Vietnam War, no Nixon illicit
secret bombing/destabilization of Cambodia, thus no Khmer Rouge
take-over, thus no genocide. That was my story and I tried sticking to
it for a long time.

But it’s more complicated than that isn’t it? Especially if you’re
familiar with what’s come to light in the past decades from former
Soviet archives about Vietnam. (You have read the Soviet archival
documents haven’t you? Otherwise spare me your comments). When 2 or 3
million are murdered, it’s worth examining the causes further,
especially in light of current potential parallels…

The Vietnam war, like the current one, was horribly mismanaged,
yes. The war was, like this one, productive of horrific number of
casualties among innocent civilians, but Vietnam wasn’t all as simple
as I thought of it in college. One could still call it the wrong war at
the wrong time fought by the wrong tactics, but one can’t portray the
“foe” as somehow virtuous.

And Cambodia: the genocide there was as unimaginably horrific as any
genocide in that genocidal century. Would that genocide have happened
if the U.S. hadn’t so precipitously scurried out (under the aegis of a
funding cut), leaving behind one half a nation hosting Stalinist
gulags, and a good portion of a neighboring nation, Cambodia, rotting
away in mass graves. Was the Cambodian genocide an inevitable
consequence of the Vietnam war? Would it have happened however we
managed to leave Vietnam? I don’t know, but it’s a question worth
thinking about.

The “world community” did nothing to prevent genocide in Cambodia,
in Rwanda, nothing to stop Saddam’s mass murder and the ethnic
cleansing that bordered on genocide (did you hear his tape recorded
cold blooded dismissal of the murder of thousands in the “Chemical Ali”
trial?) in Iraq. And of course it’s doing nothing to stop it in Darfur.
Whose responsibility will the aftermath of the (I think inevitable)
U.S. pullout from Iraq be? …

But does the fact—that it’s our responsibility for getting into this
position (my view of the “surge” plan is the same as my view at the
opening of the war: things are likely to get worse)—does that exempt or
exculpate us from the responsibility to prevent the possible
genocidal—certainly ethnic cleansing—consequences that will follow our
withdrawal? Is there any way we can prevent those consequences?

There are more than just US and British soldiers over there. There
are 50 Million other just as real people there. The soldiers are real
people and there are 50 Million other real people in Iraq. No matter
how or why we went in - we broke it. We should stick around long enough
to fix it. Damn us if we don’t.

If you listened to the President’s speech, he identified reasons why
things have not worked in the past and announced modifications to try
to correct them so that it will work in the future.
As he reiterated in his weekend radio address:

First, we will help the Iraqis execute their aggressive
plan to secure their capital. Eighty percent of Iraq’s sectarian
violence occurs within 30 miles of Baghdad. The new plan to secure
Baghdad fixes the problems that prevented previous operations from
succeeding. This time, there will be adequate Iraqi and U.S. forces to
hold the areas that have been cleared, including more Iraqi forces and
five additional brigades of American troops committed to Baghdad. This
time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter
neighborhoods that are home to those fueling sectarian violence. Prime
Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference
with security operations will not be tolerated.

And you know what? If the Iraqi government does not follow thru on
their end of the deal , then like I said on Dave’s site, then it might
be time to leave. But there is still hope to fix it. And as long as
that lingers, I think it would be extremely irresponsible to leave.

On the diplomacy issue - I really think that is a big part of what
needs to happen to get the best possible senerio. However, what I don’t
know is how to use diplomacy to work.

Also, from the weekend address:

Fourth, America will expand our military and diplomatic efforts to
bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the
Middle East. We will address the problem of Iran and Syria allowing
terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of
Iraq. We will encourage countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and
the Gulf states to increase their economic assistance to Iraq.
Secretary Rice has gone to the region to continue the urgent diplomacy
required to help bring peace to the Middle East.

People say the UN should take over - we’ve tried that. No one wants
to should the responsibility of helping with security. Iran and Syria
are agging on the sectarian violence. Iran is giving support to both
sides. The last thing they want is a strong, peaceful Iraq. Same with
Syria. How does one engage them when they are in effect fight a proxy
war within Iraq? I am not saying that they should not be engaged and
one of the parts of the updated plan that the president layed out that
I did not like was a lack of diplomacy with those two countries. He
wants to get others involved, it is on them to help.

Update - Added several things to expand scope of the post from the dangers of leaving.

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