Ignoring The Consequences

While listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR yesterday morning, one of the guests, Jeanne Cummings from The Politico made a series of statements that got my blood pressure to crest at just below Vesuvius levels. Her comments were in response to an e-mail read by Diane Rehm from a listener in St. Louis.

Diane: “Redeployment, cutting funding, non-binding resolutions, cut-and-run all add up to one thing: defeat at any cost. In the eyes of the anti-Bush Left, Iraq cannot and must not succeed. It would vindicate him and the hatred runs so deep that they will sacrifice anything to ensure that Iraq does not succeed. It doesn't matter what is best for the US. It doesn't matter what's best for Iraq. It doesn't matter what's best for the Middle East. And now a Democrat controlled Congress is doing everything it can to ensure defeat at any cost.”

Jeanne: “Well, I'm..I'm...there may be folks that feel that way. Personally I think that's a little too cynical. I don't think that the Democrats voted for this and hoped it failed and now they're trying to make it fail and turn it into, you know, that they have some control to turn this into a train wreck. I mean, events over there in Iraq are going to take place whether we're there or not. So much of the success or failure in Iraq depends upon the Iraqis themselves and...so I just don't see how you can...could believe that the Democrats have so much power that they can in the blink of an eye, or with a phrase or a vote turn events one way or another.”

And that's exactly her problem. She can't see what's happening even though it's out there in plain sight. The Democrats have made no secret of their plans to abandon the Iraqis, much as they abandoned the South Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians in 1973-74. To think that our presence in Iraq will have no effect on what goes on there is just so wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to enumerate them. But there's one thing I can say with confidence that we are preventing by our presence: genocide.

Were we to withdraw before the Iraqi government can take full control of their internal affairs, there will be a bloodbath of the likes that haven't been seen since the killing fields of Cambodia. It won't be hundreds of deaths, nor thousands of deaths, but millions of deaths that will occur because we weren't there to prevent it. Once that kind of killing starts, it is very difficult to stop. It won't stop at the borders of Iraq. It will spread throughout the entire Middle East. Maybe not all at once, but it will spread from country to country. And should it ever spill over into Israel, the game will be over, for Israel will not go down without a fight. They will exercise the Masada Option, turning most of the Middle East into a radioactive hell. (Do you think I'm exaggerating? Could be, but it isn't the first time such an outcome has been voiced, mostly by people far more knowledgeable than I am on the matter.)

It is a deadly myopia that infects the Democrats and the BDS-afflicted Left. I've found that far too often they cannot look into the future any farther than the next election cycle...assuming they can even look that far ahead. Three, four, ten years might as well be an eternity when it comes to projecting the outcomes of actions taken today. Looking back at past actions also appears to be beyond their scope, learning the lessons of history in order to prevent history from repeating itself.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.