[antimedia] antimedia: Surrender and betrayal are on the minds....

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Posted by antimedia:
Surrender and betrayal are on the minds....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1171846286.shtml


   ....of some important commentators these days and for good reason. As
   [1]Victor Davis Hanson writes in National Review, the ripple effect of
   leaving Iraq would last for quite some time. What is stunning is what
   Hanson points out in the first sentence.

     Most Americans accept that if the United States cannot stabilize
     Iraq, and, in frustration and acrimony, withdraws in defeat, crises
     follow. The only disagreement is over how bad they will be.

   If most Americans agree, then how can we possibly arrive at the point
   that we are seriously considering abandoning Iraq?
   Yesterday the Senate missed, by three votes, agreeing with the House
   that we should leave Iraq. For those who sit in disbelief, it would be
   well to remember that [2]we have been here before.

     In his Letter to the Editor, Seymour Kleiman claims, "The big
     mistake the administration made came afterward in acting on Vice
     President Dick Cheney's assumption that the Iraqis would greet us
     as 'Liberators' ("Bush, Democrats and Iraq," Letters, Feb. 5,
     2007). In fact, the Kurds did so in Northern Iraq because we
     enforced the no-fly zone in the North. However, the Shias welcomed
     the U.S. as betrayers not as liberators because after we armed and
     encouraged them to rebel against Saddam's regime, the U.S. betrayed
     our potential allies by not strictly enforcing the no-fly zone in
     the South. This allowed the Iraqi military to murder tens of
     thousands of Shia men, women and children with helicopter gunships
     and devastating artillery fire.
     The media have tried, ad nauseam, to draw comparisons between the
     Vietnam War and Iraq. The United States is gaining a bad reputation
     and losing respect for betraying and abandoning our former allies.
     That is the only similarity. The Montagnards were our loyal allies
     during the Vietnam War, and as a result, more than half of their
     adult male population was killed. Without them, the names of many
     more Americans would be on that somber black wall -- the Vietnam
     Memorial.

   The United States has a long and sad history of abandoning allies to
   the ministrations of madmen and despots. Perhaps part of the anger the
   world displays toward the US is based upon the rage of the betrayed.
   If we leave Iraq (and the Democrats seem so determined to do so that
   they are [3]planning to stab the troops in the back), how would anyone
   in the world ever trust this country again? Why would other countries
   commit their armed forces to a battle led by the US knowing full well
   that we will leave the job unfinished and allows millions to be
   slaughtered in our wake?
   Why would our own military trust us? Who would volunteer to serve a
   nation that would place them in harm's way only to abandon them when
   the going gets tough?
   Yet here we are -- the world's only superpower -- so wrapped up in our
   selfish world of privilege that we are oblivious to the consequences
   of our actions, even as we admit they will be disastrous. May God have
   mercy on us all.

References

   1. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODk0NDc4ODYyOGM1YzA0MTc3YjgwMjY5Mjg4OGY5MmE
   2. http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070217-103549-4712r.htm
   3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021601792.html