Rumors of Bloodbaths - Heard that One Before

There aren't many benefits to getting older. One of them is being able to remember having heard a particular argument before and recalling how that turned out.

When South Vietnam fell we were prepared for an orgy of killing, a bloodbath of historic proportions. That was, after all, what we'd been told for years would happen if the filthy communists won.

It didn't happen. Sure some particular enemies of the regime were prosecuted, a few executed, many more sent away to "re-education" camps but the streets certainly didn't run with blood. In fact, the new Republic of Vietnam actually prevented an enormous amount of bloodshed by invading Cambodia to put a stop the the butchery of the insanely anarchist Khmer Rouge.

We're now being told that, if the west pulls out of Iraq or Afghanistan, the same thing is going to happen - endless bloodshed of historic proportions. Who says? Once again we're getting this from that particular group that wants to continue the war without end.

I expect there would be somewhat more bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan than experienced in post-war Vietnam but, for all its faults, even the Taliban isn't the Khmer Rouge. In both countries there are sectarian issues that will have to be sorted out, assets to be allocated, new alliances and political arrangements to be worked out. It seems unrealistic to expect that could be accomplished without some bloodshed but isn't that inevitable when different groups suddenly find themselves released from a pressure cooker where they've been held for generations?

When Yugoslavia began falling apart, the west didn't try to remake it. We didn't tell the Croats, Serbs, Kosovars, Bosnians and Montenegrans that they had to form a state to replace what Tito built. We let them go their own ways. There was bloodshed, of course there was. Some of it got awfully nasty and we had to intervene to prevent what could have turned into ethnic cleansing, perhaps even genocide if it had been left unchecked. There remains a measure of low-level conflict, tensions requiring the presence of peacekeepers but today we have a new Serbia, a new Bosnia, a new Croatia and even an independent Montenegro.

Why do we think we have a right or some duty to prevent the disparate ethnic groups that comprise Iraq and Afghanistan from likewise going their own ways? The answer is plain and its not pretty. These aren't Europeans, they're people of the Middle East and instability in either country may threaten the strategic interests of - why, us white folks of course. We can't be having any of that, no, no, no. Best these folks do as we tell them. Heck we're even crafting the very governments that will serve - make that "rule" - them.

I think we need to explore the idea of letting these groups go, if that's what they want, and assisting them by providing security against ethnic cleansing or genocide along with a meaningful effort at reconstruction. Why not? Nothing else has worked.