411mania.com

411mania.com: "MR. KERRY: The true fact of the matter is, Dick, that there's absolutely no guarantee that there would be a bloodbath. There's no guarantee that there wouldn't. One has to, obviously, conjecture on this. However, I think the arguments clearly indicate that there probably wouldn't be. First of all, if you read back historically, in 1950 the French made statements – there was a speech made by, I think it was General LeClerc, that if they pulled out, France pulled out, then there would be a bloodbath. That wasn't a bloodbath. The same for Algeria. There hasn't been. I think that it's really kind of a baiting argument. There is no interest on the part of the North Vietnamese to try to massacre the people once people have agreed to withdraw.

Sound familiar? It should. Kerry is basically saying back in 1971 that 'we are the problem'. The Vietnamese have no reason to fight a civil war if we are gone. If that doesn't sound exactly like what the Democrats are saying about Iraq then you have had your head up your 'fourth point of contact' as they say at airborne school. These similarities are chilling now in light of the utter devastation in the region caused by the Communist onslaught brought about by Vietnamization.

So what was the cost of 'phased redeployment' versus a strategy of victory? Well for one the US military was demoralized for decades. During the first Gulf War in 1991 the media was still talking about the military throwing off the ghosts of Vietnam. Twenty years later and the military was still a big question in a lot of people's minds up until then (undeservedly so but it was so none the less). This type of loss of credibility has a huge impact on military recruitment and thus directly affects your security here at home. In other words, to paraphrase Rumsfeld, "you lose the war with the army you hate." Disrespect our soldiers by putting one in the lose column when they are so clearly in the win column will ruin what it took decades to get back; American military pride.

But if you are a liberal who would not deign to be caught caring about American security or influence in the world (other than to point out how immoral that is), how about the humanistic component? How about the utter devastation left in South East Asia?

During this period of Nixon's phased redeployment, the Khmer Rouge Communists took over the government of Cambodia leading to the extermination of roughly 25% of that countries population, or two million people. This horrendous slaughter on the order of magnitude of the Jewish holocaust might have been avoided if Nixon had not signaled American intentions to wash our hands of the region. And that wasn't even in Vietnam."