Iraq: The New Liberal Killing Field

As President Obama returned from a well deserved two-week vacation in Hawaii – ok, being quite facetious here – I wonder if he did any reflection between rounds of golf?

Regardless, I have been reflecting upon the words of George Santayana, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” because as President Obama returns to Washington DC he is playing his part in a repeat of history.

After the fall of South Vietnam came the rise of Southeast Asian communism. Cambodia was embroiled in a five-year civil war, from 1970 to 1975, resulting in the ascension of the Khmer Rouge. Under the brutal leadership of Pol Pot, the following four years resulted in one of the most horrific acts of genocide.

The Khmer Rouge regime contributed to the deaths of between 1.7 to 2.5 million people in its “Killing Fields” with Pol Pot at the helm. His government forced a massive population shift from urban areas to the countryside to work in collective farms and labor projects to further a radical vision of “agrarian socialism.” Executions, forced labor, malnutrition, and poor medical care took their toll, decimating approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population.

Pol Pot’s death grip over Democratic Kampuchea (funny how communists and socialists always call themselves Democratic) finally ended with the Cambodian-Vietnamese War.

Then as now, the liberal progressives of the Democrat (there’s that word again) party ardently protested and undermined the efforts of our military forces – then Vietnam, now Iraq. Then it was communism, now it is Islamic totalitarianism. Then it was the killing fields of Pol Pot, today the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. Just as the Democrats abandoned Southeast Asia, they have now abandoned the Middle East.

President Obama, true to form, believed that a political promise was far more important than a strategic decision. Therefore, against the recommendations of Commanders on the ground, he refused any residual force to remain in Iraq. There will be detractors who will say Americans were tired of fighting. But my response is that America was not fighting, it was committed men and women — warriors all — who had defeated a vile and vicious Islamic jihadist enemy.


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