By Ben Beliles, from Guam, on the outer rim of the Republic

We have to face a stark reality. The West is losing. We are a civilization that has lost the political will to successfully pursue a war of more than a few weeks duration and a few hundred casualties. Consumed in our self-absorption, we no longer have time for dealing with issues other than when we are going to get our next buzz. There is no longer any great sense of moral purpose or destiny for the American people.

What highlights the weak moral courage of the American people and their stance on the war is that the vast majority of the American people simply are unaffected by the war we are currently waging. There is no gasoline or food rationing like there was in World War II on a grand scale. There is no draft, nor any chance of one being instituted, despite the fear mongering of Charlie Rangel.

Read on . . .

The simple fact of the matter is that this is not a war being fought by all the American people in any sense of the word. This is a war being waged by the Armed Forces of the United States of America, who willingly do their duty in the belief that they are making a difference for democracy in the world, while the nation that sent them there to do the job would rather turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is going on overseas. Not because it affects them in the least, but simply because they don’t want to have to think about it or feel guilty because their friend is under mortar fire in Kirkuk while they are on an important wine tasting expedition, talking about our most recent national Anna Nicole Smith or Paris Hilton distraction, or engaged in trying to catch up with the Joneses who own the two beamers next door.

A withdrawal from Iraq at this juncture would throw the country into bloody upheaval and civil war on a scale that could potentially dwarf the blood bath that enveloped South Vietnam and Indochina in the months following the 1974 Democratic Congress’s decision to cut off funding to South Vietnam, following the 1973 Case-Church Amendment that forbid any military activity in South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese took this as open invitation to invade South Vietnam, which they subsequently did, capturing Saigon of course in the spring of 1975. Estimates place the number of civilians who were slaughtered in the months that followed at between 1 and 2 million people. We evacuated hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese, while hundreds of thousands of others fled on hastily constructed rafts into the South China Sea where they either were drowned or raped and killed by opportunistic pirates. The blood of those people was shed because we foolishly decided we would provide no more aid, despite the fact that the success of the South Vietnamese military in defeating the NVA Easter Offensive of 1972 with the limited help of American military advisors and our air superiority proved that South Vietnam could sustain itself with just a little help from ourselves. Instead 58,000 American boys paid the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam and South Vietnam still lost its freedom.

Once again, a Democratic Congress is rushing toward the creation of a humanitarian disaster. Just as withdrawal from Vietnam resulted in even greater casualties and human rights disasters than did the Vietnam War itself, withdrawal from Iraq would open the door for a similar catastrophe. Although many Americans might prefer that result to even one more American life being lost, a thought I can certainly sympathize with, it would be a human disaster of epic proportions as well as a massive defeat for our nation, both militarily and diplomatically. Ethnic cleansing as well as the potential for the encroachment of Iran into the political and civil life of the Iraqi people is almost inevitable should American troops withdraw.

That is a risk we just cannot afford to take.