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Thursday, July 12, 2007

With a Good Plan, Nothing Bad Happens

Yesterday on NPR, I was horrified to hear a story that said that we must plan for our pullout from Iraq thoroughly. Just like Vietnam, where proper planning prevented the worst from happening:

Supporters and critics of the war in Iraq predict that withdrawing US troops will lead to more violence there. But some say intelligent planning in Washington could avoid the worst, as it did when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. Anchor Lisa Mullins discusses the issue with Shibley Telhami, professor of political science at the University of Maryland.

The boat people, forced reeducation camps, the killing fields of Cambodia, a repressive and economically backward Vietnam, and a loss of US will for a decade were the result of planning that avoided the worst? That's just an amazing way to think. This is how the "reality-based community" thinks.

For people who think the Iraq War is the most ineptly run operation in military history and the biggest foreign policy mistake ever, they apparently have a mighty high threshold for what would have constituted the worst in Vietnam.

Of course, they'd have to to think that way to believe losing in Iraq is the right thing to do.