The acceptance - and whitewashing - of genocide

Betsy Newmark blogs this morning about Democrats like Senator Barack Obama, who recently commented that the potential for genocide in Iraq is not worth keeping US forces there.

At the same time, as she notes, last week Senator John Kerry on CSPAN actually claimed with a straight face that there was no bloodbath after the US left Vietnam.

The Democrats are losing it. Senator Obama is ‘outraged’ that the US hasn’t done more to stop the genocide in Darfur, yet doesn’t think that very thing in Iraq happening is worth keeping US forces there and Senator John Kerry outright lied (again) about another aspect of the Vietnam war and the devastating repercussions of us leaving there after Democrats in Congress cut off funding. I suppose Kerry’s trying to assuage his own guilt over his “Winter Soldier” testimony, but I can’t really answer for Obama’s strange position, other than the fact that he is doing his damnedest to appease the anti-war base of the Democratic party.

Neither of their positions, in fact, jive with the Democrat mantra of ‘helping the less fortunate,’ do they?

david foster says:

July 26, 2007 at 11:12 am

Obama’s logic seems to be that if you can’t save *everybody*, then you shouldn’t save *anybody.* Kind of like a swimmer who refuses to help a drowning man 100 feet offshore because he can’t do anything for other drowning people who are a mile away.

His position also ignores the practical and moral implications of abandoning people who–at great risk to themselves–have chosen to support us.

Van Helsing says:

July 26, 2007 at 12:37 pm

I’m sure if there had been a bloodbath in Southeast Asia — say communists killing one third the population of Cambodia, or driving tens of thousands of Vietnamese into the sea on anything that might float — it would be seared into Hanoi John’s memory, just like his Christmas in Cambodia.

Tango says:

July 26, 2007 at 3:36 pm

The Dems have yet to acknowledge their role in securing our defeat in Vietnam. Nor have they ever been held accountable in any meaningful sense. And I would suggest that’s precisely why Dem operatives figure they can enable the same scenario in Iraq. No doubt they view the carnage that will ensue as mere collateral damage.

Terrye says:

July 26, 2007 at 4:29 pm

I think they just figure they will blame Bush whatever happens. So, unless and until they are personally responsible they just do not care. It shames me as an American to say that, it really does.