The Cambodia-Iraq parallel

Democrats and the news media seem to have a strong desire to repeat in Iraq the disaster 30-years ago of abandoning Cambodia. Scott Johnson reviews the parallels.

This contrasts strongly with the understanding of history that some Iraqis have, as explained in an interview that Stars and Stripes conducted with Col. MacFarland:

Now, “If you talk to these sheiks, they’ll tell you that they’re in no hurry to see the Americans leave al-Anbar,” he said.

“One thing Sheikh Sattar keeps saying is he wants al-Anbar to be like Germany and Japan and South Korea were after their respective wars, with a long-term American presence helping ... put them back together,” MacFarland said. “The negative example he cites is Vietnam. He says, yeah, so, Vietnam beat the Americans, and what did it get them? You know, 30 years later, they’re still living in poverty.”

Hat tip alphabetcity.

ADDENDUM: Another parallel to Iraq is the US Civil War. As noted here and at Gateway Pundit, the Democrats ("Copperhead Democrats") blamed the Civil War on the North and wanted to settle even if it meant letting the South keep their slaves.

UPDATE: A Commentary article is now online which includes a passage written in 1994 by well-known former-Kissinger-critic William Schawcross discussing press-bias in the 1970s that seems so similar to today's coverage of Iraq:

[T]hose of us who opposed the American
war in Indochina should be extremely hum-
ble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a
form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific
tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. Looking
back on my own coverage for the [London]
Sunday Times of the South Vietnamese war
effort of 1970-75, I think I concentrated too
easily on the corruption and incompetence
of the South Vietnamese and their American
allies, was too ignorant of the inhuman
Hanoi regime, and far too willing to believe
that a victory by the Communists would pro-
vide a better future.

Scott Johnson has more.