what’s the big deal about a bloodbath?

David Gergen, adviser to more presidents than I can count, on Bush’s invoking Vietnam:

CNN asked Gergen about Bush’s statement that “there’s one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam, and that is the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps,’ and ‘killing fields.’”

Gergen added that “everybody understands” there’s going to be a US pullback in Iraq when the surge ends in the spring. “We’re not going to stay there forever to prevent killings,” he stated. “When we start pulling back, there’s likely to be a bloodbath in Iraq, too.”

Gergen further pointed out that “Vietnam … after 30 years has actually become quite a thriving country. … So there are those who say … ‘Yeah, when we pulled back, there was bloodbath in the immediate aftermath, but after that the Vietnamese started putting their country together.’ Is that not what we want Iraq to do over the long term?”

Yep—inside the Beltway, they’re quite comfy with genocide, just as Ron Rosenbaum said.