The Cambodia Effect

Unlike many whose opinions I respect, I opposed the GWBush bombing and subsequent invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. I had more company in likewise objecting, even more strongly, to his invasion two years later of Iraq. I thought it would be a good thing if holes were suddenly to open under the regimes in both those countries, so that the Taliban and Saddam could drop into them, never to be heard from again, but I didn't think invasions by the U.S. military were the way to go.

Now, two more years farther on, in the case of Iraq it looks as if those objections were fully justified, and I still don't regret my attitude about Afghanistan either.

I've coined names for two of my reasons for my trepidations about the Bush bellicosity in these situations, both named after previous U.S. experiences in similarly small countries on the other side of Asia. They are "the Cambodia Effect" and "the Vietnam Effect."

Before Nixon and Kissinger decided that it would be a good idea to extend the fighting into Cambodia while keeping their efforts a secret, things had been quiet in that country, even if the Vietcong did use some of the trails in its border areas. But the sudden strafings, bombings, and forays by American forces stepped up the level of violence there almost overnight, and just a short while later we saw unfolding one of the worst chapters in the 20th century, the Pol Pot genocide.

I feared that, like the introduction of a terrible disease, some sort of dire catastrophe would similarly befall the Afghanistan people should Bush inject American fighters in there. I thought that that would just lead to large numbers of people being deprived of the right to live out their normal life spans and also it would involve a huge destruction of property and facilities -- things that the Afghanis certainly didn't need, after a generation of being heavily scourged not only by the Russians but also by their own infighting.

Also I didn't think a thirst for revenge justified inflicting death and destruction on many segments of the Afghan population that had nothing to do with 9/11, and that if it was just the Taliban that the Bush forces were after, it was a little late in the day and large numbers of non-Taliban would suffer as well. And so they did and still are, and today the shadows still hang as much as they ever did over that unfortunate and already most wrecked of countries.