The coverage currently given to the conflict in Iraq mainly focuses on the number of American deaths. While that focus is certainly understandable, it seems that more and more news organizations refuse to recognize that the ones that suffer the most from the sustained conflict are the Iraqis themselves. By the latest World Health Organization estimates, 151,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in the years after the war, with 9 out of 10 losing their lives as a result of US military action or insurgency attacks.

The highest casualties, however, might have yet to come. Once the US withdraws, the largest brunt of the suffering will be bourn by those who helped us during the occupation. The International Herald Tribune shows us the long-lasting effects of US military action by telling the story of the Hmongs, an ethnic group of rebels in Laos who had the misfortune of throwing their lot in with the CIA decades before. Now, decades after the American military action that began in 1961, these people are still being hunted and persecuted by the Laos government. They live a poor, miserable existance defined by constant raids and inability to do anything save hide in the jungles. In the words of one veteran of America's Secret War "We want America to give us a place to live. We want America to give us food and medicine. If the Americans don't want to do that," he said, "they should drop a big bomb on us and end our misery."

The American government, however, neither recognizes these men as former allies nor do they plan on giving assistance anytime soon. As Colin Thompson, a long time CIA operative in Laos explains, "It wasn't as if we dragooned them into anything. Their choice was to defend themselves and we provided the means. We provided the weapons and the courage."

Perhaps, for once, we should look at these results and not just write them off as mistakes of a past administration. There are lessons to be learned here, especially among those who believe that withdrawing immediately from Iraq is the magical cureall for all our foreign policy ills. When we leave Iraq, we'll leave behind entire populations of people who will be subject to the same retaliatory action that the Hmong had to deal with for decades. Do we really think that leaving Iraq will have anything but bad effects on the Sunni minority? Or the Kurds? Before this campaign cycle hits its full throtle, I think it'd be wise to separate  the rhetoric from the feasible policy initiatives. To me, withdrawal from Iraq is anything but feasible, unless the end goal is the creation of another failed state and the perpetuation further ethnic violence in the Middle East. President Bush should bear the blame for starting this ill-thoughtout, illegitimate war in the first place, but if the next president withdraws troops before the government is stabilized, a process that might take decades, he or she will be committing as grevious of a crime as Bush did.