Liberals’ Tears For Kurds Ring Hollow After Vietnam

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The uproar over President Trump’s plan to drawdown our forces in northeast Syria certainly takes me back — to Vietnam. The howls of protest from Democratic politicians and the liberal foghorns in the press over how terrible it would be to leave brave American allies in the lurch, it’s almost like a time machine, complete with assertions that the evil Mr. Trump is ruining America’s hard-earned reputation for loyalty and trustworthiness.

Flash back to the mid-1970s and these, or their parents, were the same people cheering as we abandoned Southeast Asia’s millions of wonderful people to a generations-long nightmare of life under communism. Recall the suave assurances from, say, the Times, that “disengagement from a civil war in which the United States should never have become engaged need not shake this country’s position in the world.”

To hell with them, I say. As a veteran of the Vietnam War and the so-called secret war in Laos, I don’t get upset thinking about how we lost the war. That’s because we didn’t lose it. We won it. It was lost — thrown away — by liberal politicians besotted with hubris over from their success in forcing Nixon from office. It was they who threw away our victory.

The same people tut-tutting about the Kurds had no problem whatsoever stabbing our friends in Saigon in the back by defunding American commitments for military assistance to enforce the Paris Peace Accords. And they were fully content to see North Vietnamese forces crush our former allies and send millions of formerly free South Vietnamese to concentration camps and forced exile.

Take Joe Biden. Where was he back in 1975? It turns out that the future vice president was then a freshman in the senate. He argued that America had no legal or moral obligation to help refugees fleeing the communist conquest of Vietnam. “I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out,” Mr. Biden said as the enemy was closing in on Saigon. “I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”

Mr. Biden’s statements at the time were recalled in July by the Washington Times. The Republican administration in 1975, led by President Ford and Secretary Kissinger, had a different view. As, later on, did President Carter. So the United States was able to give refuge to thousands of boat people who have become as hard-working, productive and loyal Americans as anyone could find. No thanks to Joe.

As the liberals and Democrats go into high dudgeon about Mr. Trump, I find myself thinking also of Cambodia. In 1975, the pro-American government, installed by a CIA-backed coup in 1970, was facing its own dire fate. As Communist Khmer Rouge forces closed in on the capital of Phnom Penh, our ambassador, John Gunther Dean, offered asylum to a former prime minister, Prince Sirik Matak.

Matak knew he was number one on a communist death list. Yet, in a famous letter, he declined the offer to flee, “I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion,” he wrote to our envoy. “As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection and we can do nothing about it.”

He ended the letter with the words: “I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.” When the Khmer Rouge, Maoist monsters, seized Phnom Penh, they shot Matak in the stomach. Unattended, he took three days to die. During the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign of terror, some 1.5 million people perished from execution in the killing fields, starvation, and forced labor.

The way our country turned its back on our allies in the 1970s is one of the blackest hours in our history. It told every small country fighting for freedom against communism or other tyranny that America could be a fair-weather friend. A new administration or a liberal Congress could mean the sudden nullification of solemn promises. America had no permanent friends or even permanent interests. Just permanent politics.

Mr. Trump insists he will stand with the Kurds. He has already done more for them than President George H.W. Bush, who let Saddam Hussein slaughter them, or President Clinton, who sent Turkey arms to kill their Kurds, or President George W. Bush, who let Turkey bomb the Iraqi Kurds, or President Obama, who pressured Arab states not to arm the Syrian Kurds for the fight against ISIS.

I hope the President will keep his word. My instinct is that he’s a better bet to do so than his detractors. My guess is that there are hundreds of thousands of proud veterans of Vietnam who would make the same bet. It’s that the same liberal and Democratic politicians wringing their hands about the noble Kurds — and they are noble — will be the first to sell them out when Mr. Trump leaves office. History proves it.

________

Image: Drawing by Elliott Banfield, courtesy of the artist.

Mr. Jennings, an investment banker, is the author of, among other works, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War.” His review of Ken Burn’s documentary “The Vietnam War” appeared in the Sun in October 2017.


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use