From today's New York Sun:
In Cambodia, Phnom Penh fell in mid-April. Saigon fell at the month's end. The frantic efforts to negotiate a peaceful transition went for naught. On May 1, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal published Peter Kann's famous "Obituary for South Vietnam," which was one of the few pieces extolling the heroism of South Vietnam's often-mocked army. It was "not an army of bumblers and cowards," he wrote. "It was an army that stood and fought with great courage and competence on a few occasions you may remember, like the siege of An Loc. …
"It was an army that for years watched the Americans try to combat the Communists with every wonder of modern weaponry and which then, all too suddenly, was left to face the Communists with American-style tactics but without American-style resources. …" He conceded that the North Vietnamese were stronger. "But the stronger side is not necessarily the better side. ‘Better' becomes a question of values and much as I may respect Communist strength and stamina I cannot accept that the Spartan Communist society of North Vietnam is better than the very imperfect South Veitnamese society that I knew."
It was one of the few eulogies the free Vietnamese ever got. And then a region with a population as large as eastern Europe was thrown into the decades of a still-dark night of communist tyranny. Hundreds of thousands were thrown into re-education camps. Millions died in the killing fields of Cambodia. The outpouring of boat-people from Vietnam astonished the world. In 1979, the summit of industrialized countries meeting at Tokyo was forced to set aside its agenda to deal with the crisis of the millions seeking to escape the communism to which they'd been abandoned
The Democrats have a lot to answer for.
Hat Tip to Lawhawk at LGF
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