The Dead Speak

The toll of the Khmer Rouge's brief but fatal reign of terror in Cambodia (1975-78) is uncertain - a million, two? The numbers can only be estimated, but the pictures of pyramids of skulls are well known. They've become emblematic of that bloody time.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way, not according to the sophisticates who were advocating an American withdrawal from Indochina in the 1970s. They blithely dismissed all the warnings that a bloodbath would follow once the United States abandoned its allies in Southeast Asia:

"Some will find the whole bloodbath debate unreal. What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening in Cambodia now?" -Anthony Lewis in the New York Times, March 17, 1975.

"The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is not guns but peace. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now." -U.S. Rep. (now Sen.) Chris Dodd of Connecticut, March 12, 1975.

"Indochina Without Americans/For Most, A Better Life," -headline in the New York Times, April 13, 1975. [snip]

Now, once again, the sophisticates are urging Americans to abandon an ally, this time beleaguered Iraq. The leading Democratic presidential candidates speak glibly of pulling out of that country as if there would be no ill effects.

As in Cambodia?

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