DICK MORRIS PUTS HIS OWN FOOT IN HIS MOUTH
I generally like Dick Morris, but in his March 5th column, he makes a lulu of an error.
| Remember the domino theory? It posited that if Vietnam fell, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore would be next. Then the Philippines and Indonesia. Soon we'd be fighting in San Francisco.
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| It was wrong. Vietnam fell . . . and nothing happened. |
Wrong, Dick. The theory was right. When Saigon fell in 1975, it was the beginning of a sad story, as much as the end of one. Cambodia fell into the bloody clutches of the Khmer Rouge. Laos fell into Communist tyranny as well. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the region as the totalitarian regimes were installed.
hellish states ever made.
Liberals, then as now, could not see the catastrophe that would arise from their triumph. George McGovern, who also opposed granting asylum to refugees fleeing the Communists after the fall of Saigon, nodded approvingly as the dominoes fell. "Cambodians would be better off if we stopped all aid to them and let them work things out in their own way."
Then Representative (now Senator) Chris Dodd declared, "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."
Dodd's gift resulted in four years that would see 31% of Cambodia's population murdered.
And what caused the fall of South Vietnam, nearly two years after our troops left and the subsequent chaos? It was triggered by liberal Democrats in Congress felt that the way to peace was unilateral disarmament and surrender.
We followed the path suggested by George McGovern, Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd over a quarter of a century ago. The result of appeasing the bloodthirsty is more blood. They were wrong then. They are wrong now. The difference is that too many Americans have learned from their folly to repeat the same mistakes.
