Ever heard of Spalding Gray?
He's probably my favorite Northeastern, Liberal, WASP humorist.
Okay, so he's the only Northeastern, Liberal, WASP humorist, seeing how they've all lost their sense of humor, just like Dr. Demagogue.
So, anyway, I'm watching Swimming to Cambodia, when he reads this letter, addressed to the American ambassador by Prince Sirik Matak, in which he declines the former's offer to help him flee as the Americans pull out, shortly before the Khmer Rouge enters Phnom Penh:
Dear Excellency and friend,
I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.
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. You leave us and it is my wish that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.
But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we are all born and must die one day. I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.
Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments. Sirik Matak.
Now, Mr. Spalding Gray concluded, par for the Northeastern, Liberal, WASP course, that it was all Nixon's fault. I don't see it quite that way. He did a lot of stuff, but it wasn't him that deserted the Cambodians -- it was the anti-war movement. Bring them home. Give peace a chance.
Huh? You say. It's like this: The protests at Kent State -- that was to protest Nixon's policy in Cambodia. So, a bunch of dirty hippie Ben and Jerry types, they get all uppity at this Ohio University, and proceed to burn down a U.S. Government building on the campus (ROTC program). The National Guard shot these people (and, in all likelihood, a couple less guilty civil disobidience types). In the resulting national backlash, 100,000 people descended on Washington, and, fearing that a revolt would occur, the United States changed its policy, and left a nation to self-destruct.
I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.
Yup. That's right. We abandoned them. We cut n' run. And this is the thing that these Leftists don't get -- all those people died not because of Nixon, but their lack of spine. And, of course, these same people now want to do it all over again in Iraq -- and if we left, anything that happened would, of course, be Bush's fault. To call them Useful Idiots is too demeaning to idiots, and while they're tools, they have no Use.
Never really looked at it from that point of view. Thanks
Posted by: gunner | Saturday, December 06, 2003 at 04:13 PM