Jules Crittenden Jogs NYT Memory Banks

I found it amusing yesterday how everyone harped on the fact that President Bush used Vietnam and the lessons we should have learned from it and ignored the portions of history where he dealt with historical other conflicts. (Amy Proctor provides you with video of the portions that deal with Korea, Japan and Vietnam) (Bush speech found here)

The NYT has an article today where they state:

In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies.

Jules Crittenden remembers all too well and was glad to jog the NYT Memories a bit with this:

Is your historical memory of the negative repercussions from the abandonment of Southeast Asia challenged? Mine isn’t:

1975: U.S. ally South Vietnam, overrun by North Vietnamese regulars when the ammo and the air cover stopped. U.S. allies Laos and Cambodia, taken over by Chinese and Soviet-backed Communist insurgencies.

1975-early 1980s: Untold thousands upon thousands in Vietnam and Laos executed or sent to “re-education” camps. Hundreds of thousands flee, in overcrowded boats that sank or were attacked by pirates; swimming the Mekong to Thailand; walking through minefields to Thailand. Phnom Penn emptied out by gun-toting teenagers, who drove the people into the fields were 2 million were worked and starved to death, or executed outright. (NYT in its article astonishingly presents this as “tens of thousands,” while Bush in his speech cites “hundreds of thousands.”)

I have spoken about the Cambodia killing fields before and what our withdrawal from Vietnam did to us as a nation, did to the Vietnamese and the stigma it left on portions of our political factions, even up until today.

The MSM can try all it wants to rewrite history or to misrepresent it, downplay the importance of it or simply try to take advantage of those that weren't born or old enough to remember for themselves.

Fortunately for us, the internet is chalk full of information for anybody that cares to find the truth.

Thanks for helping the NYT along with their memories Jules.

Speech also discussed by:
NYT, Wapo, CNN.

Get blogosphere reactions to any of these articles over at memeorandum

More historical perspective by NRO.



(NOTE: Instead of leaving you with the advertisements I usually have at the bottom of each post, I will leave you with one of the videos from Freedoms Watch) [30 second video.]







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