‘SAIGON HAS FALLEN’ 50 YEAR LATER: It was half a century ago that Americans woke up to the news that the North Vietnamese Army had entered the capital of South Vietnam. Then came the haunting scene of the last U.S. helicopter on the roof of the U.S. Embassy with a long line of desperate people trying to escape.
Rod Martin reminds us today of what followed:
“What followed was not peace, but darkness. The swift collapse of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (turns out the Domino Theory was true) brought the subjugation of millions, and the opening act of a Communist bloodbath across Southeast Asia.
“At least a million were sent to the ‘re-education camps’ in Vietnam alone. Half a million were murdered. Another two million fled this brutal night by sea, on rafts wholly unsuited for the tumultuous ocean, in wild hope that an American aircraft carrier might happen upon them. Close to half a million died in the water.”
Thus was set a pattern enabled by failed U.S. leadership that is with us to the present era, as witnessed by the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and what may be in the offing in Ukraine. Martin offers some bracing insights and recommendations.