From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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'It
Didn't Happen'
We suppose it was inevitable: Four and a half years after Congress authorized
the liberation of Iraq, some observers are comparing the situation there to
Vietnam, where America lost a war after its will faltered. It turns out at least
one congressman actually served in Vietnam, so he ought to be particularly qualified
to help us determine the lessons of that conflict for this one.
Meet John Kerry, junior senator from Massachusetts. Some say he looks French, others call him haughty. But everyone agrees on one thing: He served in Vietnam.
After returning from a tour of duty that lasted an astonishing four months, Kerry also became an antiwar activist. In 1971 Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Vietnamese were a simple people, too simple to care about freedom or oppression:
We found most people didn't even know the difference between communism and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart.
Kerry's side prevailed. In 1973 the U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam, and in 1975 Congress, its Democratic majority expanded by the post-Watergate election of 1974, voted to cut off aid to the South Vietnamese government. That year Saigon fell to the communists.
What happened then? Not much, according to Kerry, quoted in the Chicago Tribune:
"We heard that argument over and over again about the bloodbath that would engulf the entire Southeast Asia, and it didn't happen," Kerry said, dismissing the charge out of hand as he argued that the American presence only makes the situation worse every day.
In 2001, California's Orange County Register published an investigation of communist re-education camps in postwar Vietnam:
To corroborate the experiences of refugees now living in Orange County, the Register interviewed dozens of former inmates and their families, both in the United States and Vietnam; analyzed hundreds of pages of documents, including testimony from more than 800 individuals sent to jail; and interviewed Southeast Asian scholars. The review found:
- An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials.
- 165,000 people died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's re-education camps, according to published academic studies in the United States and Europe.
- Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed.
- Prisoners were incarcerated for as long as 17 years, according to the U.S. Department of State, with most terms ranging from three to 10 years.
- At least 150 re-education prisons were built after Saigon fell 26 years ago.
- One in three South Vietnamese families had a relative in a re-education camp.
According to John Kerry, "it didn't happen."
Things were even worse in Cambodia, as the Christian Science Monitor reported in 2005:
When the Khmer Rouge victoriously entered Phnom Penh 30 years ago, many people greeted the rebels with a cautious optimism, weary from five years of civil war that had torn apart their lives and killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. . . .
During the nearly four years following that day--April 17, 1975--Cambodia was radically transformed. . . .
Everyday freedoms were abolished. Buddhism and other forms of religious worship were banned. Money, markets, and media disappeared. Travel, public gatherings, and communication were restricted. Contact with the outside world vanished. And the state set out to control what people ate and did each day, whom they married, how they spoke, what they thought, and who would live and die. "To keep you is no gain," the Khmer Rouge warned, "To destroy you is no loss."
In the end, more than 1.7 million of Cambodia's 8 million inhabitants perished from disease, starvation, overwork, or outright execution in a notorious genocide.
But don't worry. According to John Kerry, "it didn't happen."
Last week, as we noted, Kerry's colleague Barack Obama opined that genocide in Iraq would be preferable to America's continued presence there. But John Kerry has shown the way. If genocide, or some lesser horror, does occur in the wake of a U.S. retreat, Obama can simply assert: "It didn't happen."
Prominent Democratic officeholders are willing to deny or countenance crimes against humanity in order to justify a popular political position. Doesn't this shock the conscience of Democrats?
Accountability
Journalism
"Giuliani's Mayoral Record Is Complicated," according to an Associated
Press headline, which explains that not all New Yorkers praise the former mayor:
Rudy Giuliani boasts that he reined in crime, welfare and taxes in a city once considered ungovernable. Those claims are intrinsic to the former New York mayor's pitch to Republican voters that he has the combination of competence and toughness they want in a president. Whether his record supports those claims, however, is a matter upon which admirers and critics differ markedly.
The AP quotes three Giuliani critics: Steven Cohen, a public affairs professor at Columbia, Eli Silverman, a professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Andrew Karmen, a John Jay sociology professor.
It's a dog-bites-man story all the way around, no? Of course Giuliani has detractors; in a democracy, what politician doesn't? And it's hardly surprising that the AP is able to find college professors who are critical of a Republican candidate. As we reported in 2001, we once heard a prof say she thought Giuliani should be assassinated.
Still, we have no objection to the Giuliani story in itself. It also includes pro-Giuliani quotes, and voters can make up their own minds after hearing both sides. But there is a stark contrast with a couple of recent AP dispatches about Barack Obama. The first appeared on July 18:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is the ''Harry Potter parent'' who has read all six books about the boy wizard's adventures with his older daughter, his wife said Thursday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Michelle Obama said her husband has read the books aloud with 9-year-old Malia and saw the latest movie, ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,'' with her last Sunday.
Both are awaiting the release of J.K. Rowling's seven and final book in the series, ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,'' this weekend, but finding time to read won't be easy, she said.
''The challenge will be scheduling Harry Potter reading time in between Iowa and New Hampshire and fundraising, but I guarantee you they will figure out a way to do it,'' Michelle Obama told the AP. ''Harry Potter is huge in our house.''
Equally hard-hitting is this dispatch, which crossed the wires in the wee hours of this morning:
Barack Obama could have lived anywhere. He was born in Hawaii, had family in Kenya, worked in New York and went to school in California and Massachusetts.
But he settled here, in a prominent neighborhood on Chicago's South Side that has a history of influential residents. In many ways, the Democratic presidential candidate is the epitome of the place he calls home: a mix of black and white residents who are wealthy, well-educated and liberal-leaning. . . .
"Can you believe every time she comes she gives me a hug? ... I'm just her waitress," said the Calypso Cafe's Mina Lewis, who talks fondly of the days before the presidential campaign when Michelle Obama would come in with her daughters and friends.
With the intellectual vibe of a college town and the tree-lined streets to match, Obama's neighborhood is dominated by the prestigious University of Chicago, where he once taught constitutional law.
High achievement and diversity are hallmarks of his Hyde Park-Kenwood community . . .
It's not that the AP shields Obama from negative coverage; his comments about a prospective genocide in Iraq came from an AP interview. But that was straight news. In its analysis and feature reporting, the AP seems to show a strong bias in favor of Obama--further evidence that the wire service's "accountability journalism" is, as we suggested last month, an excuse for editorializing.
¡Señora
Clinton Es Muy Auténtica!
Here's a funny vignette from an Associated Press dispatch on the Democratic
presidential candidates' appearance before the National Council of the Race
(La Raza) in Miami:
"It's not so much reading a briefing book or being handed a policy paper that says this is what you should say when you're in front of an audience of Latinos," [Hillary] Clinton said. "It's who you are and what you believe in."
Clinton ended by bringing out a mariachi band and a cake to celebrate the birthday of one of her campaign chairs, former La Raza president Raul Yzaguirre.
Yeah, bringing out a mariachi band doesn't sound at all like something you'd do as part of a scripted event "when you're in front of an audience of Latinos." No doubt it reflects who Mrs. Clinton is and what she believes in.
Reliable
Sources
From a Washington Post story on Democratic debates:
The next [Democratic National Committee]-approved debate is scheduled for Aug. 19 in Iowa, followed by an official debate in New Hampshire in late September and four more debates in early-primary states after that. With the candidates already spending so much time in the early-voting states, those debates are considered the least disruptive to meeting the other demands of campaigning.
But some of the others--for example, a debate focusing on gay and lesbian issues in Los Angeles on Aug. 9--are putting strains on the campaign schedulers, who are already caught between finding time for the candidates to spend in early states and finding time for fundraising. The evolving and ever advancing primary calendar has made the crunch worse, several strategists for [Hillary] Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as complaining about the debates.
If they don't want to be seen as complaining about the debates, they probably shouldn't complain about the debates.
Interrupt
Request Line
Time magazine's
cover story this week is called "How
to Leave Iraq." The cover features an odd image: the word IRAQ, in
big letters, with a helicopter lifting the A, which has an American-flag design,
away from the I, R and Q, which are solid black. It's an odd metaphor: Does
Time mean to suggest that America is part of Iraq, that a departure would leave
only Ir q behind?
Even funnier, though, is this email from "John S.," received by blogger Matthew Burden:
Great imagery to match the fall of Saigon, right? But look closely at the silhouette of the chopper. It's a Soviet-era Mi-24 "Hind" gunship!!!!!!! It was no doubt stock clip art dropped in by some person in their art department who wouldn't know an M-16 from an F-16, but nice Freudian touch, TIME!!!!
Here are more Mi-24 images; it looks as though he's right.
Driving
Mr. Butterfield
Problems at oil refineries have driven up gasoline prices, which are now above
$3 a gallon in many places, the New York Times reports:
Demand has been rising relentlessly, providing little respite to the nation's aging energy infrastructure. Even as consumers complain loudly about high prices, they show no signs of scaling back. Gasoline consumption reached 9.66 million barrels a day in the first week of July, the second-highest level on record.
This is similar to the old trope about how the prison population is rising in spite of the declining crime rate. If demand for gas were price-elastic--that is, if it went down when the cost rose--consumers would have no reason to complain.
Peace
Through Mob Rule
"When an explosion goes off on a busy Israeli street these days, it seems
as likely to be a mob hit as a Palestinian attack," the Associated Press
reports from Jerusalem:
Rival underworld gangs are waging bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets, targeting each other with bullets, bombs and anti-tank missiles. . . .
Police officials, speaking on condition on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said a dozen major crime families operate in Israel, and are as ethnically diverse as the country's population. Arab and Jewish crime families are known to work together trafficking drugs.
Isn't it nice to know that Arabs and Jews can join together in a common cause? There is hope for peace after all.
Homer
Nods
Several readers wrote to point out that our Friday item on last week's steam-pipe
explosion in Manhattan failed to note that the pipe that blew was privately
owned--by Consolidated Edison, the company that provides electricity, gas and
steam to much of New York City.
This renders even more absurd the comments of the left-wing bloggers we quoted, who complained that the Iraq war and tax cuts were endangering the country's public infrastructure. No doubt they will hasten to update their posts to blame the explosion on "corporate greed."
No
Little Green Meteorologists?
"Martian weather is unpredictable, in part because there are few monitoring
instruments and no formal weather forecasting agency as on Earth."--Space.com,
July 20
Gesundheit
"Eshoo Asks Gonzales to Probe Cheney"--headline, InsideBayArea.com,
July 19
'Should
I Stay or Should I Go?'
"Shays Takes Blame for Clash"--headline, Hartford Courant, July 21
They
Call This Fair and Balanced?
"Fox Attacks Restaurant Worker in Md."--headline, Associated Press,
July 21
Leaving
Moose Feeling Like Third Wheel
"Man and Squirrel Form a Tight Bond"--headline, Sioux City (Iowa)
Journal, July 23
Well,
It Is July
"Snowless French Ski Resort Closing"--headline, Associated Press,
July 20
'Superglue'
Would Ensure They Stay There
" 'Hairspray' Puts Plus-Sizes on Pedestal"--headline, Associated
Press, July 18
Someone
Alert the Authorities
"Stoner on Pole at Laguna Seca"--headline, Sportal.com.au, July 22
Japanese Autoworkers Are Just Prettier
"U.S. Autoworker Faces Changed Industry"--headline, Associated Press,
July 23
News You Can Use
- "Tattoos Can Be Troublesome to Remove"--headline, HealthDay.com,
July 22
- "Authorities Say Law Is a Useful 'Tool' "--headline, Holland
(Mich.) Sentinel, July 20
- "Stop Terror With Sexual Healing"--headline, FoxNews.com,
July 20
- "Let the Sun Shine"--headline, New York Times, July 23
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Man: 'I Was Never Treated Like a Hostage' "--headline, KATU-TV
Web site (Portland, Ore.), July 20
- "Nicaragua's Ortega Accuses Washington of Scheming"--headline,
Reuters,
July 22
- "2 Rappers Arrested in Separate Incidents"--headline, Associated
Press, July 23
- "West Hollywood Joins Call for Impeachment"--headline, United
Press International, July 22
- "Canadian Water Polo Team Misses Olympic Chance"--headline, Toronto Star, July 20
Fowl
Language
The Middle East Media Research Institute translates comments from al-Jazeera
by Hani Al-Sibai, a London-based Islamist, who offers a curious criticism of
Turkish secularism:
What has become of Kemal Ataturk's Turkey? Go to Europe, and you will see. Most of the Turks here are drug dealers, outcasts. Moreover, the English here have a custom. On Christmas, they eat what they call "turkey." Imagine, they call it "turkey," and they serve it as food at the table. This shows the kind of hatred that is deeply rooted in the West--they serve the Turkish, Ottoman, Muslim man as food at the table, for entertainment and as a sign that they have slaughtered him. What has become of Turkey?
There is a grain of truth here. The turkey is in fact named after Turkey. StraightDope.com has the background:
It's likely the first bird called "turkey" in English wasn't the familiar Thanksgiving fowl (Meleagris gallopavo), but a smaller domesticated bird originally from sub-Saharan Africa: (Numida meleagris), which we now call the Guinea fowl. . . .
M. gallopavo was introduced to Spain from America sometime between 1498 and 1526 (but most likely before 1511), and thence to England sometime between 1520 and 1541 (but probably before 1530). It too was named "turkey" in English, perhaps because it was confused with N. meleagris, or because it was likewise introduced by Turkey merchants [who traded with the Ottoman empire]. In citations from the Oxford English Dictionary, "turkey" dates from 1541, but it is unclear which species is meant.
Ataturk, who also named himself after Turkey, did not become the leader of the Turkish republic until 1923, nearly four centuries after the bird took its name. So it's a stretch for Al-Sibai to blame Kemalism for Anglophone Christmas cuisine.
Besides, if eating turkey is anti-Muslim, what does it mean when they eat turkey in Turkey? In Turkey, turkey is called hindi.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Mark Van Der Molen, John Nernoff, Ed Lasky, Gerry McCracken, Jack Barnett, Matt Beato, Sally Vaci, Richard Belzer, Edwards Weinhaus, John Williamson, Ed Reid, John Steele Gordon, Michael Garrett, Forbes Tuttle, Ray Hull, Chip George, Tim Morgan, Steve Karass, Vincent Flynn, Zabelle Huss, Daniel Sweeney, Dick Weltz, Tom Kleen, Rod Pennington, John Sanders, Charlie Gaylord, Dan Tracy, Brian O'Rourke, Scott Troeger, Bob Gordon, David Englet, Marc Young, Paul Clark, Robert Paci, Edward Tannen, W. Garner Robinson and Rosanne Klass. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- John Yoo: The Democrats' attack on executive privilege shows blatant disregard for the Constitution.
- John Fund: A conservative Republican wins a stunning upset in a Georgia House race.
- The Journal Editorial Report: A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel.
