The Cost of Withdrawal

Peter Wehner has a must-read post up at the contentions blog. Wehner, quoting from the memoir of Henry Kissinger, recounts the story of Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak. The United States had offered to evacuate Matak and other Cambodian political leaders following a decision by Congress to cut off funding to the former ally. But few accepted the offer, and this was the response from Matak to U.S. ambassador John Gunther Dean:

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, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

S/Sirik Matak

When the U.S. finally withdrew on April 13 of that year, the New York Times headline read "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." Four days later, the Khmer Rouge took the capital of Phnom Penh. Mattak "was shot in the stomach and left without medical help. It took him three days to die." Conservative estimates put the number of civilian deaths from the Khmer Rouge at 1.5 million. And of course there was the slaughter of America's allies in South Vietnam. Wehner's conclusion:

This is a sober reminder that there are enormous human, as well as geopolitical, consequences when nations that fight for human rights and liberty grow weary and give way to barbaric and bloodthirsty enemies.