Our shameful legacy of abandoning the people of Indochina

Bruce Kesler posts at Maggie's Farm some writing by his friend Bob Turner: The consequences of the congressional decision to betray John Kennedy's noble promise and the treaty and statutory pledges we had made to protect South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are clear. An estimated 100,000 South Vietnamese were executed, as many as 250,000 more died in "reeducation camps," and another 45-50,000 died in the "New Economic Zones. Using figures provided by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 420,000 "boat people" died at sea fleeing the Communist tyranny in search of freedom. The best figures I've seen on Cambodia come from the Yale University Cambodian Genocide Project: 1.7 million Cambodians (more than 20% of the entire population) were killed by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. A January 2004 article on the "killing fields" in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TODAY noted that "bullets were too precious to use for executions. Axes, knives and bamboo sticks were far more common. As for children, their murderers simply battered them against trees.” Read more here: http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19507-The-Fall-Of-South-Vietnam-Will-Ever-Be-A-Shame-On-the-US.html