Pirate's Cove

David Horowitz, former Communist, anti-war demonstrator, and left wing leader, has a scalding article on George McGovern calling for the United States to surrender in Iraq, and the similarities to what happened in South Vietnam and Cambodia.

Along with leading Democrats like party chairman Terry McAuliffe, George McGovern called for an American retreat from Iraq even before a government could be established to deny the country to the Saddamist remnants and Islamic terrorists: “I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there.” Explained McGovern: “Once we left Vietnam and quit bombing its people they became friends and trading partners.”

Actually that is not what happened. Four months after the Democrats cut off aid to Cambodia and Vietnam in January 1975, both regimes fell to the Communist armies. Within three years the Communist victors had slaughtered two and a half million peasants in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, paving the way for their socialist paradise. The blood of those victims is on the hands of the Americans who forced this withdrawal — John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean and George McGovern, and anti-war activists like myself.

Were we to leave Iraq, there would be a multi party civil war, and blood would run in the streets, as Horowitz suggests. We would be capitulating to the terrorists, just as we did to the North Vietnamese and Russian communists. The War on Terror is not just about the terrorists that specifically attacked the US: it is about attempting to wipe out organized terrorist organizations. Iraq is part of that fight.

As to McGovern’s original editorial, here it is:

I’m for keeping Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense because he is against increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq. Sending more soldiers only means more targets for those Iraqis who don’t want our army occupying their country.

I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there. So better Mr. Rumsfeld than some eager beaver who wants to double our army in the desert as we repeatedly did in the jungle to no avail in the 1960’s and 70’s. We toppled Saddam Hussein; as George Aiken, that wonderful old Republican senator, said of an earlier time of troubles, Declare victory and come home.

Once we left Vietnam and quit bombing its people, they became friends and trading partners. Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay or leave, as earlier conquerors learned.

I tried to persuade Santa Claus to bring our troops home for Christmas, but he said, "No, Rumsfeld sees light at the end of the tunnel if we hang in there and don’t listen to old veterans like McGovern."

Is there really a Santa Claus, Virginia? If so, why were 14 soldiers killed at lunch after a hard night searching for that light at the end of the tunnel? George McGovern

Mitchell, S.D., Dec. 22, 2004

Rather sad of him to use Santa Claus for his leftist, unrealistic propaganda message. What is sadder is that he thinks he actually has influence. Most people under 40 probably do not even know who he is.