From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 06:03:16 MST
While we're sharing letters, I thought I would offer this one for public
consumption. I don't feel it necessary to comment on most of Mr. Kiesling's
letter, as I feel "a baggage of my upbringing to give back to my country"
stinks of pretentious noblesse oblige and speaks for itself. Except of course
his last statement, which I feel that I must.
"I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately
self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from
outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and
prosperity of the American people and the world we share."
I find it laughable at best to make a comment of this sort when the question
is Iraq, a people who most certainly DO NOT share in the prosperity and
quality of life enjoyed by Americans.
In closing, let me merely point out again the final legacy of our withdrawal
from Indochina, a period that he merely describes as one of "systematic
manipulation of American opinion." That is a charge than can most certainly
be filed against more than just our government during that era. On the
morning of April 17, 1975, the last remnants of the US diplomatic presence in
Cambodia bid a hasty retreat from that tortured land. John Gunther Dean, the
US Ambassador, sent word to several high ranking Khmer Republic officials
that the United States would escort them out of the country and offer them
asylum. Here is Premier Sirik Matak's response:
Dear Excellency and Friend
I thank you sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me
toward freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you,
and in particular 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 the
country I love, it is too bad, because we are all born and must die one day.
I have only committed this mistake of believing in you.
Sisowath Sirik Matak
Sirik Matak would be executed soon after the fall of the capital of Phnom
Penh later that day. He was one of the first of roughly two million
Cambodians to perish under the Pol Pot regime.
Regards,
Max Plumm
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