Reactions to our adversity are not entirely uniform. At the dovish extreme, we find Senator John Kerry, who warns that we should never again fight a war 'without committing enough resources to win'; no other flaw is mentioned. And there is President Carter, the noted moral teacher and human rights apostle, who assured us that we owe Vietnam no debt and have no responsibility to render it any assistance because 'the destruction was mutual,' an observation so uncontroversial as to pass with no reaction. [...] Properly statesmanlike, President Bush announces that 'It was a bitter conflict, but Hanoi knows today that we seek only answers without the threat of retribution for the past.' Their crimes against us can never be forgotten, but 'we can begin writing the last chapter of the Vietnam war' if they dedicate themselves with sufficient zeal to the MIAs. We might even 'begin helping the Vietnamese find and identify their own combatants missing in action,' [New York Times Asia correspondent] Crossette reports. The adjacent front-page story reports Japan's failure, once again, to 'unambiguously' accept the blame 'for its wartime aggression.'

Politics·History·Ethics·Vietnam