Flashback: Shameful Day in the Senate

[stephanie]

by Human Events (More by this author)

Posted: 02/16/2007
Almost 37 years ago, long before Congress thought to pass non-binding resolutions as a first step to cut off funding in Iraq, the Senate passed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R.-Ky.) and Sen. Frank Church (D.-Idaho) to restrict funding for operations in Cambodia.

Senators Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) have said again and again that passage of a non-binding resolution against President Bush’s troop surge would be the first step to withdrawing American forces from Iraq.

How badly could this turn out?

The actions of their predecessors, who de-funded the Vietnam War, give us a big clue.
On June 30, 1970 58 senators voted in favor of Cooper-Church to handcuff President Nixon from sending more troops to Vietnam. The amendment limited the President’s war powers through the budgetary process with a trio of stipulations. First, it ended funding for U.S. troops and advisers in Cambodia and Laos after June 30. Secondly, it banned combat operations over Cambodian airspace to support Cambodian forces without prior congressional approval. Lastly, it cut funding to support Southern Vietnamese forces stationed outside of Vietnam.

In a July 11 editorial HUMAN EVENTS slammed the amendment. It said, “The Cooper-Church proposal does a number of things that can only cause exaltation and hand-clapping in Hanoi and Communist capitals elsewhere….The amendment also tells our Asian allies that they can go hang, for the U.S. Senate, at any rate, has no intention of helping out Asian victims of Red aggression.”

Today, liberals have drawn many comparisons between Vietnam and the War in Iraq, but reliably omit the tragic killing fields of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that were produced after American forces were forced by Congress to exit the region.

After passing the Senate, the Cooper-Church amendment died in the House because Nixon threatened to veto it. Then, the measure was revised and passed both houses of Congress on December 22, 1970. It was enacted on January 5, 1971.

In the fall of 1973 Church, who later lost the Democratic nomination for President to Jimmy Carter, toured the country to declare that “the Doves had won.”

In the 1974 election Republicans lost 48 House seats and five Senate seats. The new Democrat Congress used their new power to cut all aid to South Vietnam. Soon after, the Communists took over Indochina and 4 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge communist regime.

Without knowing the future horror that would unfold as a result of this amendment HUMAN EVENTS said that June 30, the day Cooper-Church first passed, was a “Shameful Day in the Senate.”

Cooper-Church was the “first step” against Nixon’s troop deployment to Vietnam that led to the merciless deaths of our Cambodian friends. Today, the Congress is debating resolutions against President Bush’s troops surge. Taking a page from HUMAN EVENTS query in 1970, we resolutely ask Congress, “Will you send the same message to our Iraqi allies that they can ‘go hang?’”

The article they posted in 1970 is at their site...
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19451

[Dilloduck]

by Human Events (More by this author)

Posted: 02/16/2007
Almost 37 years ago, long before Congress thought to pass non-binding resolutions as a first step to cut off funding in Iraq, the Senate passed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R.-Ky.) and Sen. Frank Church (D.-Idaho) to restrict funding for operations in Cambodia.

Senators Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) have said again and again that passage of a non-binding resolution against President Bush’s troop surge would be the first step to withdrawing American forces from Iraq.

How badly could this turn out?

The actions of their predecessors, who de-funded the Vietnam War, give us a big clue.
On June 30, 1970 58 senators voted in favor of Cooper-Church to handcuff President Nixon from sending more troops to Vietnam. The amendment limited the President’s war powers through the budgetary process with a trio of stipulations. First, it ended funding for U.S. troops and advisers in Cambodia and Laos after June 30. Secondly, it banned combat operations over Cambodian airspace to support Cambodian forces without prior congressional approval. Lastly, it cut funding to support Southern Vietnamese forces stationed outside of Vietnam.

In a July 11 editorial HUMAN EVENTS slammed the amendment. It said, “The Cooper-Church proposal does a number of things that can only cause exaltation and hand-clapping in Hanoi and Communist capitals elsewhere….The amendment also tells our Asian allies that they can go hang, for the U.S. Senate, at any rate, has no intention of helping out Asian victims of Red aggression.”

Today, liberals have drawn many comparisons between Vietnam and the War in Iraq, but reliably omit the tragic killing fields of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that were produced after American forces were forced by Congress to exit the region.

After passing the Senate, the Cooper-Church amendment died in the House because Nixon threatened to veto it. Then, the measure was revised and passed both houses of Congress on December 22, 1970. It was enacted on January 5, 1971.

In the fall of 1973 Church, who later lost the Democratic nomination for President to Jimmy Carter, toured the country to declare that “the Doves had won.”

In the 1974 election Republicans lost 48 House seats and five Senate seats. The new Democrat Congress used their new power to cut all aid to South Vietnam. Soon after, the Communists took over Indochina and 4 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge communist regime.

Without knowing the future horror that would unfold as a result of this amendment HUMAN EVENTS said that June 30, the day Cooper-Church first passed, was a “Shameful Day in the Senate.”

Cooper-Church was the “first step” against Nixon’s troop deployment to Vietnam that led to the merciless deaths of our Cambodian friends. Today, the Congress is debating resolutions against President Bush’s troops surge. Taking a page from HUMAN EVENTS query in 1970, we resolutely ask Congress, “Will you send the same message to our Iraqi allies that they can ‘go hang?’”

The article they posted in 1970 is at their site...
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19451

Of course---we already let the Shiites and Kurds hang once in Gulf I

[Gaffer]

de javu

[avatar4321]

History repeats itself and any of us willing to point it out will be ostracized as uncaring hatemongers. Nevermind the fact that we are trying to prevent regional genocide at astronomical proportions.