Upright Domino

For more than a decade and while 58,226 troops died, Americans listened to their political and military leaders insist that Vietnam was crucial to the security of the U.S. Year after year, the mantra was that if we "cut and ran" Vietnam would fall like a "domino" and become a springboard for the Communist domination of all of Southeast Asia and eventually Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Here's just the latest update on how things are going there after we cut and ran.

With rare but admittedly important exceptions, ideals like democracy and capitalism tend to emerge on their own over time. Since those ideals are superior, that's only natural, right? How much sooner---and with how much less pain on both sides---would Vietnam's current progress have happened if we had confidence in the ability of our own ideals to triumph over those we believed to be inferior, and thus hadn't destroyed the country in order to save it?