The War Goes On

WHY AMERICANS FAIL to celebrate the Vietnam peace is unclear. The silence may stem from a desire to forget the war completely or from an inability to believe that a promise of peace was actually kept. The second reaction is entirely justified. On two fronts, at least, the war drags on.

In Indochina, American bombing continues throughout Cambodia and Laos. Dozens of sorties are flown daily to support the troops of Cambodian dictator Lon Nol. In Laos, while we anticipate a peace supposedly at hand, American war planes last week launched over 380 massive raids a day.

Less deadly, but no less ignored, is the war continuing for American draft resisters. While the dead are buried, while thousands of wounded suffer without real compensation, while POWs return home to offers of shiny Fords and baseball passes, those who saw the Vietnam disaster for the immoral exercise in senseless destruction it was, remain exiled. Hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, and imprisoned people might today be living in freedom had the draft resisters been heeded in 1965. The perpetrators of so much suffering sit in Congress, in the Ford Foundation, in the World Bank, in the Pentagon and in the White House, while, like the war's more battered victims, the draft resisters are needlessly forced to wait and hope.

Vice President Agnew said last week, "It almost makes one ill to hear how deserters say they fled from an immoral war." On the contrary, Nixon could serve the country well by allowing those who refused to participate in the war to return. It does make us ill to hear a warmonger deride any force for peace while the American people and their allies bear their huge and pointless sacrifice.

The war will not end until all American military operations in Indochina grind to a halt. It will not end until all exiles of the war--whether POWs or draft resisters--are brought home. No one need noisily celebrate the treaty signed in Paris last month. But American silence on the war now means only more death and suffering.