Burdens of 1972

THOUGH good things have a way of coming to an end, the bad ones don't depart unless we force them to. Of all the issues of the last year, the Indochina War remains the most persistent, the most cruel, the most shameful. Four years ago, few would have predicted that the war which forced Lyndon Johnson into retirement would be prosecuted on ever-higher levels of mechanized slaughter in the spring of 1972. But Nixon's "peace" plans are only aimed at American voters. In Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, his plans call for victory over all efforts for independence. And in Paris all he offers is an ultimatum for the capitulation of those who fight against the totalitarian Thieu regime.

Today's Commencement protest against American war policy in Asia shouldn't be necessary. In a country where a majority of the electorate favors withdrawal from this undeclared war, elected representatives in government already have their cue.

But Congress continues to shirk its responsibility, and the vocal majority must continue its outraged condemnations of our barbaric government policy at every possible opportunity. It is not enough to wait until next January in hopes that a new President will take office with the declaration that all aid to Thieu is being cut off. Even if such a President were elected, the calm interim in America would be bought with the limbs and lives of brave Indochinese who refuse to give in to the dictates of an arrogant regime and an intransigent foreign power.