Originally posted by Major.
[email protected] 30 2004, 03:29 AM
1 Well i was wondering what do you think of this war?
It was fundamentally immoral & wrong.
2 Do you think that the americans had the right to go in that civil war?
It wasn't a civil war, it was an imperialist war of aggression. "South Vietnam" was an artificial creation of foreign invaders (France + USA), a total puppet of the west. The immense majority of Vietnamese were against the imperialists, it was just a tiny minority of collaborators on the US payroll who weren't. And no, the US had no right to invade.
3 Do you think it was a Black war?
I don't know what you mean by this question.
4 Do you think that the americasn had the right to bomb all thus Combibem toens where there were VC and that to program the bombers too trick the bombers who pulled the tirgger to kill all of thus innocent people?
I assume you mean "Cambodian." The assault on Cambodia was immoral and constitutes an act of genocide. Henry Kissinger ordered Bombers to kill "anything that moves" - an explicit call for genocide.
BTW, you do know that Vietcong is what their enemies called them. They called themselves the National Liberation Front (NLF).
5 Do you think if the americans stayed there longer, would they win the war?
No, in order to do that they would have had to keep the draft going and if the draft had continued the US would have had a revolution.
According to President Eisenhower, this was the official excuse for US intervention:
Q. Robert Richards, Copley Press: Mr. President, would you mind commenting on the strategic importance of Indochina for the free world? I think there has been, across the country, some lack of understanding on just what it means to us.
The President. You have, of course, both the specific and the general when you talk about such things. First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs.
Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world.
Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from this particular area that the world uses are tin and tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of course, the rubber plantations and so on.
Then with respect to more people passing under this domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some 450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we simply can’t afford greater losses.
But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that no only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through the loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking about millions and millions of people.
Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand.
It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will have only one place in the world to go--that is, toward the Communist areas in order to live.
So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world.
Earlier things I wrote on the war:
The Vietnamese were unwilling to go along with US plans for the region and so had to be crushed. Partially the war was motivated by the rice, tin and rubber in Vietnam but the more important motivation was that independent development in Vietnam could serve as a dangerous example to other peoples in the region. If Vietnam could do it then people in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries might try it and that would lead to the loss of large areas of the Empire.
The US first backed the French invasion of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), which had declared independence in 1945, and their attempt to impose a puppet government. By the time the French withdrew the US was providing 78% of the funds for the invasion and engaging in all sorts of covert actions against the Vietnamese. The 1954 Geneva peace accords between the Vietnamese and French put the DRV in control of the north and the French puppet government in control of the south. Elections were to be held to reunite the country but the US intervened to sabotage them because they (correctly) believed the Communists (who had played a leading role in the movement for independence) would win the election. The South Vietnamese government (GVN) was transformed into an American puppet dictatorship and launched US-backed a reign of terror. (Blum, p. 122-127)
In the late '50s popular rebellions erupted against the puppet dictatorship. The DRV initially refused to back these rebellions because it did not want to get involved in another war, but eventually changed it's position. These rebellions lead to the formation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF), which opponents called the Vietcong. Unlike the GVN and the DRV, both of which advocated the unification of Vietnam under their rule, the NLF called for a state socialist South Vietnam independent of outside control. This rebellion began to undermine the GVN and so the United States sent the military in. In 1962 a mainly aerial assault was launched on the South. In 1964 the United States fabricated a DRV attack on an American spy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin as a pretext to launch a full-fledged invasion of the South and bombings of the North the next year. By the time the US was forced to withdraw it had pulverized the southern resistance, enabling the North to have more influence over post-war Vietnam. The US government & media, as is standard, systemically misrepresented the conflict in favor of US interests. It was claimed that the rebellions in the late '50s constituted northern aggression against the south, but the north originally opposed those uprisings (though it did come to dominate the southern rebels later in the war) and even disregarding that "South Vietnam" was an American puppet government imposed by foreign forces. Attempting to destroy it is no more "aggression" than the French resistance's attempts to destroy the Vichy government (Nazi puppet state) during World War Two. It was also claimed that the forces the US was fighting against an attempt by Chinese puppets to take over the country, but the war began prior to the Marxist revolution in China and the DRV & NLF had genuine nationalist roots among the populace. The Vietnam war was a subset of a larger regional war including Cambodia and Laos in which US motives were largely the same as in Vietnam, preventing the threat of a good example. (Zepezaur, p. 40-41; Wolf, p. 159-210; Chomsky Reader, p. 221-302; Chomsky, The Washington Connection, p.300-336; Heman, Manufacturing Consent, p. 169-296)
Even though the Vietnamese eventually did drive the United States out, it was not entirely a defeat for the US. The war utterly devastated the country. A million Vietnamese have cancer because of the Agent Orange used in the war and their economy was crushed. There is no chance that successful independent economic and social development will occur or that Vietnam will provide any kind of inspiration to separate from the Empire. The US succeeded in stopping the threat of a good example by destroying the country. http://question-everything.mahost.org/Soci...can_Empire.html (http://question-everything.mahost.org/Socio-Politics/American_Empire.html)
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the American invasion of South Vietnam have many similarities. In Afghanistan the USSR claimed that it had not invaded, that it was invited in by the legitimate government to defend it from terrorists sponsored by Pakistan and the United States. Of course, the government that “invited” the USSR in happened to be a Soviet satellite state. Once in the USSR repeatedly overthrew the Afghan government whenever it wouldn’t go along with Moscow’s orders. In Soviet mythology there was no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was instead a Soviet defense of Afghanistan.
In South Vietnam the US claimed that it didn’t invade but was invited in by the legitimate government to defend it from terrorists sponsored by outside forces. Of course, the government that “invited” the US in happened to be an American satellite state. Once in the US repeatedly overthrew the South Vietnamese government whenever it wouldn’t go along with Washington’s orders. In American mythology there was no American invasion of South Vietnam, there was instead an American defense of South Vietnam.
The stories spun by each government were very similar, as were the invasions themselves. In Afghanistan American media ridiculed Soviet propaganda & lies and called the invasion what it was, an invasion. Soviet media adhered to the government line. In the invasion of South Vietnam American media never called it an invasion, instead they adhered to the US government line that it was not an invasion. The common myth that the media were anti-war is just self-serving propaganda (see chapters 5 & 6 of Manufacturing Consent by Edward Heman & Noam Chomsky). In reality the media overall stayed within the government paradigm, viewing it as a defense against foreign sponsored guerillas. Criticism of the war within the media was limited to the idea that it was a “mistake,” that this “defense of South Vietnam” was not worth the costs and based on an erroneous analysis. This differs from the position of the peace movement which argued that it was an invasion that was fundamentally immoral and wrong. The later position was largely excluded from the debate within the media.
While American media correctly referred to Soviet satellite states as satellite states on many occasions, American satellite states were never identified. When the USSR invades other countries and makes them do its bidding those are (correctly) called Soviet satellite states but when the US invades other countries and does the same thing not only are they not called satellite states but the invasions often aren’t called invasions.
The groups fighting against Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, supported by the US, were predominantly Muslim fundamentalist terrorists (Mujahideen), many of who would later go on to fight against the US. Bin Laden was among their ranks, as were many other people who the FBI claims are members of Al-Qaeda. During their war with the USSR the Mujahideen used many terrorist tactics, including targeting of civilians, assassination of soviet officials, and throwing acid into the faces of unveiled women. While they were doing this against the USSR American media identified them as “freedom fighters.” They were the good guys in Rambo 3. After they started doing the same thing to the US they started calling them “terrorists” instead of “freedom fighters.” Enemies are identified as “terrorists” and allies as “freedom fighters” even if their tactics remain the same. http://question-everything.mahost.org/Soci...ghtcontrol.html (http://question-everything.mahost.org/Socio-Politics/thoughtcontrol.html)