From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 12:49:16 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Hixson [mailto:charleshixsn@earthlink.net]
Dickey, Michael F wrote:
>According to Chomsky, America "invaded" Vietnam to slaughter its people,
and
>even after America left in 1975, under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, "the
>major policy goal of the US has been to maximize repression and suffering
in
>the countries that were devastated by our violence. The degree of the
>cruelty is quite astonishing." (6)
>
I *STILL* don't know why we invaded Vietnam. Not even yet. Stupid is
the kindest thing I can say about it. But I really doubt that this is
the reason, and I doubt that this was the purpose. I also doubt that
Chomsky claimed that the purpose was to slaughter the people of
Vietnam. This sounds like an extraction out of context. (Still, it was
the policy of the US for some period of time after the war to cause the
people of Vietnam to be unhappy with their government, even if it meant
that the US suffered extra so that they would suffer more. So this
isn't total nonsense. [We were *very* upset about loosing, even if what
we stood to gain isn't clear.])
I do not know enough to comment intelligently on many of your other replies,
but I consider myself reasonable well informed on the Indochina wars. I
know enough to consider 'invaded' an innacurate term of those events. The
fact was that North Vietnam was being supplied military equipment and aide
from the soviet union to be used to invade the west friendly merchant based
South and 'unify' vietnam as one big happy communist empire. The North
invaded the south, we did not invade Vietnam (as 'Vietnam' did not exist
until after the North completed its invasion and overthrow of the south)
this depends on your definition of 'invade' obviously, but mine doesn't
normally include helping one country defend itself from the invation of
another, especially when that other country is being supplied by a known
oppresive aggressive statist regime. There were no US tanks rolling over
Hanoi, but those sure were Soviet tanks rolling through Saigon. We had just
come off from succussfully fending of the invasion of South Korea from the
Soviet Supplied North Koreans, and today South Korea has a wonderfull
economy and high standard of living, it recently hosted the olympics, after
all. North Korea, on the other hand, was allowed to follow its chosen path
of poor peasant communist farming (advocated often by Chomsky) and low and
behold, its still a dirt poor communist peasant farming country, even poorer
now since the support of the Soviet union is gone. Compare the memorials of
the Vietnam war with the korean war sometime and youll see a significant
difference, even though both were fought for the same reason.
US troops were in fact never allowed to enter North Vietnam until the later
part of the war, so again I do not see how 'Invaded' is an accurate term of
our involvement in that affair.
Whether or not we should have been involved at all is a fundamental moral
issue, that is, should a powerfull free state help defend a less powerfull
free state from the invasion of an oppresive aggressor state supplied by a
powerfull oppresive despotic state?
I say yes, I cant convince myself that it would have been acceptable for the
communist north to trounce the south and kill a significant portion of its
population, and then force the rest to be poor peasant farmers. But thanks
to the liberal activists and non-interventionists, they finally were able
to.
To be fair, though, I believe the fact that the Vietnam war was the first
'televised' war made a significant difference in the outcome of this event,
since it was the first time the voting public became aware of what war
actually is. And there were definitely many poor decisions made in the
operation of the conflict, but it was IMHO for a just cause, even if it was
executed poorly.
Regards,
Michael
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