From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Dec 13 2002 - 09:24:49 MST
Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 12/12/2002 3:52:19 PM Central Standard Time,
>charleshixsn@earthlink.net writes: This is unfair, as I cannot remember the
>name of my own sources (probably newspapers), but could you refer me to your
>sources?
>
>Charles,
> Certainly, I lived through that period and read newspapers, magazines,
>etc the way a pirhana feeds. Your contentions are simply so far off base
>they are unbelievable. The Media can and do slant the news but they can only
>go so far. Your sources are baldly rewriting the history that happened.
> I remember in the late 50s how the North agreed to the DMZ to put a
>buffer between them and the South. Of course they followed that by doing an
>end run through Laos. I remember well their attempts to run Tom Dooley out
>of Laos. They didn't want anyone over there they would know what was going
>on or who would make friends with the Laotians. The Communists had a price
>on a medical missionaries head for crying out loud.
> I lived through that "communist hysteria" and remember well that the
>communist term for anyone that resisted their takeover was the label
>"reactionary."
>Ron h.
>
>
>
It sounds as if we lived through the same period, and had access to the
same sources of information. Given that, I feel that my interpretations
agree better with what I believed was happening. It's true that part of
the time my news sources were controlled by the military (my father was
stationed in Japan, and only the military broadcast in English), but I
doubt that they would have seriously corrupted my understanding in a
pro-communist direction.
It is, however, true that my actual knowledge of the history of VietNam
is reconstructed. I don't really remember the current news from the
mid-fifties, except for particularly impressive events. So I didn't
start hearing about the history of VietNam in current time until Kennedy
was president. But no one that I encountered at the time could give a
coherrent history justifying the actions of the US, so I suspect that
even the adults of the time hadn't been following closely. I did hear
both pro- and anti- VietNam speakers (using several different meanings
of the term), but nobody could satisfactorially explain to me why we
were even involved. The closest was a speaker (Kissinger? Dulles?)
who used two justifications. 1) It is our duty to contain communism.
And 2) Our honor is at stake.
These may actually have been one combined reason, I was never quite
clear on either. If he had said that people have a right to be allowed
to choose their own government, it would have made sense. It was only
later that I understood why he didn't mention that (it was used as a
justification in many other interventions). If he had said that we
needed to honor treaties that we had agreed to... well, I'd just been
reading some of the history of our government and the Indians, so I
don't know how I would have reacted. But it also later became clear why
he didn't mention that, despite the unfortunate weight that the
constitution puts on that (treaties [to me is seems that if treaties are
to be allowed to overrule other parts of the constitution, then they
need to go through the same ammendment process as any other ammendment,
but this isn't clearly spelled out, so it's been ignored]).
As to the rest... I suppose that I am tempermentally an isolationist,
though I do understand the fallacies inherrent in that approach.
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