: Conspicuously missing from nearly everything Chomsky writes in
: his critisism of his homeland is the slightest mention of a reason
: for U.S. actions. The essay is repleat with demonizing
: mischaracterizations of U.S. policy as well; eg. - "...they were afraid
: of a positive example of successful developement", "...there might be
: successful developement outside of our influence", "...the major policy
: goal of the U.S. has been to maximize repression and suffering",
: "...the United States achieved its major objectives in Indochina.
: Vietnam was demolished". These accusatory comments are Chomsky's
: perception of events and show bias.Chomsky is arguing under the presupposition that it is the financial needs of the Fortune 500, (i.e. the folks who have the greatest financial influence upon the politicians and political parties that run the show in DC) that motivates overt government support for the actions of the National Security State, the hierarchy of secret teams that operates without Constitutional authority to repress democracy throughout the world (Guatemala 1952, Iran 1956, Brazil 1964, Chile 1974, Vietnam 1950-1975, etc. etc.). Arguably, to equate this National Security State with "the US" is to further patronize the millions of patriotic Americans who are already being ripped off by this shadow government and by its puppets in DC. Unfortunately, Chomsky is doing this too. Read William Corson's THE BETRAYAL. Corson was a four-star general who argued: If the US had actually bothered to support democracy in Vietnam, there might have been a chance for real principles to take hold...
: The war protestors of the 60's and on have consistantly skewed facts
: about the Vietnam conflict to support an anti-U.S bias. In the 9447
: news stories broadcast by the 3 networks between '63 and '77 you can
: count on your fingers and toes any references to:
: Land reforms: Between '53 and '56 communist-led land reforms
: claimed between 5000 and one million people. This, as a rationale for
: U.S. action, is diminished because of the argument over how many deaths
: were incurred. Nixon said 500,000 - Edwin (what a guy) Moise says 5000.
: Using Moise's 5000 expressed as a percentage of that population, the
: land reforms of the communists would be analogous to 100,000 teachers
: and professors dying in a U.S. education reform. Any principled nation
: might want to stop that - don't you think, Sam?
Which doesn't explain why, as Chomsky said, "Instead, we installed a typical Latin American-style terror state in South Vietnam, subverted the only free elections in the history of Laos because the wrong side won, and blocked elections in Vietnam because it was obvious the wrong side was going to win there too. " Now, there were plenty of principled Americans in Vietnam, but they, too, were ripped off by the two big totalitarian mass murderers of "South Vietnam," Diem and Thieu. The only principle govering official US policy in Vietnam (1950-1975) was a rabid anti-communism. Those who actually thought the area deserved a democracy were left in the lurch. Noam Chomsky is a little harsh, but the question he prompts is the one that appears to motivate the formation of the militias today: if America is run by people like this, who's going to stand for America?
: Trail 559: In '59, Hanoi's politboro started getting reports
: that, although they had been ruthlessly fighting a guerrilla war for
: two years, they were falling behind the south socially and
: economically. That motivated them to create trail 559 (Ho Chi Minh -
: years later) and carry out the Second Indochina War. In '61 they
: were assasinating 100 village or district officials per month and were
: at around 1000 per month in '62. What could Eisenhower or Kennedy have
: been thinking when they ordered troops in there?
: Hue (5000 dead), Baray (20,000 dead), Song Be City (shelled into
: oblivion), thousands of peasants slaughtered in stalled columns as they
: fled the Central Highlands, The fall of Saigon (70,000 dead). Could
: this be what Chomsky means when he says "...positive example of
: successful developement"? At any rate, the actions taken by the U.S.
: are certainly defendable on a moral basis.
Pointing to the other guy's atrocities is no way to defend one's own atrocities. In the case of Vietnam, the US (through the CIA's Operation Phoenix) attempted to mimic the actions of the enemy, only the enemy actually had the support of the local resistance (while meanwhile Diem and, later, Thieu, were busy pushing 95% of the Vietnamese people into the enemy camp), while the CIA only had a rabid anti-communism and a bunch of bribes from Uncle Sam, many of which went to enemy moles. And of course you have the spectacle of events such as the battle of the Ia Drang Valley, where huge ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) forces were cowed by tiny regiments of enemy snipers, doubtless because the ARVN didn't perceive of itself as fighting for anything besides a paycheck. Next time the US decides to invent a country, it should consider "South Vietnam" as an example of what not to do.
At any rate, the Vietnamese people soon figured out which side had real principles, even if these principles led to a bankrupt notion of how to govern (i.e. Stalinism). The US, in everything else, appeared to be concerned with doing as much damage as possible to the Vietnamese infrastructure, given that the big secret the government kept from the people was that its estimates of the size of "the enemy" were completely phony and meant to please bureaucrats who wanted good PR. Even patriotic CIA agents such as Orrin DeForest (who wrote SLOW BURN) will agree with this.
: You didn't hear much from the networks on those subjects. You did
: hear a lot about My Lai. Accounts of the U.S. atrocities at My Lai
: number past 500 in those 9447 broadcasts. My Lai was a cross-verifyable
: incident but the generalized accounting of atrocities which became
: folklore by the mid-70's was not and has never been.
Here we are in the realm of "plausible deniability," the style of rhetoric made fashionable by William Colby and Alexander Haig. "Plausible deniability" asserts that "you can't catch me committing the crime," which is a far cry from "I didn't commit it" or even "my actions were virtuous." No, the policy of setting quotas for "enemy dead" was a great incentive for units to go around killing everyone in sight, and then coming back with inflated claims of "VC dead." That, sitting besides Thieu's policies (which as I said drove 95% of Vietnam into the enemy camp), and you have a picture of impending war atrocities. Typical quote from Wallace Terry's BLOODS: "I was a real motherfucker out there, killing 65-70 people a day..." Gee, all the anecdotes about this stuff must be false, we have plausible deniability.
: With regard to the Mennonites, Oxfam, ect. I wonder if Chomsky omits
: anything interesting that the Mennonites might have sent. I make no
: accusation whatsoever as to their motives, but the shipment in question
: must have included more than pencils. I wish Chomsky would cite his
: sources for some of this stuff. Let's not overlook the fact that there
: were sanctions in place.
Chomsky is doubtless citing instances of US paranoia about goods reaching the enemy, which motivated the destruction of rural Vietnam and the placement of hundreds of thousands of rural Vietnamese in refugee camps. Even the Time-Life series talks about this.
