From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Vietnam's POWs and MIAs /ww
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 19:42:13 GMT

Vietnam's POWs and MIAs

Henry Kissinger had seemed to have finally disappeared back under
his rock, to be conjured up only in documentaries of the Nixon
era. But suddenly he's back on the TV news again, facing Sen.
John Kerry in a POW/MIA hearing, spreading the same old slanders
about Vietnam.

Kerry, who was first elected because of his public opposition to
U.S. policy in Vietnam, said nothing to put the record straight.
The senator from Massachusetts hasn't been this much in the news
since his days testifying against the war as a Vietnam
veteran--an officer, of course, not a grunt. He's not about to
give up the limelight to tell the truth about Vietnam. Some facts
are needed to clear the air about U.S. imperialism's war against
that country.

From the early 1960s to 1973, with over 500,000 troops at times,
the Pentagon and CIA targeted Vietnam. U.S. forces bombed cities
and villages, poisoned lakes, destroyed forests, murdered
community leaders and killed about 2 million Vietnamese, leaving
hundreds of thousands unaccounted for. Despite this unrelenting
campaign of terror, the Vietnamese fought on heroically and
finally wore down the U.S. occupation forces. Beginning in 1969,
more and more rank-and-file U.S. troops were refusing to fight.

In 1972, Kissinger negotiated with Le Duc Tho from Vietnam.
Kissinger threatened to use atomic weapons to bomb Hanoi unless
Vietnam essentially surrendered. The Vietnamese refused to give
in to those threats, and eventually won an honorable peace treaty
that spelled out terms for U.S. withdrawal. These terms included
substantial U.S. economic aid to partly make up for the wanton
destruction.

The Nobel committee offered Kissinger and Le Duc Tho the Peace
Prize in 1973 for this treaty. To his credit and that of the
Vietnamese, Le Duc Tho refused to accept it alongside Kissinger.
Two years later the Vietnamese threw out the puppet government in
Saigon and liberated their country. The U.S. never came through
with the economic aid. In fact, Washington has continued to
punish the Vietnamese for the defeat.

The POW/MIA question was a non-issue in 1973. It became one only
after U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democratic,
cynically kept it alive as a propaganda weapon against socialist
Vietnam. Then Hollywood made it a myth with its "rescue" films
where celluloid supermen Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris
refought and won the war. The myth raised false hopes among
relatives of missing U.S. troops, who then complained about
government inaction.

Kerry and Kissinger may fight about who to blame. The truth is
simple. The whole U.S. capitalist ruling class, their politicians
of both parties in Washington and their Pentagon generals deserve
full responsibility for the deaths of 2 million Vietnamese and
58,000 GIs. That includes the missing in action.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers@mcimail.com".)

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