From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Anti-AR movie goers - Please read
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 05:56:25 GMT

In <BxsFzz.Dwr@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:


>ds> No, the reason
>ds> for the patriotic and freedom-loving brush is that we won.  In addition,
>ds> you will note that ol Ho Chi Mihn's troops were no better.  The VC were
>ds> not known for being polite to people who supported the US forces, or the
>ds> French forces for that matter.

>Is this true?  [no]   What did the viet minh do to the french after their
>victory at Dien Bien Phu?  [They let them walk away.]  

	Tell that to the civilians who supported the French.  You'll find
them in graves, most likely.  You can't maintain a "popular" revolution
if the populace doesn't agree with you.  A bit of fear instilled does
wonders here.  The VC killed as many civilians as we did, I suspect,
through co-ercive recruitment efforts and attempts to control who was
supported by the village.

>I agree that the viet cong were far less generous with americans 
>later on, but it behooves us to consider the role that the 
>Phoenix Project (a quota system for extortion and torture) and 
>"rural pacification" (ie indiscriminant bombing) played in 
>downgrading the notion of mercy.  

	Do you know anybody who served on the Phoenix Project?  I do.
Your summary of its objectives is quite contrary to what this
individual was ordered to do.  In addition, indiscriminant bombing
is quite the term, considering the president mentioned that "not an
outhouse gets bombed without my OK."

>ds> Many historians obviously don't apply their theories to both
>ds> sides with equal fervor.

>Your own theories don't seem to fit the facts, Dan.  If you're
>interested, I'd be happy to recommend some books on the history 
>of the vietnamese colonial period and the subsequent years of
>revolution.

	My own theories are based upon discussions with those who
were there, both from Vietnamese nationals who managed to escape
and soldiers ranging from motor pool specialists to snipers shooting
Chinese advisors in Laos and Cambodia.  These guys don't write many
books, and certainly don't call themselves historians.  Just as the
revolutionary war in the US or even the former USSR bear remarkable
similarities, the revolution in the USSR has many aspects to it that
show it not to be the popular uprising you painted originally.  If
you are attempting to argue who was morally right to be there, that
is an entirely different argument.

>ds> Do the catholics actually think this?  You should know that
>ds> I'm for the choice of the individual, hence I'm pro-birth-control.

>Diem's dictatorship passed a number of "Family Laws" that weren't 
>popular among the buddhist citizens of his country.  (Bear in 
>mind that buddhism was the principle religion among the "common" 
>people, whereas roman catholicism was the religion-of-choice among 
>the landed aristocrats whose political and economic privilege had 
>been threatened by the departure of the french.)   Examples of
>Diem's laws: 

>1) divorce was banned;
>2) the religious practices of several sects were banned; and
>3) the use of contraceptives was declared a crime, and punishable
>   by five years in prison.

	Take careful note here, Russell.  You will find many
similarities to current events in the USA.  Care to join me in a
popular revolution, or do you think that perhaps we would not only
be the minority, but also that these privlidges aren't worth the
bloodshed of a revolution and may be taken care of via other means?

>government issued a degree that forebade the flying of the 
>buddhist flag on the Buddha's birthday.  Many buddhist citizen's 
>protested, and some were subsequently shot by Diem's Civil Guard, 
>under the direction of catholic officers.

	I see some parallels here to Kent State and a few minor
wars we've gotten into in the past.  You'll note all were legal.

>ds> However, were this example you mention the case, would you support
>ds> an all-out war against the police and government, the enforcers of
>ds> the laws, even if your side only represents a small faction of the
>ds> population in general?  

>You seem to be missing the point.  The foreign policy of the Eisenhower 
>administration supported a dictator like Diem precisely because the
>democratic majority in vietnam favored social reforms that seemed 
>unthinkable in the post-McCarthy era.   We weren't fighting an invader
>in Vietnam;  we were fighting the vietnamese people.

	Then would you kindly show us something that supports the idea
of a popular revolution?  The ARVN army clearly shows "the vietnamese
people" were not totally behind one faction or another, as does the
staging areas in foreign countries; a popular revolution doesn't need
such as they can rely on the population for help.  Note that US Army
Special Forces were helping the people to fight that so-called popular
revolution long before the war proper.  Clearly the popular revolution
you state wasn't supported by the population to the extent you imply.

>ds> The government in Vietnam, had the revolution been a truly
>ds> popular one, could have been voted out as the US had promised
>ds> elections once the Viet Cong were quiet.  Had the VC stopped fighting
>ds> and let the elections tell their story, would all the bloodshed have
>ds> been avoided or would the popular uprising have been proven false?

>Such promises were embodied in the Geneva Peace Treaty signed after
>Dien Bien Phu, and yet, the US exercised it's military muscle to
>stifle democracy.

	Yeah, we wouldn't want to have elections that might be influenced
by a bunch of rebels, would we?  Think back to the Contras in central
america to see why elections aren't held during a war.

>Speaking of broken promises, whatever happened to Nixon's promises
>of $3 billion in war reparations?

	They went the same place the money to slaves, Japanese-Americans,
and the like went.  What ever happened to Hanoi sending back all the
remains of our POW's?  It took them decades from the time they stated
there were no more to return the last batch.

>ds> The fact remains that change takes time, and that painting
>ds> the Vietnam war as a popular uprising or revolution is no
>ds> different than saying that all Americans were bearing arms against
>ds> the British.  It wasn't so.  

>You're unfamiliar with the facts, Dan.  

	And I suppose you're going to educate me?  On which war, Russ?

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "This isn't an answer, it's a pagan dance around a midnight fire  >
<   written in intellectual runes." -- Rich Young                    >
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals