Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cepu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!bmcg!cepu!scw From: scw@cepu.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc Subject: Re: Communist Attrocities in Vietnam Message-ID: <282@cepu.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Jun-84 13:32:39 EDT Article-I.D.: cepu.282 Posted: Mon Jun 18 13:32:39 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 03:24:17 EDT References: <973@ihuxq.UUCP> <272@cepu.UUCP> <994@ihuxq.UUCP> <279@cepu.UUCP> <1007@ihuxq.UUCP> Reply-To: scw@cepu.UUCP (Steve Woods) Organization: VA Wadsworth Med. Center; LA CA Lines: 51 In article <1007@ihuxq.UUCP> ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) writes: >[many many lines of old, older, oldest postings deleted] >Steve Woods mentioned that the government of South Vietnam seemed >to be popular, and that my allusions to starvation were ridiculous. >My picture of the corrupt and totalitarian regime in South Vietnam, >along with really abject squalor, came from friends who were over >there. But then, the only thing they were fighting for was to save >their asses. I guess there's a difference of perspective. Abject poverty is strictly relative. When I went to Vietnam in 1966 (my first tour) I found the country to appear to be Dirt poor. No electricity, running water, flush toilets, you know really Bad NEWS. After I had been there a while I realized that these people really didn't have it that bad, this is not to say that they had it good but they didn't have it bad. They had plenty to eat, good houses (warm and dry), some (not a lot, but some) money to spend, they seemed glad to see us especially at night when the VC were out and about. When I went to there for my second tour things had changed, unfortunatly I didn't get back to the same are to see a direct comparison. All the warm/dry houses were gone (remember I'm not talking about Saigon or Da-Nang or even the District capitols, but the little hamlets/villiages out in the bush) there we almost no draft animals, very little food (enough to survive on but that's about it), very few people (the area that I was in had been fought over *VERY* heavily the year before). The people did seem even more glad to see us (and the Vietnamese Scout with us said that they were [PS, I dospeak Vietnamese]), all in all I'd say that being fought over for 2.5 years hadn't done the country any good. > >Ah, the "domino theory". For you young 'uns, that's the notion that >if we don't fight 'em there (wherever "there" is), next thing you >know, they'll be at the Golden Gate, and good ol' Pleasantville, USA >will get overrun, and renamed "Stalinville", and the cute kid with >the lemonade stand will be able to sell only one kind--PINK! Ken, tell it to the Camboidians and the Thais. > >Well, I don't buy it (the theory or the lemonade). I do know about >Hitler, though. When I told my draft board I thought I would have >fought in WW II, they denied me a CO. But that's another story. >Anyway, I disagree with Steve on the correct answers to the lessons >of history, but the man has certainly paid his tuition. [That I did, very expensive too]. My brother is of the same mind as you, so am I actually, it's just that my definition of a 'just war' is different from yours. -- Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology) uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb, sdcsvax!bmcg}!cepu!scw ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-cs location: N 34 06'37" W 118 25'43"