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From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Vietnam Controversy
Message-ID: <588@ihuxt.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Jun-84 10:21:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxt.588
Posted: Sun Jun 17 10:21:11 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 04:42:53 EDT
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>From Yehoyaqim Martillo's note on the "Vietnam controversy":

>>	There could have been no fair democratic election in which
>>	the Vietnamese communists took part.  Ho Chi Minh never had
>>	more than a minority support of the Vietnamese people.
>>	However the communists were willing to brutalize the Vietnamese
>>	people in a way which was unacceptable to all other Vietnamese
>>	factions.  This brutality gave them the strength to win.

>Don't let me confuse you with the facts, Mr. Martillo, but a CIA
>estimate that Ho Chi Minh would garner 85% of the Vietnamese vote
>in a free election was one of the reasons that the U.S. sabotaged
>the 1956 elections called for by the 1954 Geneva Conference.
>Well, perhaps 85% could be thought of as a very large minority.

I hope you also believe CIA statistics on communist subversion in Central
America.  I think very little of the CIA as an intelligence gathering
organization (consider Iran and the assasination of the Pope) and never
quote its statistics.  In any case, there is strong suspicion that the CIA
fabricated this statistic in order to scare the USA government into
intervening in East Asia.  

Still, such a majority would have been possible
if Ho Chi Minh had been allowed to brutalize the peasantry as he intended.
In Paris he developed an ideology of something which translates as
"totalistic rejectionism."  This ideology held that French domination of
Vietnam had shown the failure of traditional Vietnamese Buddhist and
Confucian-influenced culture which therefore had to be totally rejected. 
Since the majority of Vietnamese had not achieved the level of
enlightenment in totalitarian Marxist ideology, which he had acquired in
pre-WWII Paris, their opinion could be safely ignored or if necessary the
Vietnamese people could be brow-beaten into accepting "totalistic
rejectionism" of traditional Vietnamese culture.  

Needless to say the majority of Vietnamese like the majority of Russians
several decades earlier had no great desire to see their society
overturned.  If elections could have been held without brutal-pressure
tactics (extremely unlikely), Ho Chi Minh would have been lucky to achieve
a small plurality.  He was not the only important political figure of the
resistance to the French. 

If Ho Chi Minh had been unbelievably lucky and achieved the premiership
with a small plurality, he would like all twentieth century Western and
Westernized totalitarians (e.g. Hitler) used the available democratic
resources to wipe out the opposition and seize total control which could
never be overthrown through internal rebellion.  

For this reason, rooting such political leaders out of East Asia and South
America is a completely justifiable goal of American policy.  The more
traditional dictatorships of these regions which have a concept of fair
play are generally much easier to overthrow when they excede their
legitimacy and try to extend their control to areas to which
non-totalitarian dictators have usually made no claim.  Unfortunately, the
success of the totalitarians in their own areas and in American public
opinion is teaching the traditional dictators and rulers much more
abominable behavior.

>Still, Yehoyaqim, you are more that justified in attacking the
>"brutalities" of the Vietnamese communists, especially in light of
>the humane and progressive actions of the U.S. government in
>Vietnam.

>At least our limited period of intervention in Vietnam allowed us
>to provide some assistance to the Vietnamese people, in the form
>of social services like the Pheonix program, the CIA-directed campaign
>to assassinate Vietnamese who opposed U.S. plans to make Vietnam safe
>for the Bank of America (60,000 Vietnamese assassinated. [1]).
>And let's not forget the Agent Orange agricultural fertilization program!
>Or the generous Vietnam landscaping project, in which the U.S. Air
>Force, at the peak of its bombing activity, dumped the equivalent in
>TNT tonnage of the Hiroshima A-bomb on Vietnam every 2 weeks!
>Or Lt. William Calley's March, 1968 picnic outing at Mylai!

>Next time, let's discuss the underwater navigational aids we've
>installed for the Nicarauguans in their Pacific ports!

With little difficulty, I can list equivalent brutalities of East Asian
communists for example like massacres of the tribal peoples (in which
US-backed ARVN forces never engaged) and yellow rain.  Many Americans have
the silly idea that war can be waged without brutality. 

Compared to the East Asian communists, the USA army was a model of correct
and moral behavior.  The USA army at least theoretically believes in
accountability.  No communist army anywhere accepts this concept.  The
USA has also shown some understanding of fair play in treating conquered
enemies (in the case of Germany and Japan).  The Vietnamese communists
showed utterly gratuitous brutality in their treatment of the North
Vietnamese population in the 50's and in treatment of the South Vietnamese
and of Vietnamese Chinese and of tribal populations during the last two
decades.  The large numbers of refugees from communist Vietnam indicates
this brutality.  

I have worked extensively with post-victory Vietnamese refugees,
Vietnamese, Chinese, and tribal and have yet to meet one who would have
to come to the USA if there had been no post-victory communist brutality
whose existence is now well-documented.  All refugees (except for some of
the Chinese) I have known stated they would immediately return to Vietnam
the day the communists were overthrown.

-- 

                    Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo

         	 (An Equal Opportunity Offender)