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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 do  speak
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"