Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site iham1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!iham1!jnc
From: jnc@iham1.UUCP (Jeff Coleman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Vietnam Controversy
Message-ID: <148@iham1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Jun-84 10:47:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: iham1.148
Posted: Fri Jun 15 10:47:21 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Jun-84 04:01:17 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 38


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.

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!

		Jeff Coleman

[1] Estimate by William Colby, CIA executive in charge of Pheonix.