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• 1 rochester_veteran // Jan 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  Great post, phantomlord! I’m a history lover as well and with a little study, the facts and truth materialize and the BS claims of “US Imperialism” can be seen for what they are; marxist based propaganda.

  In leftist circles, they get a laugh when the Domino Theory is mentioned, but reading your post and the history behind the decisions that had to be made to stop the spread of communism, the Domino Theory was valid.

  We’re finding out that some in the so-called peace movement during the Vietnam War, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) were actually cooperating with the Communist North Vietnamese! From John Kerry and the VVAW: Hanoi’s American Puppets?:

  Two recently discovered documents captured from the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War strongly support the contention that a close link existed between the Hanoi regime and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) while John Kerry served as the group’s leading national spokesman.

  The Circular: International Coordination of Antiwar Propaganda

  The first document is a 1971 “Circular” distributed by the Vietnamese communists within Vietnam. It discusses strategies to coordinate their national propaganda effort with their orchestration of the activities of sympathetic counterparts in the American anti-war movement. Specifically, the document notes that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese delegations to the Paris Peace talks were being used as the communications link to direct the activities of anti-war activists meeting with them in Paris. To quote from the document:

  The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.

  Circular on Antiwar Movements in the US. The reference to “VC” indicates the Vietcong; “NVN” is the North Vietnamese government.

  This sentence is particularly important in light of John Kerry’s admission that he met with leaders of both communist delegations to the Paris Peace Talks in June 1970, including Madame Binh, foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam, also known as the Vietcong. FBI files record that Kerry returned to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese delegation in August of 1971, and planned a third trip in November.

  Prior to the discovery of the Circular, there was no direct evidence that Hanoi was actually steering the U.S. antiwar movement’s activities by conveying Hanoi’s goals and wishes to movement leaders during their frequent visits to Paris, though many investigators had assumed that to be the case. Further analysis of this document supports the contention that Madame Binh used her Paris meeting with John Kerry to instruct him on how he and the VVAW might best serve as Hanoi’s surrogates in the United States. In the spring and summer of 1971, a key strategy of Hanoi was to advance what was known as Madame Binh’s Seven Point Peace Plan.

  The plan was cleverly constructed to force President Nixon to set a date to end the Vietnam War and withdraw American troops. According to the 7-Point Peace Plan of Madame Binh, the only barrier to Hanoi setting a date to release American Prisoners of War was President Nixon’s unwillingness to set a specific date for military withdrawal. Of course, accepting the full terms of the 7-Point Peace Plan would have amounted to an American capitulation, a virtual surrender that included the payment of reparations to the Vietnam communists as an admission that America was the wrongful aggressor in an immoral war.

  “I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government and of all eight of Madam Binh’s points it has been stated time and time again, and was stated by Senator Vance Hartke when he returned from Paris, and it has been stated by many other officials of this Government, if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned.”

  “I think this negates very clearly the argument of the President that we have to maintain a presence in Vietnam, to use as a negotiating block for the return of those prisoners. The setting of a date will accomplish that.”

  – John Kerry, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971

• 2 Jesse // Mar 23, 2011 at 6:02 pm

  There are many discrepancies between historical fact and your perception of what happened during the time leading up to the Vietnam War. Your take is a very common American misconception and largely what the US government would like you to believe.
  The first and foremost misconception was that there was a North and South Vietnam prior to American involvement. There wasn’t. There was the area of Vietnam that France’s puppet government tried to maintain control of, however, this ceased to exist once the French agreed to leave and relinquish their occupation.
  Furthermore, the Geneva Accord of 1954 never stipulated there to be a North and South Vietnam, only that the two forces, Cho Hi Minh’s and the French’, withdraw into opposite sides of the country so that there can be a ceasefire and the French can organize a withdrawal.
  In fact the Accord of 1954 clearly states that the temporary line that separates the two forces is only a ceasefire line and is NOT a political line;
  (6. The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Viet-Nam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. The Conference expresses its conviction that the execution of the provisions set out in the present declaration and in the agreement on the cessation of hostilities creates the necessary basis for the achievement in the near future of a political settlement in Viet-Nam.)
  You can read the whole declaration here;
  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1954-geneva-indochina.html
  Two years from the time of the Accord there was to be a unified election to decide the new Vietnamese government, by which time the French was to have left the country. The U.S. didn’t want a communist government in Vietnam, a government that would certainly be more politically and economically aligned with China or the Soviet Union rather than the United States. So the U.S. saw the two years as a window of opportunity during which they’d have the chance to pour money and material goodies into the southern half of Vietnam to create some semblance of a good economy. This, they thought, would maybe win over enough of the Vietnamese peasants to elect a government that would be more open to U.S. influence.
  So that’s exactly what the U.S. did. As the French left Vietnam, the United States seized the moment and immediately embarked on an enormous project of ‘nation building’. The result was a new nation – “South Vietnam”. What most people don’t realize is that South Vietnam was essentially invented by the United States as a base for building and maintaining its own interests in Asia. But it was also created by America against the will of the people of Vietnam. There never was a “Oppressed, democratic South” fighting an “Aggressive North”. Apart from the puppet government that was first propped by the French and then the US, most of Vietnam univocally wanted everyone out so they can be left to have their election and be free, including the US.
  Which then takes us to the second huge misconception. That the “Viet Cong” were people from the north, and the south was fighting them with the help of the US. Here is actually what was happening;
  After the accord, the United States installs a new leader for their puppet government in the newly created South Vietnam. They choose a devout anti-communist Catholic named Diem – recently emerged from exile in New Jersey – to head their new government in Saigon. The two years go by quickly and as the agreed-upon national elections approach, it becomes clear that Diem and his American backers are still not popular enough to win an election against the more popular Ho Chi Minh. So the U.S. encourages Diem to block the 1956 elections, which he does – the elections never take place.

  Diem’s regime is characterized by corruption and oppression, and by around 1960, grassroots opposition – with support from the Viet Minh leadership in the north – begin to coalesce in the southern countryside. They are the National Liberation Front, or NLF – Diem and the Americans call them the Viet Cong.
  A lot of people know that the Americans fought against an enemy called the Viet Cong and just assume that the Viet Cong were from North Vietnam. Well, actually, especially in the earlier phases of the war, most of the Viet Cong were from the South. They received guns and supplies and other kinds of support from the Viet Minh in the north, but the Viet Cong was actually rooted in the Vietnamese peasantry of South Vietnam.
  The Viet Cong were basically a social and political revolutionary movement dedicated to ousting the Americans and their puppet government by force. So of course the United States considered them the enemy and that’s why almost all of the fighting during the Vietnam war took place within the borders of ‘South Vietnam’.
  So basically, you had the President of the United States telling the American people that we’re there to help the Vietnamese maintain their independence, and at the same time we’re over there in their country fighting them as the enemy.
  At any rate, by 1963, the Viet Cong had gained widespread popular support throughout South Vietnam. The United States was getting really annoyed by Diem’s inability to control the situation, so the U.S. orchestrates his assassination in November of that year. Immediately after that the U.S. starts exercising much more direct control over South Vietnam. Back in America, President John F. Kennedy is himself assassinated, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumes the presidency.

  The following year, 1964, represents a crucial turning point. Privately, the Johnson Administration has decided that an all-out war is the only way to defeat the Vietnamese, but American public opinion remains sharply divided. The solution: the Administration orchestrates a kind of ‘wartime media-event’ – the now-infamous Tonkin Affair – in which the U.S. accuses North Vietnam of firing torpedos at an American destroyer with torpedo boats. Well, it never actually happened, but the story is good enough to piss off the American people and Congress. So infuriated by the (imaginary) act of aggression, Congress overwhelmingly approves The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August, 1964. The resolution gives President Johnson broad powers to use military force at his discretion. And this he does – U.S. warplanes begin bombing North Vietnam almost immediately – the first of several intense bombing campaigns that would continue for almost a decade. By 1969, there are more than half-a-million U.S. troops in Vietnam, all fighting in a country most Americans can barely find on a map, fighting an enemy that no one seems to understand.

  Back home in the US, the people who understood this truth about the nature of the vietnam war, protested against it. But the people-such as yourself- that never questioned the text book explanation given by the US government or even taught in schools, didnt understand why.

• 3 Craig Mathews // May 25, 2011 at 2:49 am

  Thank you, Jesse, for your accurate description of events leading up to the Vietnam War.

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