More Vietnam War Papers Released (US said could accept Communist takeover)

[DeepModem Mom]

WP/AP: More Vietnam War Papers Released
Kissinger Told China U.S. Could Accept Communist Takeover
By Calvin Woodward
Associated Press
Saturday, May 27, 2006; Page A22

Henry A. Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops -- even as the war to drive back the communists dragged on with mounting deaths.

President Richard M. Nixon's envoy told Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai: "If we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

Kissinger's blunt remarks surfaced from a collection of papers released yesterday by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The collection, from his years of diplomacy, was made up of documents available at the National Archives and obtained through the research group's declassification requests.

Kissinger's comments appear to lend credence to the "decent interval" theory posed by some historians who say the United States was prepared to see communists take over Saigon as long as, to save face, that happened long enough after a U.S. troop departure.

But Kissinger cautioned in an interview yesterday against reaching easy conclusions from his words of more than three decades ago. "One of my objectives had to be to get Chinese acquiescence in our policy," he said....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601926.html

[IndianaGreen]

1. 58,000 dead GIs on the altar of the "yellow peril" and "Domino Theory"

and for what? Ever since the Truman Doctrine when the US sided with a Fascist faction in Greece, Americans have been dying on foreign lands to defend us from a new version of Emmanuel Goldstein. Better that those GIs have died at home, in their own beds, of old age, after a long a productive life.

[noel adamson]

2. not to mention the millions of men, women and children we slaughtered..

...3,000,000 in the bombing of North Vietnam alone according to a statement made by Vietnam in 1995.

[brentspeak]

15. The Vietnamese didn't seem to care they were being slaughtered

Revoltingly, it was a matter of pride for N.Vietnamese families to have their children die for Ho Chi Minh's cause.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Have never heard this fact, amazingly enough. Do you have a link

to material which reveals the Vietnamese didn't care if they were slaughtered, due to their pride in having their children die for Ho Chi Minh's cause?

I'd sure as hell love to see it.

[lfairban]

17. You sure spun that ball to the right, didn't you!

Ho Chi Minh's cause, as I recall was the same as when they kicked out the Japanese as our Allies, a unified Vietnam free of foreign domination.

Are you saying that Americans are not like Vietnamese because they would not sacrifice their lives to keep America free?

[noel adamson]

20. I think a lot of them went south in 1968...for the Tet offensive. I was...

...there outside Hai Phong harbor. We were attacked rarely by small wooden PT boats which was suicidal for them as were their attacks with MIGs, also rarely followed through with once we painted them with Talos fire control radar. We were also surrounded by many large fishing junks much of the time, both Chinese and North Vietnamese, and would cruise within a few feet of them. Any one of them could have been filled with enough explosives to do us in or even be equipped with a torpedo tube. The survivors of the PT boats who did attack were not children and surrendered rather than be killed when that became the clear choice. Frankly I admired their bravery.

On the whole they fought back with great determination and great risk to their own safety. As far as I remember our aircraft were getting shot down with bullets, not missiles, at least until my third deployment there after Russian freighters started passing us and going into the harbor. Then SAMs became a big issue on a daily basis and MIG 21s were added to their air force though we had those out classed as well. They fought us with extraordinary intelligence and a vastly inferior arsenal.

An adult dying so that others may live is not usually considered revolting either but the highest level of morality. The neocon's exploitation of the high morality of the young people BushCo is sending to Iraq to die for the lie that they are somehow or another saving or defending America is utterly revolting and beyond the ability of average people to imagine. Especially those who accept things on blind faith alone which is always accompanied by pride. The same sort of pride you ascribe to North Vietnamese families and "which comes before the fall".

[Voltaire99]

21. Well said, Indiana. (nt)

[Bigmack]

3. Just like this current clusterfuck....

the assholes sent good people to die for nothing.

One question: Why aren't guys like me rioting in the streets and lynching anybody still alive from the bunch that sent us to Vietnam?

We're sooooo fucking civilized ... or old... that even revelations like this don't do anything but depress us.

[daleo]

4. Some day it will be "we can accept a new Saddam"

Just as long as the takeover doesn't happen too soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

[sandnsea]

5. The other side of The Wall

All dead so Republicans wouldn't be blamed for losing to the Communists. Once again, John Kerry is proven to be exactly right. I wonder what the swift boaters are going to say now.

[ShockediSay]

6. "what the swift boaters are going to say now" ???

we need more 'grass roots support'(more money, more money, more money)

[MH1]

7. won't change their attacks at all

the facts were never on their side in the first place.

Remember, "facts" are silly little things that have no meaning except for delusional liberals, right?

:sarcasm:

[NorthernSpy]

8. so by 1972, they were keeping the blood flowing just to "save face"?

That's unspeakable.

[riona]

9. Many vets really believed in their missione -

they were fighting the spread communism. I can't even imagine how this feels.

[Minnesota Libra]

10. I'm absolutely appalled that this government would purposely..............

....sacrafice :cry: 58,000 American :patriot: lives just to save face. Isn't that called "murder" and isn't murder a "capitol offense" with no statute of limitations?? Kissinger is still alive and should be put on trial for murder.

I can't help but wonder what we are :cry: "sacrificing" American :patriot: lives for now in the name of "saving face":headbang:.

[globalvillage]

11. "Real Patriotism"

May 11, 2006
"Real Patriotism"
John Kerry
American University

Thirty-five years ago this spring, I testified before the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, and called for an end to the war I had returned from fighting not long before.

It was 1971 – twelve years after the first American died in what was then South Vietnam, seven years after Lyndon Johnson seized on a small and contrived incident in the Tonkin Gulf to launch a full-scale war—and three years after Richard Nixon was elected president on the promise of a secret plan for peace. We didn’t know it at the time, but four more years of the War in Vietnam still lay ahead. These were years in which the Nixon administration lied and broke the law—and claimed it was prolonging war to protect our troops as they withdrew—years that ultimately ended only when politicians in Washington decided they would settle for a “decent interval” between the departure of our forces and the inevitable fall of Saigon.

I know that some active duty service members, some veterans, and certainly some politicians scorned those of us who spoke out, suggesting our actions failed to “support the troops”—which to them meant continuing to support the war, or at least keeping our mouths shut. Indeed, some of those critics said the same thing just two years ago during the presidential campaign.

I have come here today to reaffirm that it was right to dissent in 1971 from a war that was wrong. And to affirm that it is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a President who is wrong today, policies that are wrong today, and a war in Iraq that weakens the nation.

I believed then, just as I believe now, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and disserves our people and our principles.

more at
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2006_05_11.html#continue

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Thanks for adding this, globalvillage. nt

[grytpype]

13. At least they got their "Decent Interval." Bush will not get one.

The disaster is already upon him.

[Igel]

14. Nice to know the 'boat people' I knew

and those in the re-education camps were traded away; and that they submitted a treaty they knew was a lie for ratification, and sponsored the wonderful Paris (i.e., false) accords.

Then they lied to the American people.

Kissinger should be put on trial for the deaths in the concentration camps and the pain and suffering of the "evacuees", if nothing else. Two-faced lying piece of shit.

Not to mention the repression and oppression since then.

Well, at least he was clear on one thing: American lives are certainly worth more than non-American lives, and American self-interest is, really, the most important think. In this, at least, they're just like the French, Russians, and Chinese.

[lfairban]

18. What you don't understand is that . . .

. . . the reason we got involved in Vietnam in the mid '50 was no longer very much of an issue by the early '70s. Therefor it makes sense that the US government could accept a communist government in the '70s but not in the '50s.

[Kenergy]

19. "One of my objectives had to be to get Chinese acquiescence in our policy,

Translation: Defense contractors paid me a shitload of money to lie about this illegal
war which killed 108,000 sons and daughters of our country.
And I'm living a nice comfortable life. We taught those Communists a lesson!



Murderous bastard.

[Voltaire99]

22. Is Kissinger the greatest living mass murderer?

The millions in Vietnam weren't all his and the Trickster's (good old shitkicking LBJ deserves plenty of credit), but then, taking the Shawcross view, Henry also shares credit for enlivening the Khmer Rouge.

When you add up Latin America and Southeast Asia, he's surely in contention.