The Untaught Syllabus. 7.
In Their Own Words - Quotes For Peace Activists:
Questions And Answers For Those Who Live On Fish And Rice - Defending Human
Rights In Vietnam.


The quotes contained in this article are taken from two of my manuscripts: "1917
And All That: The Untaught Syllabus - In their Own Words." which is a political
history of the Cold War, serialised in British and foreign journals; and "A
Radical Book Of Enlightenment For The Common Man." which is a compilation of
over 1,700 radical political quotes in subject categories.

I have found through tutoring, speaking engagements, debating and general
argument that it is more effective and revealing, especially to the incredulous,
that the quotes speak the truth for themselves without polemical intervention
from me, other than selection, editing and assembly. And yes, it is extremely
biased. But when did idealistic academic or journalistic notions of balanced or
unbiased ever equate with reality? I challenge those who preach a so-called
balanced view to come up with a negation of what is being said.

I am happy for any of the compilation to be copied in whole or in part provided
that the full authorship of each quote is stated, and that authorship of the
script or compilation is acknowledged; and that the work is used for the purpose
for which it is obviously intended - to inform and educate those interested in
the modern history of wars, peace, anti-racism, poverty, global trade and the
world debt crisis.



QUESTION:

"...I saw the helicopters... Americans moving towards our village... huge,
towering men... we sat there huddled together... American appeared at the
entrance... fired point blank at grandmother Toan. She sank slowly to the
floor... grenade... I crawled out... bodies of my sister, little brother, uncle
Duc, cousin Thu and her baby... Americans returned... mutilated bodies with
bayonets... baby in convulsions... I hid... heard uncle Huong's voice... I asked
him "is anyone else alive?" "No little one, everyone's killed." Please, tell me
why were they all killed?"

(Twelve year old Vo Thi Lien, survivor of the US massacre of the inhabitants of
the village of Son My, Vietnam (My Lai on US military maps) March 16 1969.)



ANSWER:

"Let us suppose we lose Indochina. The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value
from that area would cease coming. We are voting for the cheapest way that we
can to prevent the occurence of something that would be of a most terrible
significance to the United States of America, our security, our power and
ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indochinese
territory and from Southeast Asia."

(US President Eisenhower, justifying US aid to France's war against Vietnam, Aug
4 1953; which later included the offer of the use of nuclear weapons during the
seige of Dien Bien Phu.)



"Geographically, Vietnam stands at the hub of a vast area of the world -
Southeast Asia - an area with a vast population of 249 million persons... He who
holds or has influence in Vietnam can affect the future of the Philippines and
Formosa [now Taiwan B.M.] to the East, Thailand and Burma with their huge rice
surpluses to the West, and Malaysia and Indonesia with their rubber, ore and tin
to the South... Vietnam thus does not exist in a geographical vacuum - from it
large store-houses of wealth and population can be influenced and undermined."

(Former US Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Cambridge,
Massachussets, in the Boston Sunday Globe, Feb 28 1965.)



"It is rich in many raw materials such as tin, oil, rubber and iron ore... This
area has great strategic value... It has major naval and air bases."

(US Secretary of State Dulles, March 29 1954.)



"One of the world's richest areas is open to the winner of Indo-China. That's
behind the growing US concern... tin, rubber, rice, key strategic raw materials
are what the war is really about. The US sees it as a place to hold - at any
cost."

(US News and World Report, April 4 1954.)



". strategic resources of Southeast Asia and their significance for the global
system that the US was then constructing, incorporating Western Europe and
Japan. It was feared that successful independent development under a radical
nationalist leadership in Vietnam might 'cause the rot to spread', gradually
eroding US dominance in the region and ultimately causing Japan, the largest
domino, to join in a closed system from which the US would be excluded. The idea
that US global planners had national imperialist motives is intolerable to the
doctrinal system, so this topic must be avoided in any history directed to a
popular audience."

(Noam Chomsky, "The Vietnam War In The Age Of Orwell.")



"They have come to take away our Hanoi, our Hue, our cities of wooden palaces,
our seaports filled with bamboo houses and junks, our warehouses of fish and of
rice, yet with these almond eyes, we have known how to die, thousands upon
thousands, to close off their road! Now they are our masters, but tomorrow who
knows!...

The poor Annamese [Vietnamese B.M.] have fought, and will fight again, as hard
as the bravest - those who live on rice and fish and who dress in silks in
faraway Asia..."

(José MartI (1853-1895) Cuban revolutionary fighter, historian, teacher, poet,
educationalist, journalist, writer of children's stories. From "An Excursion In
the Land of the Annamese", in "On Education.")



When did the Vietnam war start?

At the end of the Second World War, even before the Japanese had surrendered,
not wanting Vietnam to fall into the hands of the Vietnamese, the British used
the Japanese to help control Vietnam until the French could be back in control
again.



"They (the Japanese) are in charge, and they could clean out the Allied forces
in one night, but their behaviour is excellent."

(British Officer in Saigon, quoted in Daily Mirror Sept 26 1945.)



"All the dirty work to fight and disarm the Annamites [Vietnamese B.M.] was
assigned to Japanese troops."

(Official History of the Indian Armed Forces.)



"The Japanese were freely used in all these operations and they did the job with
their characteristic efficiency... a satisfactory result of their use was
greatly to reduce the casualties among our troops."

(History of the 4/10 Gurkhas.)



"Guerrilla activities represent the only tactics by which our people can keep
the initiative in the struggle to drive the Japanese aggressor out of the
country while holding themselves in readiness to give support to the Allied
forces."

(Indochinese Communist Party instructions, March 1945.)



"The British were delighted with the discipline shown by their late enemy [the
Japanese in Vietnam in 1945 B.M.] and were often warmly admiring, in the best
playing-field tradition, of their fine military qualities. It was all very
comradely."

(American reporter Harold Isaacs "Independence for Vietnam?")



"Jap troops have been fighting alongside British and French in an effort to
re-establish order in Saigon... Truckloads of Japanese soldiers with rifles are
driving through the streets to fronts just outside the city."

(Daily Mirror Sept 25 1945.)



"...sentries were shot down. Occupants of the building were either killed or
taken prisoner. Records were seized and scattered. Scores of Annamites [native
Vietnamese B.M.] were trussed up and marched off. Foreign eye-witnesses that
morning saw blood flow, saw bound men beaten. They saw Frtench colonial culture
being restored to Saigon."

(Harold Isaacs "Independence for Vietnam?")



"...all British, French and Japanese forces, and of all police forces and other
armed bodies in French Indo-China south of 16 latitude, with orders to ensure
law and order... and hereby warn all wrongdoers... that they will be summarily
shot...

(a) No demonstrations will be permitted.

(b) No public meetings will take place.

(c) No arms of any description including sticks, staves, bamboo spears, etc.,
will be carried except by Allied troops... and other forces and police which
have been specially authorised by me.

(d) The curfew already imposed on my orders by the Japanese authorities...
will be continued and strictly enforced."

(British Proclamation No. 1 in Vietnam, Sept 21 1945.)



"No matter how many nationalists the British killed or captured, more appeared
the next day. As soon as one hamlet had been 'pacified', trouble flared
elsewhere. Roads which were relatively safe by day became deathtraps at night.
The enemy were everywhere and nowhere, everybody and yet nobody...

Judging from the accounts of some of the British units involved in the fighting,
they operated with considerable ruthlessness, and in doing so failed completely
to win over the local population... As the British command pointed out... all
Vietnamese were regarded as likely hostiles."

(George Rosie "The British in Vietnam. How the Twenty Five Year War Began.")



"There is no front in these operations... We may find it difficult to
distinguish friend from foe... beware of 'nibbling' at opposition. Always use
maximum force available to ensure wiping out any hostiles we may meet. If one
uses too much, no harm is done. If one uses too small a force... we will suffer
casualties and encourage the enemy."

(Operation Instructions of Indian Infantry Brigade in Vietnam, Oct 1945.
Official History of the Indian Armed Forces.)



"The Commander recognised the difficulties of the actual fighters. He said as
follows. "The difficulty is to select him [the enemy] as immediately he has had
his shot or thrown his grenade he pretends to be friendly... It is therefore
perfectly legitimate to look upon all locals anywhere near where a shot has been
fired as enemies, and treacherous ones at that, and treat them accordingly"."

(Official History of the Indian Armed Forces.)



"If when following up a report, no enemy is met with, suspects must be brought
in from the area concerned. They are probably the hostiles reported, who have
for the moment become friendly villagers."

(British Instruction to 100 Indian Brigade. Official History of the Indian Armed
Forces.)



"We have watched British intervention there [Vietnam B.M.] with growing anger,
shame and helplessness, that Indian troops should be used for doing Britain's
dirty work against our friends who are fighting the same fight as we."

(Progressive Indian leader Pandit Nehru, New York Times Jan 1 1946.)



"The real reasons for the hostility of the Vietnamese towards the British are
not hard to find. The British had subverted and destroyed a genuine popular
revolution. In the war that resulted thousands of Vietnamese died. No Vietnamese
was ever safe from harassment or arrest by the British."

(George Rosie "The British in Vietnam. How the Twenty Five Year War Began.")



"We, members of the Provisional government of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free
and independent country - and in fact is so already."

(Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, Sept 2 1945.)



"You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those
odds, you will lose and I will win."

(Ho Chi Minh, to the French, around 1948.)



"In Saigon last month I asked a prominent member of the French-sponsored Bao
Dai-Xuan Government how many Vietnamese supported his regime. 'Probably about
one per cent,' he replied frankly. 'Almost ninety-nine per cent favour Ho Chi
Minh's resistance Government'."

(New York Nation, Jan 8 1949.)



"The spectacle of France's betrayal had greatly undermined French prestige in
her colony: particularly in view of the fact that the Vichy administration in
F.I.C. [French Indo-China B.M.] had at all times collaborated openly with the
enemy."

(Lord Mountbatten, in a Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Section E.
HMSO.)



"To make the illusion a reality, the CIA undertook a series of operations that
helped turn South Vietnam into a vast police state. The purpose of these
operations was to force the native South Vietnamese to accept the Catholic
mandarin Diem, who had been selected by US policymakers to provide an
alternative to Communism in Vietnam. From 1950 to 1953, .Diem. was living in the
US in Maryknoll seminaries.

Diem arrived in Saigon in mid-1954 and was greeted by Colonel Edward Lansdale,
the CIA's man in South Vietnam. Diem was opposed by virtually all elements of
South Vietnamese society. He had no troops, no police, no government, and no
means of enforcing his rule. What he did have was the complete support of
Colonel Lansdale and all the money, manpower, weapons, training, propaganda, and
political savvy in the CIA's covert action war chest.

To create Diem's government, Lansdale's men. stimulated North Vietnamese
Catholics. to flee south. To help them make up their minds, the teams circulated
leaflets falsely attributed to the Viet Minh telling what was expected of
citizens under the new government. The teams spread horror stories. the CIA
provided free transportation. Nearly a million North Vietnamese were scared and
lured into moving to the South.

Lieutenant Tom Dooley, who operated with the US Navy. A medical doctor.
Dr.Dooley's concocted tales of the View Minh disembowelling 1,000 pregnant
women, beating a naked priest on the testicles with a bamboo club, and jamming
chopsticks in the ears of children to keep them from hearing the word of God,
aroused American citizens to anger and action. Dr.Dooley's reputation remained
unsullied until 1979, when his ties to the CIA were uncovered during a Roman
Catholic sainthood investigation.

The agency's operation worked. It not only convinced the North Vietnamese
Catholics to flee to the South, thereby providing Diem with a source of reliable
political and military cadres, but it also duped the American people into
believing that the flight of the refugees was a condemnation of the Viet Minh by
the majority of Vietnamese.

. The picture drawn to justify US involvement was that the Communist North was
invading the Free World South. The CIA was ordered to sustain that illusion
through propaganda and, through covert operations, to make the illusion a
reality. Its intelligence, with an occasional minor exception, was only a
convenient vehicle to sell the lie to the US bureaucracy and people.
Unfortunately, nearly everyone, including later policy-makers, was deceived by
this big lie."

(CIA Medal of Commendation winner Ralph McGehee, in his book "Deadly Deceits: My
25 Years in the CIA.")



"Unless we do everything in our power with all the determination we possibly
can, the only hope for the independence of Indo-China is under Ho Chi Minh."

(British General Gracey, Royal Central Asian Journal July-October 1953.)



"Despite any wishful thinking to the contrary, it should be apparent that the
popularity and prevalence of Ho Chi Minh and his following throughout Indo-China
would cause either partition, or, a coalition government to result in the
eventual domination by the communists."

(US Senator, later President Kennedy, speaking to the Senate, April 1954.)



"I am frankly of the belief that no amount of American military assistance in
Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere,
"an enemy of the people" which has the sympathy and covert support of the
people."

(US Senator John F. Kennedy, to the US Senate April 6 1954.)



"Freak weather effects on radar and over eager sonar men. No actual visual
sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action
taken."

(Cable from USS Maddox passed to US President Johnson.)



"Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas have today
required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in
reply."

(US President Johnson, US television, August 4 1964.)



"Here's evidence that the North Vietnamese are invading South Vietnam."

(CIA Medal of Commendation winner Ralph McGehee. After the had CIA planted a
North Vietnamese boat full of communist weapons off the Vietnamese coast in 1965
and invited the world press. )



"If France stops fighting in Indo-China and the situation demands it... the
United States will have to send troops to prevent the Communists from taking
over this gateway to Southeast Asia."

(US Vice-President Nixon, New York Times April 18 1954.)



"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese
affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the
fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the
Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader."

(US President Eisenhower, in his memoirs "Mandate For Change.")



"But the US imperialists and the pro-American authorities in South Viet Nam are
scheming to divide our country permanently, and preventing the holding of free
general elections at the time prescribed by the Geneva Agreement."

(Ho Chi Minh, in a letter to the whole Vietnamese people, July 6 1956.)



"It was clear to me that any negotiated settlement was bound to produce either a
communist share in the government of most of Indo-China or complete communist
control of part of the country."

(Anthony Eden, in his memoirs.)



"The US borders extend to the 17th parallel in South Vietnam."

(Ngo Dinh Diem, on a US visit, Spring 1957.)



"All acts either directly or indirectly promoting Communism and all activities
aimed at advancing Communism run counter to the principles underlying this
constitution."

(Article 7 of the Diem constitution.)



"Even Premier Ky told this reporter today that the Communists were closer to the
people's yearnings for social justice and an independent national life than his
own government."

(New York Times Sept 1 1965.)



"People ask me who my heroes are. I have only one - Hitler. We need four or five
Hitlers in Vietnam."

(Nguyen Cao Ky, US backed Prime Minister of South Vietnam, 1965.)



"I cannot truly sympathise with Americans who help promote a fascist state and
then get angry when it doesn't act like a democracy."

(CIA chief in Vietnam Colonel Edward Lansdale.)



"Victory for the Vietcong [US name for the South Vietnamese National Liberation
Front B.M.] ...would mean ultimately the destruction of freedom of speech for
all men for all time not only in Asia but in the United States as well."

(Nixon, New York Times, 1965.)



"In Vietnam, only the Communists represent revolution and social change... The
Communist Party is the only truly national organisation that permeates both
North and South Vietnam. The men who lead the party today, Ho Chi Minh and the
other members of the Politburo in Hanoi, directed the struggle for
independence... the Communists... remaining the only Vietnam capable of rallying
millions of their countrymen to sacrifice and hardship in the name of the nation
and the only group not dependent on foreign bayonets for survival."

(New York Times Magazine Oct 9 1966.)



"We should give priority to the prevention of subversive insurgency... Where do
you find symptoms of subversive insurgency? The answer is that they are found in
virtually every emerging country in the world."

(US General Maxwell Taylor.)



"Here we have a going laboratory where we see subversive insurgency, the Ho Chi
Minh doctrine, being applied in all its forms... On the military side... we have
recognised the area as a laboratory. We have teams out there looking at the
equipment requirements of this kind of guerrilla warfare... so even though not
regularly assigned to Vietnam, they are carrying their experience back to their
own organisations."

(US General Maxwell Taylor, to a Congressional Committee, 1963.)



"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from
home to do what Asian boys should be doing for themselves."

(President Johnson, Ohio, October 1964.)



The US Marines landed in Da Nang, Vietnam on March 6 1965.



"Boys. I want you to come back with that coonskin on the wall."

(President Johnson, Vietnam, October 1966.)



"Beware! The Virgin Mary has fled South. Follow her or be slaughtered by the
barbarian communists."

(Leaflet dropped by US Air Force on Catholic area of Hanoi in 1954.)



Living under the "barbarian" communists in Hongai was fifteen year old Nguyen
Thi An, who saw no reason at all to "flee South". Soon, the hospitals, schools,
kindergartens and polyclinics built by the "barbarian communists" were all blown
away by their US liberators. In a letter to a friend Thi An wrote:



"The next thing I heard the air raid siren and I hurried to the shelter near by.
I could hear the engines of the planes and the explosions. When the sirens went
again I came out. My mother and father were lying there, and my brother Nguyen
Si Quan, and my sister, Nguyen Thi Binh, were covered in blood. My sister had
pieces of metal in her and so did her doll. She kept shouting, "Where is mother
and father? Where is my doll?" My street, Ha Long street has fallen down now.
The houses have no roofs; the school and the Pioneers' Club are all destroyed.
This is the end of my letter."

(Fifteen year old Nguyen Thi An, in a letter to a friend.)



"Hongai was razed. 104 demolition, pellet and dart bombs destroyed a primary
school, a kindergarten, a junior high school, the Quang Ninh provincial
hospital, the cinema for children and the miners' medical centre. The Nguyen
family's home was hit by a bomb which released thousands of needle-sharp darts.
The darts entered Thi An's sister, Binh and continued to move around in her body
for several days, causing internal injuries from which she eventually died in
agony. The darts were made from a type of plastic which cannot be detected by
X-ray. This type of bomb is made especially for Vietnam."

(John Pilger "The Last Day.")



Also dropped from the sky - American pilots. US pilots carried a silk, star
spangled flag on which was written in ten S.E. Asian languages:



"I am a citizen of the United States of America. I do not speak your language.
Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance in obtaining food, shelter and
protection. Please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see
that I am returned to my people. My government will reward you."

(Written in ten S.E. Asian languages on silk US flag carried by US pilots in
Vietnam.)



"Yippies, hippies, yahoos, Black Panthers, lions and tigers alike - I would swap
the whole damn zoo for the kind of young Americans I saw in Vietnam."

(Spiro Agnew.)



"What the United States is doing in Vietnam is the most significant example of
philanthropy extended by one people to another that we have witnessed in our
times. Primitive peoples with savagery in their hearts have to be helped to
understand the true basis of a civilised existence."

(David Lawrence, editor of US News and World Report, 1966.)



"America's purpose in Vietnam and Indochina remains what it has been - a peace
in which the people of the region can devote themselves to development of their
own societies, a peace in which all the people of S.E. Asia can determine their
own political futures."

(US President Nixon, Washington, June 20 1970.)



"Our one desire - our one determination - is that the people of S.E. Asia be
left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way."

(US President Johnson, signing the Tonkin Resolution, Aug 10 1964, authorising
the bombing of North Vietnam.)



"We want... only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own
country in their own way."

(US President Johnson.)



"I've got on my watch the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you.""

(US President Johnson, Jan 6 1964.)



"I regret the necessities of war have compelled us to bomb North Vietnam."

(US President Johnson, Washington, April 17 1965.)



"Now as to bombing civilians, I would simply say that we're making an effort
that is unprecedented in the history of warfare, that we do not."

(US President Johnson, Nashville, March 15 1967.)



"As far as the United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam is
concerned, one mishap, one innocent civilian killed, one civilian wounded, or
one dwelling needlessly destroyed - is too many... We will not and cannot be
callous about these people."

(US General Westmorland.)



"Life is plentiful. Life is cheap to those people... You have to realise that an
individual life there isn't as important as an individual life in America."

(US General Westmorland.)



"The American attitude towards war is wholesome."

(US General Westmorland.)



"I don't know any subject on which the American public has been more informed
than Vietnam."

(US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 1966.)



"How our government can lie to its people - it's something you wouldn't think a
democratic government could do."

(USAF Captain Edwin Shank Jr, May 1964.)



"The freedom to know the truth - and let the truth make us free - must never be
compromised or destroyed."

(President Johnson, 1968.)



"Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to see it like it is and to
tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth and live with the
truth. That's what we will do."

(President Nixon , 1968.)



"And if there's any doubt... here at home about our purpose in Vietnam, I never
find it in those letters from Vietnam."

(President Johnson, 1966.)



"Dear Mom and Dad, Today we went on a mission and I'm not very proud of myself,
my friends or my country. We burned every hut in sight... My buddy... threw a
hand grenade into the shelter... After the explosions we found the mother, two
children... and an almost new born baby... The three of us dragged out the
bodies onto the floor of the hut. It was horrible. The children's fragile bodies
were torn apart, literally mutilated. We looked at each other and burned the
hut."

(Letter home from US soldier in Vietnam, 1967.)



"They [the US. B.M.] have shown great interest in the new and most effective
poison gas which is being developed in West German laboratories on the basis of
the gas used by IG-Farben at the time of the Second World War. The German
military leaders and a number of industrial firms in the Federal Republic are
helping the Americans... in Vietnam... Thus an arrangement was made to send
several experts from the Farbwerke Hoechst AG to the USA and to let the USA have
the necessary technical data and documents for the production of gas with lethal
effects of the Zyklon B type, which the Nazis had used to a great degree in
their concentration camps... and which the Americans have already begun to use
in South Vietnam...

According to recommendations of the American-German Military Strategical
Guidance Centre in Treves - which were approved by the governments of both
countries - the most recent data on the production and employment of chemical
and bacteriological weapons are being exchanged..."

(Eastern World, London July-August 1966.)



"People today are much more willing to accept the humane use of bacteriological
and chemical warfare than most world leaders recognise...

The Communists have claimed we are using chemical warfare and killing many
people with these agents. These chemicals are relatively harmless to warm
blooded animals including humans...

I do not think chemical and bacteriological warfare has the horror it is
pictured."

(Brigadier General J. Rothschild, Chemical Officer, US Far East Command, in
"Let's Use Gas Warfare in Vietnam," US journal "Science and Mechanics." April
1966.)



"We should be proud of our country because the American Division rules of
engagement are based on Judeo-Christian traditions and are moral."

(Chief Chaplain, American Division, Chu Lai, Nov 29 1969.)



"I poured about five clips into the group... we started to gather them up, more
people... we put them into the hootch, and we dropped a hand grenade in there
with them... they had about seventy or seventy-five people all gathered up. So
we threw ours in with them and Lieutenant Calley... started pushing them off...
into the ravine... and just started using automatics on them... men, women,
children... and babies.. it just seemed like it was the natural thing to do at
the time."

(Private Meadlo, American Division, My Lai, Nov 24 1969.)



"Frank, this is your President, and yesterday your boys shat on the American
flag."

(US President Johnson, to CBS News chief after his crew filmed US Marines
burning Vietnamese villages.)



"I wanted to do something my wife and my mother could be proud of...

It was just another lousy hamlet... mostly old men, women and children, had been
gathered together, the shooting started.

So far as I can remember I had killed three or four. One of the women had a
gunshot wound in her neck. It sounded as though she was crying under water. I
figure the blood was gushing into her lungs or something. She sank to her knees
and fell flat on her face. After the shooting we took three or four ten year old
girls from the hamlet along with us into the jungle... After they had been raped
the girls were shot where they were lying. It was a rather nauseating sight."

(Private Jerry, 26th Infantry Division, Vietnam.)



"All I can say is that he felt he had to be there to prevent the communists from
coming here... We're proud of that boy. We're good Christian folk you see."

(Mother of one of the last two Americans to die in Vietnam.)



"...teach 'em a damned good lesson. They are all VC or at least helping them -
same difference. You can't convert them, only kill them. Don't lose any sleep
over those dead children - they grow up to be commies too."

(US military advisor in Vietnam, in US Green Beret hero Donald Duncan's "The New
Legions.")



"We flattened cities in Germany and Japan in World War II. I don't know what's
so sacred about Hanoi. Let world opinion go fly a kite."

(Mendel Rivers.)



"There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong. What their contributions
are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to bomb a virgin building is
terrific."

(US Commander Henry Urban Jr.)



"You want to know my solution to Vietnam? Tell the Vietnamese they've got to
draw in their horns or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone-Age."

(USAF Chief of Staff General Curtis E. Le May, May 1964.)



"We must be willing to continue our bombing until we have destroyed every work
of man in North Vietnam."

(US General Curtis E. Le May, USAF, April 1 1967.)



"It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it."

(US Army Major referring to Ben Tre, South Vietnam, A.P. Despatch, Feb 7 1968.)



"The United States Government has always abided by the humanitarian principles
enunciated in the Geneva convention and will continue to do so."

(US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in a letter to the International Red Cross,
Aug 10 1965.)



"Many communities in Vietnam are living a better life because of the
encouragement and help our American troops have given to them. A true missionary
zeal among our troops is commonplace and this is one of the characteristics of
this war. I am constantly impressed by the concern for the lives of others shown
by the men of my command."

(US General Westmorland.)



"As battle rages we will continue as best we can to help the good people of
South Vietnam enrich the condition of their life."

(President Johnson, Washington, July 28 1965.)



"...beside it is a little girl, about five, who is still alive. I shall not
spare you the description. The skin on her chest has opened like a page; her
arms are gutted and her hands are petrified in front of her, one turned out, one
turned in. Her face is still recognisable: she has plump cheeks and brown eyes,
though her mouth is burned and her lips are gone completely. A policeman is
holding her mother away from her... The French photographer and I kneel beside
her and try to lift her head, but her hair is stuck to the iron by mortar turned
into wax by the heat. We wait for half an hour, locked in this one dream,
mesmerised by a little face, trying to give it water."

(John Pilger "The Last Day.")



This was the result of an 'improved' type of napalm: gasolene, benzine,
polystyrene and phosphorus compounds. It sticks to the skin and is impossible to
extinguish or remove. If you don't die from the burns, you asphyxiate from the
heat and smoke of your own burning body.



A US doctor takes a picture of a burned girl for his family album:



"Hey Alice! Take a look at this kid over here." Alice: "Oh gee, oh... let that
be the last one please. Thank God the war is almost over."

(From John Pilger "The Last Day.")



"After a month here we should get a government loan of £30,000 to buy a house."

(Australian soldier in Vietnam.)



"We'll win! All we gotta do is grab em by the balls and their hearts and minds
will follow."

(Sign in US Military HQ in Saigon.)



"My people have always been here, my father, his father, and his father's
father, as long as we can count back. Their bones lie here, even if the Yankee
devils have torn up their tombstones with their bombs and shells and tanks. I
will live and fight here and even if I die from Yankee shells and tanks, at
least my bones will remain in the same bit of soil as my ancestors."

(South Vietnamese farmer.)



"The enemy has killed her and thrown her body away. She was a guerrilla fighter.
Pain tears me. I feel half dead. When I was a child I used to love my country
for its flowers and butterflies. That's why I got into trouble from time to time
for playing truant. Now I love my country because in its earth is the blood and
flesh of my little sister."

(Vietnamese soldier.)



"We'll live to see the day when the Americans will have to defend themselves in
Saigon and when the banner of Liberation will flutter over Saigon."

(Le Thi Giang.)



"But it is also our international duty. More than half the American war
machinery is engaged in our country. If we are successful it will be easier for
the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and of Europe as well."

(Vietnamese Officer.)



"Our struggle against the US aggression for the salvation of our homeland is a
just cause. The peoples of the world strongly condemn the US imperialists and
are sincerely supporting us."

(Ho Chi Minh.)



"As spring draws near I am writing this song,
Wishing our people throughout the land,
That their fight against the Yankees will right a wrong,
And victories grow like flowers in the sand."

(Nguyen Ai Quoc: Nguyen the Patriot - sentenced to death by the French,
imprisoned by the British - known to the whole world as "Uncle Ho"; Ho Chi Minh:
One with firm convictions.)



"We convert our pain to hatred and our hatred to strength."

(Vietnamese soldier.)



"Dear compatriots and fighters, we are strong because our cause is just, because
our people in the North and South are united, because we have traditions of
undaunted struggle, and because we have the sympathy and support of the
fraternal socialist countries and progressive people all over the world. We
shall win."

(Nguyen Ai Quoc - Nguyen the Patriot, otherwise known to the world as Ho Chi
Minh - One with firm convictions, in a broadcast on the Voice of Vietnam radio,
dawn, July 17 1966, after US bombs struck Hanoi.)



"Anyone capable of taking a realistic view of things must realise that neither
direct armed intervention, nor torpedoing of negotiations, not even the ever
wider use of mercenaries will break down the Vietnamese people's determination
to become master of its own country.

The so-called Vietnamisation of the war, that is, the plan to have Vietnamese
kill Vietnamese in Washington's interests, and the extension of the aggression
to Cambodia and Laos - non of this will get the USA out of the bog of its dirty
war in Indochina or wash away the shame heaped upon that country by those who
started and are continuing the aggression. There is only one way of solving the
Vietnamese problem. It is clearly indicated in the proposals of the DRV
Government and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South
Vietnam, proposals which we firmly back."

(Leonid Brezhnev, to 24th Congress of the CPSU.)



"I'm talking about Vietnam, and it seems to me that we Negroes have a special
reason for understanding what's going on over there... ...and now we are told
that soon it may be "advisable" to send American GIs into Indo-China in order
that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"
- meaning White Imperialism...

I ask again: Shall Negro sharecroppers from Mississippi be sent to shoot down
brown-skinned peasants in Vietnam - to serve the interests of those who oppose
Negro liberation at home and colonial freedom abroad."

(Black American singer Paul Robeson.)



"What we're doing in Vietnam is using the black man to kill the yellow man so
the white man can keep the land he took from the red man."

(Dick Gregory.)



"The US military and the clique of their new lackeys are now clamouring for a
'crusade to the North'. They must realise that they will suffer a shameful
defeat should they venture to encroach on North Vietnam because the entire
people of our country will rally to give tham a determined and fitting rebuff
since all the socialist countries and progressive peoples throughout the world
will give us every support and since the peoples of the United States and its
allied countries will also rise in protest against their aggressions."

(Ho Chi Minh, March 1964.)



"In the common struggle against the US imperialist aggressors the Vietnamese
people distinguish between the US imperialists who are their enemies, and the
American people who are their friends on the other side of the Pacific. The
people of Vietnam pledge themselves to fight side by side with the American
people against this war of aggression waged by the US imperialists."

(DRV Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, addressing the National Assembly of the
Vietnam Workers' Party, April 1963.)



"Prominent US public leaders in their message to you on March 1, 1963 voiced the
just demand of the American people to halt the US military intervention in South
Vietnam and call an international conference to find a peaceful solution to the
problem. Are you ready, Mr. President, to honor this just demand of your own
people? Mr. President, you must try and understand history. History had already
proved that when a nation united as one fights for its independence and freedom
as your ancestors in America once did and as the people of South Vietnam are
doing today that nation will inevitably win."

(Ho Chi Minh, addressing President Kennedy, May 8 1963.)



"The Vietnamese people will never submit to the US imperialists' threats."

(Ho Chi Minh.)



"There is great difficulty, however, in fighting a guerrilla war... we don't see
the end of the tunnel."

(US President Kennedy, New York Times Dec 13 1962.)



"Of course, it is little short of fantastic that a country facing such domestic
problems as we now face, and one that stands on the brink of a major
international financial humiliation, should be continuing to pour its substance,
to the tune of a full forth of its budget and more than half a million of its
young men, into a military adventure on the other side of the world."

(George Kennan, US News and World Report June 17 1968.)



At the end of January 1968, on the eve of Vietnamese New Year - the Tet
Festival, NLF forces launched what became known as the Tet offensive - a
countrywide offensive backed with popular uprisings. They surrounded over 6,000
US Marines at their Base at Khe Sahn just south of the 17th parallel. In July
the US was forced to abandon the base.

Early in 1975, twenty years after the US division of North and South Vietnam,
the NLF Vietnamese troops re-took what had become the largest US military base
in the world, and where US troops had first landed in Vietnam nine years
earlier, in March 1966 - Da Nang.

By the end of April the NLF had reached the outskirts of Saigon.



"The temperature in Saigon is 112 degrees and rising." Followed by Bing Crosby
singing I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas.

(Coded US radio message in Vietnam signalling all US personnel and "endangered
Vietnamese" (eg: murderers and collaborators working for the CIA) to quit
Vietnam, April 1975.)



"I, the American Ambassador, am not going to run away in ther middle of the
night. I give you my word."

(US Ambassador Graham Martin, on Saigon television, during the NLF attack, April
1975. A few days later, early in the morning of April 29, he was in his
bullet-proof car on his way to the air base to be evacuated.)



"How many coolies. are we leaving?"

(British Ambassador in Saigon John Bushell, evacuating the Embassy at the end of
the Vietnam war, April 1975.)



"Now hear this please. Each American and each dependent is entitled to one can
of Seven-Up or Sprite but only one unit per person."

(Loudspeaker announcement, US air base evacuation point, Saigon, April 1975.)



At 7.30am April 30 1975, the last US helicopter left the roof of the US Embassy
in Saigon.



"Only when the house burns, do you see the faces of the rats."

(Vietnamese saying.)



At 11.30am April 30 1975 soldiers of the Vietnamese Liberation Army entered
Saigon.



"Please direct us to the presidential palace. We don't know Saigon, we haven't
been here for some time."

(North Vietnamese tank officer on entering Saigon, May 1 1975.)



Later that same day the flag of the People's Revolutionary Government of South
Vietnam was flying over the Presidential Palace.



"This ended the 115-year long presence of foreign troops on Vietnamese soil."

(Le Duan.)



Helicopters having landed US and Vietnamese collaborators on the crowded decks
of US aircraft carriers were thrown over the side into the sea, each one costing
the American people and the Western tax-payer the price of a hospital, school or
library.



"Well folks, that just about wraps up Vietnam. So let's all have a party and
get outta here."

(Admiral of the US command fleet on the USS Blue Ridge, to evacuated US military
and Embassy staff and their "endangered" Vietnamese dependents, May 1 1975



The US President told the American people to "close ranks" and "put Vietnam
behind" them.

1,200,000 Vietnamese were killed in the US war on Vietnam, and 58,000 Americans.

More US Marines were killed in Vietnam than in the Second World War.



"Let us not forget that part of our victory was won for us by the American
people demonstrating on the lawn in front of the White House."

(Ho Chi Minh.)



"We have defeated the American invaders. Our beautiful country has forever
returned to the hands of our people... We are the complete masters of the
immense mountains, plains and seas... we will rebuild our Fatherland."

(Le Duan, 1978.)



"We shed a lot of tears. I later grasped that the USA wanted to liquidate our
homeland because it had followed the path of Ho Chi Minh into freedom. All our
people, my father, my brothers and relatives, all fought against the US
aggressors so that we could live and learn in peace. Today I work for Interflug
with some friends from Vietnam... In Beirut... War and American bombs had caught
up with me again."

(26 year old Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, citizen of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,
stewardess on GDR airline Interflug.)



"Dear Dr. Joan,...

Respected Doctor, I always remember one day in 1970 - 15 years ago - when I was
amidst the embraces and warm applause of deep international sentiments of the
British progressive people. Many historical events have occurred since then. In
my native land on 25th March 1985 we celebrated ten years of liberation; the
people were joyful, flags were flying in the peaceful sky. What a joy when
seeing my daughter together with her friends throw balls and colourful kites.

Since the liberation my homeland has seen many changes; land destroyed by US and
puppet troops' shells and bombs have been turned into new lands with the green
colour of trees and plants. 60% of peoples' houses are brick-built. We have
built schools, polyclinics and co-ops. You know how the people of Son My have
been trying their best to build a new life. We are still poor so we have to work
hard as Uncle Ho said "everyone has to take part in production to improve the
standard of life thus contributing their share in the building of Socialist
Vietnam.

May the friendship between the people of Vietnam and England become even
stronger...

With my love, Yours sincerely. Vo Thi Lien. 5A 96 Da Nang, Vietnam."

(Letter to England from Vo Thi Lien, sole survivor of the US massacre at Son My
(My Lai on US maps.))



"Agreement On Ending the War and Restoring Peace In Vietnam. January 27 1973.
(The Paris Agreement.)

Article 21.- The United States anticipates that this Agreement will usher in an
era of reconciliation with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as with all the
peoples of Indochina. In persuance of its traditional policy, the United States
will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina.

"1. The Government of the USA agrees to contribute to post-war reconstruction in
Vietnam without any political conditions.

2. The US contribution will fall in the range of 3-25 billion dollars of grant
aid over 5 years."

Signed: For the Government of the United States.

William P. Rodgers.

Secretary of State."

(Agreement on ending the Vietnam war, 1973, of which not one dollar has been
paid.)



Not one dollar has been paid. Not one ton of US rice has been dropped on the
Indochinese countries. However, more tonnage of bombs was dropped on tiny Laos
during Nixon and Kissinger's secret (secret even from Congress that is)
1969-1972 bombing of Laos than the total tonnage of all wars throughout history
- including the First and Second World Wars and the kilotonnages of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The US bombing reduced the Lao population by three million. The US
lost 2,500 aircraft in Laos - a country that did not have a single combat
aircraft. With almost a ton of explosives dropped for every Lao citizen, the
Laotians, one of the world's most friendly, gentle, kind and hospitable people,
have the dubious distinction of being also the world's most bombed people.

In economic terms, the US is still waging war on Vietnam, a war that will be
felt for many generations, possibly centuries. Between 1961 and 1971, 72 million
litres of concentrated herbicides, of which 42 million litres was Agent Orange
(Dioxin) were sprayed over 4.2 million acres of Southern Vietnam. This has led
to serious environmental changes. Deprived of tree canopy through dioxin
defoliation, the undergrowth has dried up and died, its roots no longer binding
the soil. The contaminated soil has washed down into lowland ricefields and
rivers and coastal waters. This has made some 40 percent of Southern Vietnam's
agricultural land and fisheries unusable for generations to come. Rice and fish
are Vietnam's staple diet.

This chemical warfare has resulted in large increases in chromosomal aberrations
causing cancers, miscarriages, stillbirths, and a massive increase in congenital
deformities such as anencephaly (shrunken primitive brain), absence of eyes,
limb and facial deformities, absence of jaws, tongue, internal organs, and many
other major and minor deformaties. For many generations, hundreds of thousands
of Vietnam's children will be born without eyes, arms, legs, or internal organs.
Some just cry non-stop from birth till death, unable to tell the world where
Vietnam's pain is. How do you explain to a child without eyes, arms or lips,
with which to see, cuddle up to or kiss its mother that rich scientists in a far
off land under no threat from Vietnam spend their days inventing the most
horrific weapons in order to defend "human rights" and "freedom" in the world?



"In the final analysis, it's their war."

(Kennedy, Sept 2 1963.)



"We must defend Asia once more."

(US Secretary of State Haig, at 1981 ASEAN Summit.)



"I rate myself as a deeply committed pacifist."

(President Nixon, New York Times, March 9 1971.)



"We were never the aggressors."

(Ronald Reagan.)



"We should declare war on Vietnam, then we could flatten the whole country by
midday and be back home in time for dinner."

(Ronald Reagan, Time magazine, June 1980.)



"Well, the damage was mutual. We owe them nothing."

(US President Carter, on Vietnam, 1978.)



"If we'd known about them in the first place, there would never have been a
war."

(US Vietnam veteran, TV Times, 24-30 April 1982.)



"United States policy is exactly to squeeze Vietnam to rely on the Soviet Union.
Then Vietnam will find the Soviet Union cannot meet all its needs. If Vietnam
suffers economic hardships, I think that is just great."

(Roger Sullivan, US National Security Council, April 1980.)



"The conquest of one nation by another represents the most fundamental violation
of the United Nations Charter,"

(US Sec of State Haig, UN Conference on Kampuchea (Cambodia), 1981.)



"American policy has been to scrupulously respect the neutrality of the
Cambodian people."

(Richard Nixon.)



"It seems to us that our best policy is... to avoid any act which appears to
violate the neutrality of Cambodia."

(US Secretary of State W. Rogers, Report to Foreign Relations Committee, April 2
1970.)



"If this doesn't work, it'll be your ass Henry."

(US President Nixon to Henry Kissinger, just before invading Cambodia, April
1970.)



"This is not an invasion of Cambodia."

(President Nixon, Washington, April 30 1970.)



When mass bombing failed, the US backed the Pol Pot regime, which murdered half
the population of Kampuchea.

The Western free press kept its murderous silence for three and a half years,
Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and Pol Pot was elected by
the West to represent Kampuchea at United Nations.

The Guardian reported on December 5 1986 that a US Congressional Research
Service document shows that in 1980 the US gave $54,550,000 to the 'communist'
Pol Pot.

When the horrors of Cambodia were discovered, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge had reduced
the population of Cambodia by more than three million.

Kampuchea's intellectuals and specialists - teachers, academics, doctors,
intellectuals, scientists, agricultural specialists, and other and professional
people.had been almost totally eliminated. Out of Kampuchea's 11,000 students -
453 survived; out of 23,000 secondary school teachers - 200 survived; out of
21,311 primary school teachers - 2,793 were left; and out of 1,241 artists -
there were 121 left.

The Kampuchean people have made a remarkable recovery since their liberation
from the Pol Pot horrors by Vietnamese forces in January 1979.

When Kampuchea cried out to the world for food after the horrors of Pol Pot were
exposed, the US, who dropped millions of tons of bombs and poison on the
Indochinese peoples, dropped not one bag of rice.

While British children in 1979 donated their pocket money to starving Cambodia,
their Government continued to support Pol Pot.



"Pol Pot is on our side and supports the West."

(Tory MP Nicholas Ridley.)



"Cambodia is a country of about seven million people. It's of no real strategic
value. As far as Britain is concerned, it's expendable."

(British Embassy diplomat in Thailand, June 1989.)



"...by and large a passive and docile people... The Khmers cannot be counted
upon to act in any positive way for the benefit of US aims and policies."

(From a 1959 US Defense Department Pentagon report describing the Cambodian
people. New Statesman Sept 21 1979.)



"To most Cambodians... support for the Pol Pot regime at the UN is so outrageous
that they find difficulty in believing it. They wonder whether people outside
really understand anything at all about the evil of the extermination camps like
Tuol Sleng prison and torture chamber. They would have welcomed anyone to come
and liberate them, but only Vietnam came."

(The Irish Times Feb 1981.)



"The resources of that country (Vietnam BM.) are being strained tremendously in
affording help to these refugees. They have shown a very humane and charitable
attitude towards the plight of these people who are suffering so badly from the
barbaric regime in Cambodia, and have done everything they can to help."

(Report of US special mission to Vietnam sent by Senator Edward Kennedy.)



"The British Government claims it wants the Vietnamese to get out of Kampuchea;
but by continuing support for the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese are justified in
remaining in Kampuchea as the force preventing the Khmer Rouge from returning to
power "

(Director General of Oxfam, in a letter to Francis Pym, Sept 3 1982.)



British democracy, defending our human rights and freedoms in all parts of the
world, continued each year to vote on our behalf for the so-called "Coalition
Government of Democratic Kampuchea" - the murderous Right Wing Khmer Rouge
clique of Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Son Sann, Ieng Sary and ex-Prince Sihanouk to
represent the people of Kampuchea at the General Assembly of United Nations, and
refused to recognise the Kampuchean peoples' choice of Heng Samrin as the
legitimate and de-jure government of Kampuchea. The British Government shows its
contemptuous disregard for over three million murdered Cambodians. The Western
media continued harping on about Vietnam's "invasion" of Kampuchea.



"Our rivers will always be
Our mountains will always be
Our people will always be
The American invaders defeated
We will rebuild our land ten times more beautiful."

(Ho Chi Minh.)



British school and college history, economics, sociology and business studies
syllabus teaching and books do not contain any of this information.

All the material and information I have presented here is readily available to
historians, writers, journalists, teachers, educators and syllabus publishers.
Although I have spent many hundreds of hours gathering it all together, I did
not have to look very far to find any of it.

When as a trainee history lecturer, it was suggested I take the class on a trip
to the Tower of London and then set them an essay on what life was like for a
soldier in King Charles' Army centuries ago. Very useful knowledge that! A
sociology of the past perhaps? But certainly not history in its most important
sense; unless history is to mean anything old or 'interesting' that you can do
in evening classes, like antiques, flower arranging or basket weaving. When
instead I taught real history, learning from the past in order to change the
future, the collective life-experience of humanity, I was got rid of. The head
of the history department complained that the students had remarked that I made
them think; which the head of history had probably never done in a lifetime of
teaching. I ended up washing and cleaning and emptying human surgical waste in a
hospital.

Unless teachers learn to be brave and intellectually honest (difficult when they
have a mortgage and bills to pay), future historical, social and economic
education and popular 'knowledge' will also not refer to the US or British
history and continuing complicity in global plunder, exploitation, domination
and control, wars of aggrandisement and acquisition, causing the deaths and
devastation of the homes and lands of millions of people - the thousands of
children under the age of two who will die tonight through simple lack of clean
water, medicine and education - the untold millions of unnecessary deaths among
the overwhelming majority of humanity on this incredibly rich and abundant and
ultimately sustainable earth.



Quotes from Brian Mitchell. Evolution.



The Untaught Syllabus. 7.

In Their Own Words - Quotes For Peace Activists:

Questions And Answers For Those Who Live On Fish And Rice - Defending Human
Rights In Vietnam.





"The most remarkable thing about the world is that you can understand it."
(Einstein.)


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