-- On 22 Dec 2003 at 1:10, Tim May wrote:
I, and many others, were against the war in Vietnam without being supporters of Ho Chi Minh or the Soviets or anyone of that ilk
True, but amongst the vast mass chanting Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, one could no more discern principled opponents of the Vietnam war, than one can today discern principled opponents of the Iraqi war among the Americans worrying about poor little victimized Saddam, and the mass of Europeans jumping for joy over the fall of the two towers. Amidst the pro Saddam posters on this thread, many have come rather close to chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh" -- for the example the argument that the evil CIA deprived the third world masses of their beloved socialism provided by benevolent dictators, and the argument that the US "created' the Afghan resistance -- and thus presumably every other resistance movement against the Soviets.
Essentially _none_ of them were supporters of the Soviets or the North Vietnamese qua North Vietnamese.)
Now I get to call you the pinko: They were supposedly supporters of the NLF, which they well knew was a North Vietnamese sock puppet, and thus a KGB sock puppet. And when that sock puppet was discarded to reveal the iron fist of the NVA that had been moving its lips, none of them were surprised or dismayed. Similarly Jane Fonda was supposedly not a supporter of the North Vietnamese qua North Vietnamese, yet without hesitation she lied about the condition and treatment of the POWs she met, whom she depicted as leniently treated war criminals. When some of those she lied about returned home to speak the truth, she stuck to her position, counter attacking them as hypocrites and liars, denying that they had shown signs of starvation and torture. I find it strange that the speakers at your rally were so remarkably different from the speakers at my rally -- particularly when so many of the pro Saddam posters in this thread sound like they are new nyms for the same people who spoke at my rally. If any of your speakers really thought the NLF was something other than a KGB sock puppet, they would have had posters of the supposed NLF leader on their wall. Instead, not one of these supposed supporters of the NLF blinked when the most of the NLF vanished in the 1975 purge. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG vgi7SNuqDzYgX5I5Cmd4QPW+QLDM2w78B+RO1o8f 4oxwhPbCXdnYRp30H5XOTLwLfzQyCsQo15VgpDWYW