Regarding the "arguments" Horowitz makes concerning Vietnam: the reason
(as Ted M. stated) 2.5 million Vietnamese people died was not becasue the
antiwar movement demanded a withdrawal, it was becasue the war machinery
of the United Staes and its allies killed them, plain and simple. If our
call for a withdrawal had been heeded in 1967 or 1968 (even 1969) several
hundred thousand Vietnamese (and arguably Cambodians) would not have
died. The myth that it was the media and the antiwar movement which
caused the US defeat is exactly that-a myth. A major fact remains that
the
ruling elites in the US could not agree on how to run the war without
nuclear weapons and, although NIxon/Kissinger seriously considered doing
so, cooler heads prevailed in the wake of the major protests in Fall
1969. The primary evil power in the world (if one is to get
moralistic) should be measured by the number of evil acts undertaken by
its political and military machinery and, while the 20th century certainly
had more than its share of contenders for this title, it's seems pretty
certain that the US (especially in the post WW II era) will get quite a
few votes, probably a third place finish after Stalin's USSR and Hitler's
Reich (although some might give third to Mao's China in sheer tems of its
apparent barbarity. (The US system of empire is much more insidious and
consequently seems less sadistic to the casual observe).
Blaming the antiwar movement for the blodbath in Vietnam is a bit like
blaming those who opposed HItler's Reich in the 19030s in Germany for the
camps and slaughter that occurred therein. Or like Ronald reagan laying a
wreath at the SS cemetery in Bitburg and telling the worl that the members
of the SS were "victims" too......
-ron jacobs
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