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It still boggles my mind to find academics on this list perpetuating the basic rationale of the CIA, and US policy in general during the Cold War: Stalin's was the worst regime of the century. Therefore alliance with anyone and anything to end it was an acceptable lesser evil. Q.E.D. The "Defense" Department is less subtle and, ipso facto, more honest (or less dishonest?): "On April 5th [1999], the Pentagon announced a Cold War Recognition Certificate, for which all 22 million Americans who had served in the armed forces during that period of history would be eligible. This would be of no serious significance but for the fact that it officially specified the U.S. Defense Department's view of two critical dates in history. The first was its identification of when the Cold War started: September 2, 1945, the date of Japan's surrender. In other words, the U.S. began the Cold War on the day the military alliance with the Soviet Union ended, before Moscow had any opportunity to do the things which the American people were told for half a century were the reasons for the hostility. The other date is the last for which a former serviceman can claim the certificate. This is December 26, 1991, the day the Soviet Union was dissoleved. So we have official admission that the object of the Cold War was not keeping the peace, but bringing Soviet socialism to an end." Saying No To Power, p. 616 [my autobiography]
"Ronald M. Jacobs" wrote: > > 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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