Vietnam Syndrome: Impact on US Foreign Policy

443 Pages·1997·22.938 MB·English

by  Geoff Simons

VIETNAM SYNDROME
Also by Geoff Simons and published by Macmillan
CUBA: From Conquistador to Castro
IRAQ: From Sumer to Saddam
KOREA: The Search for Sovereignty
LIBYA: The Struggle for Survival
THE SCOURGING OF IRAQ: Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice
THE UNITED NATIONS: A Chronology of Conflict
UN MALAISE: Power, Problems and Realpolitik
Some other books by Geoff Simons
EVOLUTION OF THE INTELLIGENT MACHINE
THE WITCHCRAFT WORLD
THE USES OF MICROPROCESSORS
A HISTORY OF SEX
SEX IN THE MODERN WORLD
WOMEN IN COMPUTING
IS GOD A PROGRAMMER? Religion in the Computer Age
THE PHALLIC MYSTIQUE
ARE COMPUTERS ALIVE? Evolution and New Life Forms
SEX AND SUPERSTITION
SILICON PSYCHOSIS: Derangement in the Global Network
PRIVACY IN THE COMPUTER AGE
A PLACE FOR PLEASURE: A History of the Brothel
THE BIOLOGY OF COMPUTER LIFE: Survival, Emotion and Free Will
EXPERT SYSTEMS AND MICROS
FRAUD AND ABUSE OF IT SYSTEMS
IS MAN A ROBOT?
PORNOGRAPHY WITHOUT PREJUDICE: A Reply to Objectors
VIRUSES, BUGS AND STAR WARS: The Hazards of Unsafe Computing
ROBOTS: The Quest for Living Machines
MANAGEMENT GUIDE TO OFFICE AUTOMATION
ECO-COMPUTER: The Impact of Global Intelligence
SILICON SHOCK: The Menace of the Computer Invasion
SEX TOMORROW
INTRODUCING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
TOWARDS FIFTH-GENERATION COMPUTERS
Vietnam Syndrome
Impact on US Foreign Policy
Geoff Simons
Foreword by Tony Benn, MP
fA
©Geoff Simons 1998
Foreword © Tony Benn, MP, 1998
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
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ISBN 0-333-71127-0
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The picture of the world's greatest super-power killing or seriously injuring 1,000
non-combatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submis
sion ... is not a pretty one.
US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (19 May 1967)
The West has never been allowed to forget the Nazi holocaust. . . . Never again!
But who hears the voice of the Vietnamese peasant? Who can read the language of
the Vietnamese intellectual? What was the fate of the Vietnam Anne Frank?
Where, asks the young American, is Vietnam?
William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History (1991)
At night, the Americans would come in a helicopter and shine a light on the shel
ters, and shoot. They dropped napalm and burned and killed many people. . . . In
Bin Duong village across the river, twenty-one women were raped in an afternoon
by Americans, not just once but one after the other. Some died on the spot, and
others died later. My husband was taken to prison and tortured to death. He was a
farmer.
Mrs Huynh Thi Pham, in Then the Americans Came (1993)
... nothing that we had seen or read had quite prepared us for the particular form
of devastation which has now befallen the country [Iraq]. The recent conflict has
wrought near-apocalyptic results ... most means of modern life support have been
destroyed ... Iraq has for some time to come, been relegated to a
pre-industrial age ...food... cannot be preserved and distributed; water cannot be
purified; sewage cannot be pumped away and cleansed; crops cannot be irrigated;
medicaments cannot be conveyed...
Martti Ahtisaari, UN Under-Secretary-General for Administration and
Management (20 March 1991)
... findings illustrate a strong association between economic sanctions and
increase in child mortality and malnutrition rates ... since August 1990, 567,000
children in Iraq have died as a consequence.
Sarah Zaidi and Mary C. Smith Fawzi, The Lancet
(2 December 1995)
By God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.
President George Bush (March 1991)

Contents
List of Tables x
List of Figures xi
Foreword by Tony Benn, MP xii
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction xvii
PART I THE TRAUMA OF DEFEAT
1 The Shaping of a Syndrome 3
Preamble 3
The Debacle 3
The Damage 6
The Psychiatry 9
No More Vietnams 13
The Lessons 24
PART II THE HISTORY
2 Vietnam - The Turbulent Past 33
Preamble 33
Origins 34
The Chinese Impact 39
The Independent Dynasties 46
Ly Dynasty (1010-1224) 47
Tran Dynasty (1224-1427) 49
Later Le Dynasty (1428-1788) 58
The European Impact 64
The Second World War 85
1945 90
The Road to Dien Bien Phu 96
The Geneva Accords 105
vn
viii Contents
3 United States - The Route to Hegemony 108
Preamble 108
The Natal Genocide 109
The Racial Sanction 118
The Imperial Ambition 129
The Engine of Capitalism 139
The Cold War Frame 154
PART III THE VIETNAM WAR
4 Vietnam - A War at Home 163
Preamble 163
The Chronology 163
A People at War 203
The Scale of Atrocity 213
5 United States - A War Abroad 228
Preamble 228
The Price 229
From Demoralisation ... 230
... To Brutalisation 237
The Race Question 241
Management of Opinion 246
The Public Rebellion 251
Response to the Draft 259
The Veteran Legacy 261
PART IV IMPACT ON US FOREIGN POLICY
6 Options and Issues 267
Preamble 267
The Face of Hegemony 267
The Options 279
Propaganda 280
Low Intensity Warfare (LIW)/Terrorism 288
The United Nations/Sanctions 292
The Manipulation of Law 298
Financial Weapons 303
Contents IX
Section Summary 306
Issues 307
Vietnam 308
El Salvador 324
Iraq 332
Appendices
1 General Uprising Order by Vo Nguyen Giap, 12 August 1945 342
2 Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam, 2 September 1945 344
3 Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference on the Problem
of Restoring Peace in Indo-China (Geneva, 21 July 1954) 346
4 United States Declaration on Indochina: Statement made by
Under Secretary of State Walter B. Smith at the concluding
Indochina plenary session, 21 July 1954 348
5 The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (extracts) 349
6 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of
\996 (extracts) 350
7 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the
Safety of Civil Aviation (Montreal, 23 September 1971)
(extracts) 354
8 Letter from Archbishop Romero to President Carter
(17 February 1980) 356
Notes 358
Bibliography 381
Vietnam 381
Other 385
Index 392