French War Crimes

[Brad De Long]

RE:
>
>If we are going to replay the Vietnam War, let's keep a few things
>straight. No conceivable set of facts (or for that matter inconveivable
>set) about the contending virtues or vices of various forces in Vietnam
>can change the fundamental fact that the United States invaded Vietnam,
>and that all Vietnamese who aided that invasion were traitors, all
>*knowledgeable* Americans who supported the invasion were supporting a
>war crime.

Let me say that I reject this analysis strongly.

I strongly reject any chain of argument that leads to the condemnation as a
"war crime" of the invasion of the British Empire in the late 1770s by
Lafayette and his volunteers.

I am glad that Lafayette invaded the British Empire to aid the cause of
liberty. And I reject the claim that Americans--like my ancestor Artemus
Ward--who allied with a foreign power against their own government were
traitors.

Brad DeLong