Vietnam's (meager) resources

Justin Schwartz jschwart at freenet.columbus.oh.us
Tue Jun 2 18:05:26 PDT 1998


On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Doug Henwood wrote:


> Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> >Why not take the Pentagon's own word that the war aim was about 85% to
> >save and only about 10% to stop communism?
>
> I assume "face" was omitted there. What does "safe face" mean? In this
> context it means retaining your rep as an imperialist enforcer. Vietnam had
> to be pummelled or no one would ever take orders from the U.S. again.
> Stopping Communism and defending imperialism were pretty synonymous for a
> long time.

OK, but the Pentagon madea distinction. Communsim was less important than national prestige. --jks



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