[lbo-talk] Re: Ending the Occupation

Michael Pugliese michael098762001 at earthlink.net
Sun Nov 28 11:58:03 PST 2004


http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041122/027505.html Carrol Cox>...At the end of his plan for dissolving the anti-war effort, Tom Hayden...But then his aim of dissolving the movement is clear in his very first step: "The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war."

Thus reprising the successful effort of Hayden, Fred Branfman et. al. in the early 70's to cut off US aid to the South Vietnamese regime via lobbying for the Clark amendment in Congress. Thus tipping the military balance of forces towards the NLF/NVA who triumphed on April 30,1975.

Reagan admin. figure James Webb http://www.google.com/search?q=hayden+cutting+off+aid+south+vietnam http://www.caerdroia.org/blog/archives/000170.html
> ...This article by James Webb, courtesy of the Braden Files, talks about
> the end of the Viet Nam war and the part played in it by the hard left
> and the entertainment industry. The history of that ending is perhaps
> the most ignominious chapter of American history, but not for the
> reasons most people think.

This so-called Watergate Congress rode into town with an overriding mission that had become the rallying point of the American Left: to end all American assistance in any form to the besieged government of South Vietnam. Make no mistake—this was not the cry of a few years earlier to stop young Americans from dying. It had been two years since the last American soldiers left Vietnam, and fully four years since the last serious American casualty calls there.

For reasons that escape historical justification, even after America’s military withdrawal the Left continued to try to bring down the incipient South Vietnamese democracy. Future White House aide Harold Ickes and others at "Project Pursestrings" ... worked to cut off all congressional funding intended to help the South Vietnamese defend themselves. The Indochina Peace Coalition, run by David Dellinger and headlined by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, coordinated closely with Hanoi throughout 1973 and 1974, and barnstormed across America’s campuses, rallying students to the supposed evils of the South Vietnamese government. Congressional allies repeatedly added amendments to spending bills to end U.S. support of Vietnamese anti-Communists, precluding even air strikes to help South Vietnamese soldiers under attack by North Vietnamese units that were assisted by Soviet-bloc forces.

Then in early 1975 the Watergate Congress dealt non-Communist Indochina the final blow. The new Congress icily resisted President Gerald Ford’s January request for additional military aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia. This appropriation would have provided the beleaguered Cambodian and South Vietnamese militaries with ammunition, spare parts, and tactical weapons needed to continue their own defense. Despite the fact that the 1973 Paris Peace Accords called specifically for "unlimited military replacement aid" for South Vietnam, by March the House Democratic Caucus voted overwhelmingly, 189-49, against any additional military assistance to Vietnam or Cambodia.

-- Michael Pugliese



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