"C. G. Estabrook" wrote:
>
> [Chomsky has long argued that the US didn't really lose the
> Vietnam War, as below. That seems to me correct. --CGE]
>
I agree with Chomsky's argument, but I would reword it by questioning the content of "the US." If that means the ruling class and its fundamental needs, Yes. If it means the american people, then No. We and the Vietnamese people lost together.
There is a marvelous poem by W.D. Ehrhart that captures this,
"Letter
_to a North Vietnamese soldier
whose life crossed paths with mine
in Hue City, February 5th, 1968_"
It begins
Thought you killed me with that rocket? Well, you nearly did: splattered walls and splintered air, knocked me cold and full of holes, and brought the roof down on my head.
* * * But I lived, long enough to wonder often how you missed; long enough to wish too many times you hadn't.
What's it like back there? It's all behind us here; and after all those years of possibility, things are back to normal. We just had a special birthday
.............................................
_Do better than that_ you cockeyed gunner with the brass to send me back alive among a people I can never feel at ease with anymore.
remember where you've been, and why. And then build houses; build villages, dikes and schools, songs . . . . ............................................
It seems that the u.s. ravaging of Vietnam left too little resources for that 'cockeyed gunner' and his fellows to follow Ehrhart's hope for them.
Carrol