Conclusion: By interfering, the USA was responsible in causation for the deaths of (correction 3)–5.1 million Vietnamese, give or take a few.
So endeth the sermon by Peter at
Lavartus Prodeo. Argueing from a lawyers viewpoint he posts an article with the sole purpose of sheeting the blame for an inflated casualty rate on the US. I have just attended a reunion of the 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment at Fremantle in Western Australia and can only express amazement at Peter’s naivity, or is it blinded ignorance?
On the Indian Pacific a fellow traveller asks me why I was going to Perth, I mention the reunion and he says ah yes, Vietnam…such a waste. I enlighten him and for the first time in his lifer he thinks beyond the 10 second audio visual bites he was fed on the evening news. I tell him we who fought it don’t think it a waste. At the very least we stemmed the flow of the scourge of communism for a decade and depleted the coffers of the USSR and Communist China to such an extent that the events that lead to the fall of the Berlin War were set in train.
Millions escaped after the fall of Saigon by boat, by plane, by anything that would remove them from the hell that was coming. Millions didn’t.
Lefties still mintain the soft view of Ho Chi Minh that portays him as a nationalist with his only intention being to rid Vietnam of the French and later, the US, when from day one he was a marxist, schooled by the Soviets to take over both South and North Vietnam to form a communist bastion in the east.
To view a ten year war through the statutes of law seems a strange approach to me. I see men in suits arguening the case but the backdrop, the rear wall of the court room, is enscribed with millions of names of men who died and all Peter can do is argue for the aggressors. The communists invaded; the Free World forces tried to defend.
Maybe Peter was around when the war was on but somehow I doubt it. I was there and went back a couple of years ago to view first hand the results of 30 plus years of communism. The economy has been comatozed for decades and is just showing some life now the old Marxists are dying and losing power. Yet the people have a shadow over them of the millions who have disappeared or are still alive but shattered by re-education camps. Over the road from the bar I frequented a family lives on the profit from selling a dozen or so soft drinks per day…..in 2004.
How can educated men defend this?
School, Uni, Law School, employment with Smith, Smith and Smith, see the world through a law book. Never touch the dead just count them and use the stats to put a fallacious arguement.
Makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it?