MY COUNTRY-RIGHT OR WRONG!

MY COUNTRY – RIGHT OR WRONG!

It is well known throughout our great land that America stands for liberty, for the underdog, that we are the GOOD GUYS and we will stand and defend the freedom and lives of our friends and allies against a common foe. This hallowed belief is so branded into our American national conscience that to think otherwise is considered unpatriotic and immoral. But, is this the way the rest of the world sees us?

Is our government living up to our self-proclaimed and cherished belief?

I can only reply through my personal love of journalism and factual history. Take Vietnam for example.

In September of 1945, US Liberty ships, manned by British officers and American seamen, returned the French colonial troops to Saigon. This was after Ho Chi Mihn's soldiers (aided by American OSS fighters) fought for two years to expel the occupying Japanese, and after Ho Chi Minh, with the vast support of the Vietnamese people, declared Vietnam (ALL OF IT) a free and independent republic.

The United States ignored this, and then supplied all the arms and 80% of the funds for the French to reinstate 'Colonialism' in Indochina. Of course, they eventually lost out to Ho Chi Minh and the free Vietnamese army at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Ignoring that most of Asia was trying to get rid of their repressive colonial masters, we sent Colonel Ed Landsdale, a CIA operative, to begin covert operations against this Vietnamese government, in full violation of the Geneva Accords. From 1954 to 1963, these covert ops killed thousands Vietnamese, subjecting many to wounds and torture.

The covert war became overt in 1963, when we invaded Vietnam with regular US troops; and lasted until 1975, with American taxpayers paying hundreds of billions of dollars to the military industrial complex.

In 1975, after the fall of the South Vietnamese American installed regime, action went covert again until the late 1980's, including CIA and British operatives training and supplying the Khmer Rouge to fight the Vietnamese after the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, "to stop the killing-fields of Pol Pot atrocities."

In total, over 6 million Indochinese people, at least 65 % of them civilians, were killed from what we begun in 1945. Today, civilians are still being killed by mines and chemicals such as Agent Orange.

The fact that masochistic renegades on both sides committed wartime atrocities was and is an issue for the world court to handle.

I have often wondered what the American people would say if told of this covered-up, entirely accurate, true history of post WWII Indochina. A history our government shamefully helped to create but still refuses to acknowledge. What would they say once their eyes were opened up to what has, and still is, being done in 'their' names and in the name of democracy?

That's the reality behind much of our military adventurism in most of the Americas, SE Asia, the Middle East, and other places: Simple truths which the sleepy, consumer indoctrinated American public sleeps through, until the next round of innocents-our young soldiers now made into professional mercenaries, are sent somewhere else to defend America from its next designated communist/Islamic/dollar driven devil.

This does not in any way belittle or devalue the magnificent sacrifices made by our young military men and women, myself among them. I am very proud to have served my country, but I will tell you straight and to the point, there are times when our government truly scares me.

The idea I want to bring out in this short essay is that far too often we Americans, who take special pride in the first amendment, only hear one side of the story, the story our government and media wish us to hear.

No country has a right to dictate to another what type of government they will live under. It is their sovereign obligation to instate whatever type of government best suits them. It is also their sovereign right to maintain or terminate their own government without outside intervention.

Our government’s support of dictatorial regimes has tarnished our image almost beyond repair. Does our government have the right to do evil things or support evil people in the name of democracy?

I personally do not believe that 'being evil' is worth the price of being free.

Here are some significant quotes to ponder:

"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalizm. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interest in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interest in 1916, I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the RAPE of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
"U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler-Common Sense 1935.

"The greatest crime since WWII has been U.S. foreign policy."
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General.

"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these {third world} nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And, if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.
"General David Sharp, former Commandant United States Marine Corps.

So, why did we fight in Vietnam? You tell me?