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US Still Won't Admit Defeat

By VVAW

On September 14th the United Nations Security Council, acting on a French proposal, postponed debate on UN membership for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The postponement was made in hopes averting an expected veto by the US. US Ambassador William Scranton has been directed by President Ford to veto Vietnam's membership to the UN because of what he characterized as "Vietnam's failure to account for more than 800 military personnel still missing in Vietnam." Additionally, Scranton added to reporters, "that this wasn't a political decision. The US role in the United Nations is non-partisan and the United Nations is not a political organization." The reason for the planned veto is obviously an ill-disguised tactic to cover for the US loss in Vietnam. Scranton's statement will probably stand as one of the poorly done "ignorance" ploys in a long time.

In postponing the vote on Vietnam's membership, the other 14 members of the council had hoped that following the US elections in November, that a shift in policy, meaning Carter's election or voter pressure off Ford, would dissolve the US veto. Meanwhile Carter has stated that he agrees with Ford's decision to block Vietnam's membership.

The issue of the MIAs is a shallow and outrageous cover for the resistance to Vietnam's membership. Ford and the US ruling class he fronts for could give a damn less about the 800 MIAs anymore than they cared about the actual dead and wounded from the Vietnam War. The US is continually raising the issue of MIAs as a weapon is dealing with Vietnam. Vietnam has met all the conditions stipulated in the peace agreements; the US has met none. If there are questions about MIAs, people must examine the primary question about them: what were they doing there in the first place?

The US ruling class threw almost everything they had at Vietnam, attempting to crush the people's struggle there. With calculated policies of devastation and genocide the US failed to break the national liberation movement in that country and was eventually driven from the country dragging its puppet rulers with them. This is the primary motivation behind the US veto of Vietnam. It does not want Vietnamese participation in international affairs and it does not want to suffer the loss of international prestige by having to deal openly with a small country that so thoroughly defied it power and won.

In a similar situation the US attempted to block the Peoples' Republic of China, representing one quarter of the world's population, from the UN for years. More than a simple revenge, China and now Vietnam represented a clear-cut slap in the face to US foreign policy. As John Foster Dulles, chief architect of US imperialism after World War II bluntly put it, "We have no enemies, only interests."

Of late US participation in the UN has been severely limited by the majority of countries of the world who have consistently defeated just about every proposal by the US. US Secretary of State Kissinger has even threatened that the US will take its marbles and go home because the nations are not jumping to the tine of US imperialism any longer.

The question not if Vietnam will be admitted to the UN but when Vietnam will be admitted. The US but when Vietnam will be admitted. The US and the few of its remaining "faithful" nations will eventually be swept away in their blocking attempt as they face the will of the world's people who won't allow this outrage in their name. Vietnam will win!