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Westy Babbles On

By VVAW

William C Westmoreland, the big daddy of the Vietnam brass is currently running around the country hawking his book, A Soldier Reports and in the process is leaving a trail of crap so deep that it would be enough to fill the Pentagon three times over.

Westmoreland was the general who, in 1965, saw "the light at the end of the tunnel" in regard to US victory in Vietnam. The statements he is making to the press while he sells his book make about as much sense as his famous quote.

According to him the reason why people in the United State turned against the war was because was watched it on television. He said that people didn't see World War II or the Korean War on TV and that because there was news censorship during those wars it helped on the battlefield. If Vietnam had news censorship, he could have won the war. "Oh, they were seeing the sensationalized war news over TV every night. It wasn't the same war we were seeing in Vietnam." What the hell did he think people were watching--Korean War reruns?

People didn't turn against the war because Walter Cronkite told us so. And it wasn't because there was no censorship either. We got a slanted view of the war; just as slanted as the military press releases put out about it. Lies such as Americans "freeing" towns from the "domination of the VC" (who were in fact fighters for the Vietnamese people). But there was enough news about the war and there was enough understanding gained over a period of years by the American people to turn against it because the war was wrong. It was a war to suppress the freedom of the Vietnamese people by the rich of this country.

And if Westmoreland thought people were only swayed by what they saw on TV, then how does he account for the thousands of veterans who came back from the war, told the truth about what the US military was doing there and joined the millions of people demonstrating against it? He can't. Because being a front man for the US ruling class, he's only capable of echoing their lies and being rewarded by shining the little fading stars on his mothballed uniform.

Westmoreland was always asking for more troops in Vietnam. "If we only had another 100,000 troops, we could win," he always seemed to be saying. At the height of US military presence in Vietnam there were about 500,000 GIs with additional South Korean, Australian, and Thai soldiers. With all these forces and with the B-52s and harbor mines, etc, he couldn't get to first base in the face of the determination of the Vietnamese people to rid themselves of the US corporate interests and their military.

Recently, in Paris, Westmoreland was still putting forward that if the US had systematically pounded the port of Haiphong and the city of Hanoi as well as other targets with B-52s they could have forced the Vietnamese to deal with the US government on its terms. Maybe his memory is fading away, but the US used more bombs in Indochina that were dropped in during World War II. The harbor at Haiphong was mined and in December 1972, both Hanoi and Haiphong were bombed incessantly.

Ask any vet who was in Vietnam about the determination of the Vietnamese. All the bombs in the world could have been dropped there causing much worse damage than was done. It may have taken longer to win it, but there was no stopping their national resolve for liberation. The Vietnamese freedom fighters were not fighting for the oil companies--they were fighting for independence.

And the Vietnamese had allies all over the world, including in the US and also including the thousands of American GIs who weren't going to get killed for oil companies either. Massive refusals to go into combat were facts that can't be glossed over by Westmoreland or the class he represents.

With reminiscences about how things could have been if he had his way, we don't need Westmoreland any more than we need venereal disease. But Westmoreland is still useful to the ruling class. Not only is he dreaming about the Vietnam War, he's putting forward views on "detente" or "peace through strength," or whatever they are calling it in efforts to whip up war hysteria.

Recently he stated, "The Soviets have reached parity with us, and it is almost inevitable that they will overtake us militarily in the next five years. They have the momentum." And he gave warning that Congress was over-reacting to what he called "the disaster of Vietnam and the tragedy of Watergate." But that they would come back to "reality."

In fact they have come back to Westmoreland's "reality." With near hysteria Congress is taking up the call of the US ruling class, passing bills to increase the defense budget and gearing up for war with rivals, the ruling class of the Soviet Union--chief competitors for grabbing up countries and resources to squeeze profit out of. Now they are trying to get us to believe that it would be in our interests to fight a war with the Soviet Union. But our enemy is not the working people of the USSR anymore than it was the Vietnamese in Indochina. Our enemy is right here at home; our own ruling class. The only thing we have in common with them is a battlefield--and we're on opposite sides. If there is another rich man's war, our task will be to fight against them, not for them.

When Westmoreland or anyone else with the same view puts forward his lessons of the Vietnam war--"Once this country makes a commitment we should be prepared to back it"--we should see that "this country" is not us, but them, the ruling class, and that our interest aren't the same as theirs. We must oppose wars like Vietnam and fight like hell against any rich man's war.

Westmoreland will probably continue to travel around with his lies and distortions. While he's not the only one with the same song and dance, it would give particular delight to veterans if he took the advice of his predecessor, Douglas MacArthur, the Klunkhead of the Korean War, and "Just fade away."