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Ford's Mayaguez Set-Up Backfires

By VVAW

Even as the Cambodian people were binding up the wounds of 5 years of war and consolidating the recent liberation of their country, the US was sending troops ships and bombers back to attach Cambodia and create the so-called "Mayaguez incident." Since the liberation of Cambodia, the US government has continued to carry out a steady series of sabotage and espionage activities against the new Cambodia government, the Royal Government of National Union of Cambodia (GRUNC). A number of boats have been captured with Thai and Cambodia mercenaries carrying large amounts of explosives, US weapons and modern communications gear. On being questioned, they all admitted being CIA agents sent to disrupt the new government and send intelligence back to the US. On May 7th, another such incident occurred when a ship of supposedly Panamanian registry was detained for a few days for carrying out reconnaissance activities just a few kilometers off the coast of Cambodia.

Then on May 12th, the US container vessel Mayaguez intruded into Cambodian waters to carry out provocations against the new government. In a totally justifiable move aimed at safeguarding the sovereignty and security of their country, the Cambodians seized the Mayaguez and its crew of 39. The events that followed this are all too well known. The next day (May 13th), the US sent fighter planes to bomb Cambodian ships and port facilities. When the bombing continued on the 14th, GRUNC decided to release the ship and crew because "of good will and desire for a cal, and peaceful life... despite the fact that the vessel had encroached upon and blatantly carried out spying and provocative activities..." Though the ship and crew were released at dawn on the 15th, the US went on to launch a massive land, sea and air attack on Cambodia--a full 3 1/2 hours after the crew and ship were released.

During the attack that went in throughout the rest of the day, the US landed a force of 210 Marines on Cambodia's Tang Island- -at one point dropping a 15,000 pound bomb on the GRUNC troops defending it- -and bombed and strafed the port city of Sihanoukville, the naval base at the town of Ream, a nearby airfield and an oil refinery. All of these attacks caused the Cambodian people a terrible loss of human life. In addition, serious damage was done to key installations in the war-weakened Cambodian economy.

On the US side, the venture cost the lives of some 18 US Marines, with another 50-70 wounded, depending on whose casualty figures you care to use. (Another 23 were killed in Thailand on May 13th when an Air Force helicopter crashed enroute to U Tapao Air force Base--the staging area for the attack on Tang Island--for possible use in the operation.) Anyway you cut it, the Tang Island landing was an utter disaster for the US. The US landed troops on the wrong island to rescue the ship's crew that had been released 3 1/2 hours earlier and suffered close to 50% casualties in the process. President Ford had the nerve to call it a "great victory." It's doubtful the hundred or so US casualties will see the Mayaguez incident as a "great victory."

A logical question is why the hell did the US do all this? If the Ford administration knew ships had been detained in the same area, why didn't it warn the Mayaguez--if it was the "innocent merchant" ship portrayed by the US propaganda? Why did the US military viciously attack Cambodia AFTER the Mayaguez and its crew had been released? The answer is simple. It did all this because it had to. First, the US government is still unreconciled to the victories of the Indochinese people and is madly scrambling about trying to cover up its defeat and sabotage the new revolutionary governments. Secondly, the US has got a "rep" to maintain as the meanest gangster in world politics. It needs to prove to its lackey friends and that it won't sell them out in a pinch. Finally, faced with an uncontrollable economic crisis at home, the Ford Administration is hoping to "escape" from the crisis by starting another war. To do this, the government must first attempt to dupe the American people into support for wars of aggression.

The Mayaguez incident was tailor made to fulfill all these needs. It was a set-up deal from the start. A New York Times article printed before the news of the fighting in Cambodia had reached the US noted "high-ranking sources familiar with military strategy and planning" said that" the seizure of the vessel might provide the test of American determination that the US Government has been seeking since the collapse of allied governments in South Vietnam and Cambodia." Going a step farther, Secretary of State Kissinger laid the cards right out on the table. In a news briefing, he said that the live of the Mayaguez crew "must unfortunately be a secondary consideration" and revealed that the real reason the raids had been set up was to show that "there are linits beyond which the US cannot be pushed." For the US to create the entire Mayaguez incident and then turn around and call the Cambodian seizure of the ship "an act of piracy" is to literally turn the truth on its head. It is the old game of a thief calling "stop thief" to hide his own crimes.

But, for all its plotting and scheming, the US created Mayaguez incident blew up in the Ford administration's face. The harder it tries to appear strong, the weaker it proves to the world it really is. The "tough" guy the US tries to the whole world as a bully that picks on small, weak countries. But as Cambodia Laos, and Vietnam have shown, those small, ?weak' countries can whip hell out of aggressors hundreds of times stronger than they are. The US actions around the Mayaguez were condemned by governments all around the world. Even the faithful servant of the US, the government of Thailand, was forced to condemn the act. Trying to save its own neck, Thailand had to accommodate the new revolutionary governments in Indochina and placate its own peoples' hatred of US imperialism. As one result of Ford's "great victory" Thailand nearly broke diplomatic relations with the US for launching the attack on Cambodia from Thai soil and ordered the US to rapidly speed up the evacuation of the remaining US forces in Thailand.

Just like a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit, the more the US thrashes about causing trouble and trying to get out of the crisis it is in, the deeper it sinks into the pit. It may try starting trouble like it did with the Mayaguez incident as a way of solving its problems, but in the long run, all it's doing is sinking deeper into a pit it's never going to get out of.