30
   

What's the chance of Ted Cruz becoming president?

 
 
JTT
 
  0  
Sat 16 Nov, 2013 10:39 pm
@edgarblythe,
That is the reality, although I candidly admit that there are an awful lot of silly perceptions held by Americans and many others. The facts, and therefore the war crimes, when they are compared to the Nazis and the Japanese, are the equivalent or worse.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  1  
Sat 16 Nov, 2013 10:51 pm
@edgarblythe,
Modern History Sourcebook:
President Lyndon Johnson and Ho Chi Minh:
Letter Exchange, 1967

PEACE NEGOTIATIONS IN VIETNAM

Letter from President Johnson to Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, February 8, 1967

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to you in the hope that the conflict in Vietnam can be brought to an end. That conflict has already taken a heavy toll-in lives lost, in wounds inflicted, in property destroyed, and in simple human misery. If we fail to find a just and peaceful solution, history will judge us harshly.

Therefore, I believe that we both have a heavy obligation to seek earnestly the path to peace. It is in response to that obligation that I am writing directly to you.

We have tried over the past several years, in a variety of ways and through a number of channels, to convey to you and your colleagues our desire to achieve a peaceful settlement. For whatever reasons, these efforts have not achieved any results. . . .

In the past two weeks, I have noted public statements by representatives of your government suggesting that you would be prepared to enter into direct bilateral talks with representatives of the U.S. Government, provided that we ceased "unconditionally" and permanently our bombing operations against your country and all military actions against it. In the last day, serious and responsible parties have assured us indirectly that this is in fact your proposal.

Let me frankly state that I see two great difficulties with this proposal. In view of your public position, such action on our part would inevitably produce worldwide speculation that discussions were under way and would impair the privacy and secrecy of those discussions. Secondly, there would inevitably be grave concern on our part whether your government would make use of such action by us to improve its military position.

With these problems in mind, I am prepared to move even further towards an ending of hostilities than your Government has proposed in either public statements or through private diplomatic channels. I am prepared to order a cessation of bombing against your country and the stopping of further augmentation of U.S. forces in South Viet-Nam as soon as I am assured that infiltration into South Viet-Nam by land and by sea has stopped. These acts of restraint on both sides would, I believe, make it possible for us to conduct serious and private discussions leading toward an early peace.

I make this proposal to you now with a specific sense of urgency arising from the imminent New Year holidays in Viet-Nam. If you are able to accept this proposal I see no reason why it could not take effect at the end of the New Year, or Tet, holidays. The proposal I have made would be greatly strengthened if your military authorities and those of the Government of South Viet-Nam could promptly negotiate an extension of the Tet truce.

As to the site of the bilateral discussions I propose, there are several possibilities. We could, for example, have our representatives meet in Moscow where contacts have already occurred. They could meet in some other country such as Burma. You may have other arrangements or sites in mind, and I would try to meet your suggestions.

The important thing is to end a conflict that has brought burdens to both our peoples, and above all to the people of South Viet-Nam. If you have any thoughts about the actions I propose , it would be most important that I receive them as soon as possible.

Sincerelv,

Lyndon B. Johnson



PRESIDENT HO CHI MINH'S REPLY TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S LETTER

February 15, 1967

Excellency, on February 10, 1967, I received your message. Here is my response.

Viet-Nam is situated thousands of miles from the United States. The Vietnamese people have never done any harm to the United States. But, contrary to the commitments made by its representative at the Geneva Conference of 1954, the United States Government has constantly intervened in Viet-Nam, it has launched and intensified the war of aggression in South Viet-Nam for the purpose of prolonging the division of Viet-Nam and of transforming South Viet-Nam into an American neo-colony and an American military base. For more than two years now, the American Government, with its military aviation and its navy, has been waging war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, an independent and sovereign country.

The United States Government has committed war crimes, crimes against peace and against humanity. In South Viet-Nam a half-million American soldiers and soldiers from the satellite countries have resorted to the most inhumane arms and the most barbarous methods of warfare, such as napalm, chemicals, and poison gases in order to massacre our fellow countrymen, destroy the crops, and wipe out the villages. In North Viet-Nam thousands of American planes have rained down hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, destroying cities, villages, mills, roads, bridges, dikes, dams and even churches, pagodas, hospitals, and schools. In your message you appear to deplore the suffering and the destruction in Viet-Nam. Permit me to ask you: Who perpetrated these monstrous crimes? It was the American soldiers and the soldiers of the satellite countries. The United States Government is entirely responsible for the extremely grave situation in Viet-Nam. . . .

The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, liberty, and peace. But in the face of the American aggression they have risen up as one man, without fearing the sacrifices and the privations. They are determined to continue their resistance until they have won real independence and liberty and true peace. Our just cause enjoys the approval and the powerful support of peoples throughout the world and of large segments of the American people.

The United States Government provoked the war of aggression in Viet-Nam. It must cease that aggression, it is the only road leading to the re-establishment of peace. The United States Government must halt definitively and unconditionally the bombings and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, withdraw from South Viet-Nam all American troops and all troops from the satellite countries, recognize the National Front of the Liberation of South Viet-Nam and let the Vietnamese people settle their problems themselves. Such is the basic content of the four-point position of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, such is the statement of the essential principles and essential arrangements of the Geneva agreements of 1954 on Viet-Nam. It is the basis for a correct political solution of the Vietnamese problem. In your message you suggested direct talks between the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the United States. If the United States Government really wants talks, it must first halt unconditionally the bombings and all other acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. It is only after the unconditional halting of the American bombings and of all other American acts of war against the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and the United States could begin talks and discuss questions affecting the two parties.

The Vietnamese people will never give way to force, it will never accept conversation under the clear threat of bombs.

Our cause is absolutely just. It is desirable that the Government of the United States act in conformity to reason.

Sincerely,

Ho Chi Minh

Source:

from The Department of State Bulletin, LVI, No. 1450 (April 10, 1967), pp. 595-597.
mysteryman
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 07:12 am
@Advocate,
Quote:
At some point, the war became his.


So when does the war in Afghanistan become Obama's war?
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 09:00 am
@mysteryman,
It became Obama's war long ago.
0 Replies
 
panzade
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 10:10 am
@JTT,
An amazing exchange of letters. Thanks for posting this
JTT
 
  0  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 10:39 am
@mysteryman,
Quote:
So when does the war in Afghanistan become Obama's war?


It's not Obama's war, it's Obama's continuation of the Bush war crimes in starting an illegal invasion of Afghanistan. It's Obama's covering for the Bush war criminals instead of prosecuting them as he said he would.
JTT
 
  0  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 10:45 am
@panzade,
Vietnam was one of the most horrific set war crimes ever committed by any country in all of history. The US and its poodles terrorized millions, people who only wanted their independence, which they got.

Cambodia and Laos were two more of the most horrific set of war crimes ever committed. Not only did the US help install Pol Pot. After the killing fields, they continued to support Pol Pot when he was in exile in Thailand, diverting aid that was intended for actual refugees to him and the Khmer Rouge.

And still Edgar and others cling to their delusions.
Advocate
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 10:54 am
@JTT,
I agree about the war crimes committed by the USA in Nam.

But would you please provide links supporting your statements about our support of Pol Pot. This is new to me.
edgarblythe
 
  4  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 11:08 am
@JTT,
It's your delusion to think I ever supported that war, once I got a chance to review the facts. I was there when it all started and I remember very well Kennedy's decision to put advisers there, because he wanted to look tough to the USSR. I knew people on the destroyers Johnson fraudulently used to get the Gulf of Tonkin resolution from Congress. I went to anti war demonstrations. When Johnson realized the tide was against him, he halted the bombing about the time he announced he did not intend to run again. I supported the biggest voice against the war, R Kennedy, for president. It was then Nixon's decision what to do about the war. He chose to expand it. How anyone has the audacity to claim I have made excuses for that Vietnam war is ludicrous and I don't have to defend my actions further.
JTT
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 11:33 am
@edgarblythe,
Quote:
It's your delusion to think I ever supported that war, once I got a chance to review the facts. I was there when it all started and I remember very well Kennedy's decision to put advisers there, because he wanted to look tough to the USSR. I knew people on the destroyers Johnson fraudulently used to get the Gulf of Tonkin resolution from Congress. I went to anti war demonstrations. When Johnson realized the tide was against him, he halted the bombing about the time he announced he did not intend to run again. I supported the biggest voice against the war, R Kennedy, for president. It was then Nixon's decision what to do about the war. He chose to expand it.


Duly noted and accepted at face value, Edgar.

Quote:
How anyone has the audacity to claim I have made excuses for that Vietnam war is ludicrous and I don't have to defend my actions further.


Silence is acquiescence, Ed. Again, what is the point of debating who was the bigger war criminal? From Truman on, they were all vicious war criminals.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 11:42 am
@JTT,
Quote:
It's not Obama's war, it's Obama's continuation of the Bush war crimes in starting an illegal invasion of Afghanistan. It's Obama's covering for the Bush war criminals instead of prosecuting them as he said he would.


Obama made it very clear we had to stay in Afghanistan. He did take over the war and make it his own. You are restating yourself again.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  0  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 11:50 am
@Advocate,
Quote:
I agree about the war crimes committed by the USA in Nam.

But would you please provide links supporting your statements about our support of Pol Pot. This is new to me.


You got voted down for asking for the truth, Advocate. Many here want this place to be Able2BeKeptIgnorant.

Here's a start.

See also,

History hasn't been kind to a great man - Why?

http://able2know.org/topic/176921-1#post-4721972

=========================

Quote:
On the Side of Pol Pot: U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge

by Jack Colhoun

On the Side of Pol Pot: U.S. Supports Khmer Rouge
by Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quarterly magazine, Summer 1990

For the last eleven years the United States government, in a covert operation born of cynicism and hypocrisy, has collaborated with the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. More specifically, Washington has covertly aided and abetted the Pol Potists' guerrilla war to overthrow the Vietnamese backed government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which replaced the Khmer Rouge regime.

The U.S. government's secret partnership with the Khmer Rouge grew out of the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the U.S.-worried by the shift in the Southeast Asian balance of power-turned once again to geopolitical confrontation. It quickly formalized an anti-Vietnamese, anti-Soviet strategic alliance with China-an alliance whose disastrous effects have been most evident in Cambodia. For the U.S., playing the "China card" has meant sustaining the Khmer Rouge as a geopolitical counterweight capable of destabilizing the Hun Sen government in Cambodia and its Vietnamese allies.

When Vietnam intervened in Cambodia and drove the Pol Potists from power in January 1972, Washington took immediate steps to preserve the Khmer Rouge as a guerrilla movement. International relief agencies were pressured by the U.S. to provide humanitarian assistance to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas who fled into Thailand. For more than a decade, the Khmer Rouge have used the refugee camps they occupy as military bases to wage a contra-war in Cambodia. According to Linda Mason and Roger Brown, who studied the relief operations in Thailand for Cambodian refugees:

...relief organizations supplied the Khmer Rouge resistance movement with food and medicines.... In the Fall of 1979 the Khmer Rouge were the most desperate of all the refugees who came to the Thai-Kampuchean border. Throughout l900, however, their health rapidly improved, and relief organizations began questioning the legitimacy of feeding them. The Khmer Rouge. . . having regained strength...had begun actively fighting the Vietnamese. The relief organizations considered supporting the Khmer Rouge inconsistent with their humanitarian goals.... Yet Thailand, the country that hosted the relief operation, and the U.S. government, which funded the bulk of the relief operations, insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed.

During his reign as National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski played an important role in determining how the U.S. would support the Pol Pot guerrillas. Elizabeth Becker, an expert on Cambodia, recently wrote, "Brzezinski himself claims that he concocted the idea of persuading Thailand to cooperate fully with China in efforts to rebuild the Khmer Rouge.... Brzezinski said, " I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the DK [Democratic Kampuchea]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could not support him but China could."

An Unholy Alliance

The U.S. not only permitted the Khmer Rouge to use the refugee camps in Thailand as a base for its war against the new government in Phnom Penh but it also helped Prince Norodom Sihanouk and former Prime Minister Son Sann to organize their own guerrilla armies from the refugee population in the camps. These camps are an integral factor in the ability of the Khmer Rouge, the Sihanoukist National Army (ANS) and Son Sann's Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF) to wage war against the Hun Sen government.

In 1979, Washington began "a small program" of support for Sihanouk's and Son Sann's guerrillas by providing "travel expenses" for the "insurgent leaders" and funds "for the up keep of resistance camps near the Thai-Cambodian border." In addition, since 1982, the U.S. has provided the ANS and KPNLF with covert and overt "humanitarian" and "non lethal" military aid. By 1989, the secret non lethal aid had grown to between $20 million and $24 million annually and the overt humanitarian aid had reached $5 million. The Bush administration requested $7 million more in humanitarian aid for 1990.

When Congress approved the $5 million aid package for the ANS and KPNLF in 1985, it prohibited use of the aid "...for the purpose or with the effect of promoting, sustaining or augmenting, directly or indirectly, the capacity of the Khmer Rouge...to conduct military or paramilitary operations in Cambodia or elsewhere...." From the beginning, U.S. aid for the ANS and KPNLF has been a complimentary source of aid for the Khmer Rouge. According to a western diplomat stationed in Southeast Asia, ".. .two-thirds of the arms aid to the noncommunist forces appears to come from Peking [Beijing], along with more extensive aid to the communist fighters [the Khmer Rouge].... China is estimated to spend $60 million to $100 million yearly in aid to all factions of the anti-Vietnamese resistance."

In 1982, under pressure from the U.S., China, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Sihanouk and Son Sann joined forces with the Khmer Rouge to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). The ANS and KPNLF, which were more politically respect able than the Khmer Rouge, gained military credibility from the guerrilla alliance. However, the Khmer Rouge gained considerable political legitimacy from the alliance and Khmer Rouge diplomats now represent the CGDK at the United Nations.

The CGDK receives large amounts of military aid from Singapore. When asked about the relationship between money from the U.S. and arms from Singapore, another U.S. diplomat in Southeast Asia replied, "Let's put it this way. If the U.S. supplies [the guerrilla coalition] with food, then they can spend their food money on something else."

Direct U.S. Aid

But there are indications of direct U.S. Iinks to the Khmer Rouge. Former Deputy Director of the CIA, Ray Cline, visited a Khmer Rouge camp inside Cambodia in November 1980. When asked about the visit, the Thai Foreign Ministry denied that Cline had illegally crossed into Cambodian territory. However, privately, the Thai government admitted that the trip had occurred. Cline's trip to the Pol Pot camp was originally revealed in a press statement released by Khmer Rouge diplomats at the United Nations.
Cline also went to Thailand as a representative of the Reagan-Bush transition team and briefed the Thai government on the new administration's policy toward Southeast Asia. Cline told the Thais the Reagan administration planned to "strengthen its cooperation" with Thailand and the other ASEAN members opposed to the Phnom Penh government. There have been numerous other reports about direct links between the CIA and the Khmer Rouge. According to Jack Anderson, "through China, the CIA is even supporting the jungle forces of the murderous Pol Pot in Cambodia." Sihanouk himself admitted that CIA advisers were present in Khmer Rouge camps in late 1989: "Just one month ago, I received intelligence informing me that there were U.S. advisers in the Khmer Rouge camps in Thailand, notably in Site B camp.... The CIA men are teaching the Khmer Rouge human rights! The CIA wants to turn tigers into kittens!
By late 1989 the distinction between "direct or indirect" U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge was less clear. When CGDK forces launched an offensive in September 1989, Sihanouk's and Son Sann's armies openly cooperated with the Khmer Rouge. Moreover, by then the Khmer Rouge had infiltrated the military and political wings of the ANS and KPNLF.

...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_PolPot.html



Quote:


The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and PolPot

by John Pilger

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/pilgerpolpotnus.pdf


Quote:


How Thatcher helped Pol Pot

By John Pilger
Global Research, April 11, 2013
New Statesman and Green Left Weekly



http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-thatcher-helped-pol-pot
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:00 pm
@JTT,
Your articles again are by authors with extreme bias against the US.

And where is the proof? Where are documents to prove their bullshit. I see nothing more than an opinion piece.

And your link to "Third World Traveler is a joke. Did they spend more than 25 cents on the graphics?
JTT
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:04 pm
@coldjoint,
It's not bias to report the war crimes and terrorism of the US documenting such things with US government information.

What is really bad is pretending that you have read those articles and done the necessary research when it's becoming apparent that you can't even actually read.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:08 pm
@JTT,

Quote:
when it's becoming apparent that you can't even actually read.

Why should and how do I research those articles when they don't link to other articles that support them.

There is nothing but money and some sort of fame in hating the USA and they are milking it for all it is worth.

And do you need to insult me? It shows just how valid your argument isn't.
Jack of Hearts
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:22 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Little to none.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:24 pm
@coldjoint,
No, it just shows how ignorant you really are.
coldjoint
 
  -1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:26 pm
@JTT,
Quote:
No, it just shows how ignorant you really are.


Someone calling me ignorant shows just how impotent your argument is.
JTT
 
  1  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:28 pm
@coldjoint,
Quote:
And your link to "Third World Traveler is a joke.


Quote:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Stockwell/StockwellCIA87_1.html

THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA:
part I
THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL AND THE CIA'S COVERT ACTIONS IN ANGOLA, CENTRAL AMERICA AND VIETNAM
by John Stockwell

John Stockwell is the highest-ranking CIA official ever to leave the agency and go public. He ran a CIA intelligence-gathering post in Vietnam, was the task-force commander of the CIA's secret war in Angola in 1975 and 1976, and was awarded the Medal of Merit before he resigned. Stockwell's book In Search of Enemies, published by W.W. Norton 1978, is an international best-seller.
JTT
 
  2  
Sun 17 Nov, 2013 12:31 pm
@coldjoint,
Quote:
Someone calling me ignorant shows just how impotent your argument is.


On the contrary. All you've done since you arrived at A2K is adopt the Oralloy patented "stamp your feet and scream propagandist memes".

Your arguments are as cold as your joint.
 

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