Your text blithely mentions as almost logical that France would be allowed to retake its colony back as quid pro quo for cooperation with US plans for Europe actually a strange and rather inhuman act, completely out of step with the unstoppable ongoing movement for colonial independence and freedom gathering strength at that time.
Truman's compassionless attitude toward the Vietnamese and other
peoples suffering the horrific abuses of colonialism is repeated in the French lack of compassion for the Vietnamese facing French military re-occupation. The grand nation of France, while celebrating its liberation from Nazi German occupation had no shame in ordering the re-occupation of Vietnam while Vietnam was celebrating liberation from Japanese rule and proclaiming independence.
Avoided is all condemning knowledge, such as President Eisenhower
refusing to go along with all Vietnam elections, and admitting that popular Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote in an all-Vietnam election. This embarrassing admission wipes out any and all convoluted explanations of well meaning intent as does the unbelievable for civilized minds to contemplate twice W.W.II tonnage of explosives dropped on a hapless agrarian colonial population relentlessly over decades.
The 'good intentions' of the US insisted upon in your narrative
receives no corroboration by leaving out historical material contrary to 'good intentions' claims.
If In Retrospect awakened a need for a more in depth sequel, perhaps Argument Without End will in similar self-criticism be seen to be too evasive, attempting to put our US responsibility for the taking of so many lives over such a long time, off on to our victims our victims from 1945 to 1975.
That power over life and death and to maim with impunity, which destiny once awarded our US government, seems today to be the power to be able to write and publish, along with a bit of truth, sundry equivocation regarding how the Secretary of Defense used that power over life and death.
May the directness of this humble reader's observations be excused by
the deep complicity felt as an American citizen, and hopefully for
the usefulness Mr. McNamara might find in the following requests for
his consideration:
1. Everyone has high appreciation for Mr. McNamara's published warnings against nuclear weapon plans and policies and for his speaking out in
criticism of the invasion of Iraq. Would that Mr. McNamara could also
come to warn against the media and politicians parading all Vietnam
War veterans as heroes. This request would not be necessary had Mr.
McNamara's books been more widely read.
During the Democratic Presidential Debate in August, candidate Senator Mike Gravel cried out that Americans who died in Vietnam had died in vain, as they are dying in vain today in Iraq. Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn point out that the brutal great life-taking neocolonialist terrorist manner in which the US and its colonialist allies 'legally' fought the cold war made it so easy for the Soviet Union and its satellites to ingratiate themselves on the side of the bled and pillaged Third World fighting for freedom from colonial oppressors; and that this past blind cruelty is presently having an 'illegal' terrorist delayed response blowback, and accenting the North/South division of humanity.
2. This ordinary musician found himself walking across town with
Ramsey Clark after a speech Attorney General Clark made at the UN
Church Building. It put one to thinking, if only the much higher
profiled Secretary McNamara would add his quiet voice to that soft
spoken voice for peace of his co-war-cabinet-member, Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Humanity would be so fortunate to have TWO eminent establishment defectors at a time when our establishment today appears to be a herd of sheep being driven over a cliff.
3. Mankind could so benefit from former World Bank President
McNamara's continuing substantial influence through his commentary on
economic policy, if we could hear his mature voice to ring out in support of Joe Stiglitz' evaluation that in retrospect, the policies of the IMF and World Bank during his, (and your) years of participation, have turned out to have been genocidal. This quietly damning statement from an economist who has no intention of calling into question the capitalist system as a whole, and merely calls for fair, humane and intelligent leadership, could effect an enforcement of kinder policies if emphasized by Mr. McNamara.
Forty years ago we musician agreed to perform once our statement condemning your war leadership was read. Now a request that Mr. McNamara reach out from his retirement with a few deft and perspicacious words for the sake of peace.
Sincerely,
Jay Janson
cc Ramsey Clark, Joseph Stiglitz September 13, 2007
PS. Forgiving us a last request:
4. Might the Secretary wish to add his authoritative voice in support
of an officially recognized US and Vietnamese organization working to
have the US government extend the same recognition and compensation of the Agent Orange suffering of American veterans to the Agent Orange suffering of the Vietnamese? The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign A
http://www.vn-agentorange.org
range Relief & Responsibility Campaign
* Everyone in the orchestra lost family in the wars. I was invited to
a couple of the traditional annual family feasts to celebrate the
memory of a deceased family member, "killed by the Americans", my hosts would say with a kind smile of Buddhist equanimity upon my asking.
Truman's compassionless attitude toward the Vietnamese and other
peoples suffering the horrific abuses of colonialism is repeated in the French lack of compassion for the Vietnamese facing French military re-occupation. The grand nation of France, while celebrating its liberation from Nazi German occupation had no shame in ordering the re-occupation of Vietnam while Vietnam was celebrating liberation from Japanese rule and proclaiming independence.
Avoided is all condemning knowledge, such as President Eisenhower
refusing to go along with all Vietnam elections, and admitting that popular Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote in an all-Vietnam election. This embarrassing admission wipes out any and all convoluted explanations of well meaning intent as does the unbelievable for civilized minds to contemplate twice W.W.II tonnage of explosives dropped on a hapless agrarian colonial population relentlessly over decades.
The 'good intentions' of the US insisted upon in your narrative
receives no corroboration by leaving out historical material contrary to 'good intentions' claims.
That power over life and death and to maim with impunity, which destiny once awarded our US government, seems today to be the power to be able to write and publish, along with a bit of truth, sundry equivocation regarding how the Secretary of Defense used that power over life and death.
May the directness of this humble reader's observations be excused by
the deep complicity felt as an American citizen, and hopefully for
the usefulness Mr. McNamara might find in the following requests for
his consideration:
1. Everyone has high appreciation for Mr. McNamara's published warnings against nuclear weapon plans and policies and for his speaking out in
criticism of the invasion of Iraq. Would that Mr. McNamara could also
come to warn against the media and politicians parading all Vietnam
War veterans as heroes. This request would not be necessary had Mr.
McNamara's books been more widely read.
During the Democratic Presidential Debate in August, candidate Senator Mike Gravel cried out that Americans who died in Vietnam had died in vain, as they are dying in vain today in Iraq. Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn point out that the brutal great life-taking neocolonialist terrorist manner in which the US and its colonialist allies 'legally' fought the cold war made it so easy for the Soviet Union and its satellites to ingratiate themselves on the side of the bled and pillaged Third World fighting for freedom from colonial oppressors; and that this past blind cruelty is presently having an 'illegal' terrorist delayed response blowback, and accenting the North/South division of humanity.
2. This ordinary musician found himself walking across town with
Ramsey Clark after a speech Attorney General Clark made at the UN
Church Building. It put one to thinking, if only the much higher
profiled Secretary McNamara would add his quiet voice to that soft
spoken voice for peace of his co-war-cabinet-member, Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Humanity would be so fortunate to have TWO eminent establishment defectors at a time when our establishment today appears to be a herd of sheep being driven over a cliff.
3. Mankind could so benefit from former World Bank President
McNamara's continuing substantial influence through his commentary on
economic policy, if we could hear his mature voice to ring out in support of Joe Stiglitz' evaluation that in retrospect, the policies of the IMF and World Bank during his, (and your) years of participation, have turned out to have been genocidal. This quietly damning statement from an economist who has no intention of calling into question the capitalist system as a whole, and merely calls for fair, humane and intelligent leadership, could effect an enforcement of kinder policies if emphasized by Mr. McNamara.
Forty years ago we musician agreed to perform once our statement condemning your war leadership was read. Now a request that Mr. McNamara reach out from his retirement with a few deft and perspicacious words for the sake of peace.
Sincerely,
Jay Janson
cc Ramsey Clark, Joseph Stiglitz September 13, 2007
PS. Forgiving us a last request:
4. Might the Secretary wish to add his authoritative voice in support
of an officially recognized US and Vietnamese organization working to
have the US government extend the same recognition and compensation of the Agent Orange suffering of American veterans to the Agent Orange suffering of the Vietnamese? The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign A
http://www.vn-agentorange.org
range Relief & Responsibility Campaign
* Everyone in the orchestra lost family in the wars. I was invited to
a couple of the traditional annual family feasts to celebrate the
memory of a deceased family member, "killed by the Americans", my hosts would say with a kind smile of Buddhist equanimity upon my asking.
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