Sincerely, Edward Herman"

 

PREFACE

 

 

The American public will be slow to connect My Lai to Watergate, and yet that link is embedded in the political consciousness of those who are guiding the destinies of this country. Just as the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters were but a stitch in the fabric of illegal and criminal government, so My Lai was no more than a particularly horrible example of the American 'game plan" in the Vietnam War. The gruesome sequence of atrocity, frantic cover-up, unintended expose, hypocritical expression of humanitarian concern by commanders and rulers, and desperate public relations efforts to confine the blame to the triggermen is manifest in both settings.

 

 

Americans are fascinated by the Mafia, but very few citizens of this country believed until recently that the brutalities and deceptions of organized crime were also characteristic of government operations. We can be thankful, I suppose, that the United States government is not yet as efficient as the Mafia (whose skill has been built up over generations and whose personnel have been conditioned from birth) when it comes to hiding the traces of their crimes, cutting short the investigative trail, and screening out the occasional honest and principled operative.

 

This monograph by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, both renowned and careful scholars who have struggled over the years to present the truth about the Vietnam War, makes a major contribution to our understanding of the present posture of American foreign policy in general and the character of the persisting involvement in Indochina in particular. Their account of the role of falsification in official presentations of facts and interpretations designed to maintain public support and discredit anti-Vietnam criticism is part of a larger canvas of distortion that is characteristic of U.S. policy toward poorer and less fortunate peoples throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The specific subject of this book is the systematic manipulation of the facts surrounding war atrocities, but its implications are far broader. Such manipulation of horror stories seems cynical beyond easy belief, even for those of us who have gradually become hardened critics of government behavior.

 

 

Chomsky and Herman document beyond serious question the extent to which the United States government has engaged in and hidden crimes on our side in the Indochina War and fabricated a bloodbath myth to explain why we must continue to kill on a massive scale. Such a pattern of double deceit intends to convince the American public that we fight as men of conscience to protect our threatened friends from a horribly cruel enemy who is poised to massacre.

 

Professors Chomsky and Herman present convincing evidence on four principal concerns:

 

 

First, that this double deceit has been a systematic element in the official policy of our government over the years of American involvement in Indochina, although it has been carried to new extremes of blatancy during the Nixon presidency.

 

Secondly, that this pattern of distortion is imposed so effectively that it even envelops most citizens who oppose the war.

 

 

Thirdly, that America's world role as chief sponsor of counter-insurgency enterprises in the Third World has led beyond the distortion of information and included active participation, directly and indirectly, in the actual perpetration of atrocities.

 

Fourthly, that these morbid realities of distortion and participation have led to a widespread poisoning of the language of political discourse and the overall ethics of governance, making the public swallow official lies and numbing euphemisms about bloodletting of the innocent as integral to national security.

 

 

Indeed, it almost seems as if a prominent war critic loses his credibility if he questions or rejects official orthodoxy on questions of atrocity and bloodbath. It is noteworthy that such widely acclaimed and influential war critics as Bernard Fall and Frances FitzGerald blandly transmit official deceptions on such issues as the land reform purge of 1956 in North Vietnam or the 1968 Hue massacre. I do not mean to suggest that these usually reliable authors are willing instruments of such deceptions, but only that the official lie has been told so commandingly that it is troublesome for even honest and dedicated journalists to set the record straight. It is also well to acknowledge that the real facts are so provocative on these touchy issues that most efforts to depict them offend mainstream readers and reviewers and encourages the ironic reaction that a particular author has gone "overboard" and is no longer to he trusted. It is positively Orwellian to appreciate that one's credibility as a war critic has depended more on adhering to official false- hoods than on their documented exposure and correction.

 

What is at stake here is more than the possibility of reasoned discourse in a liberal democracy. The veil of secrecy and deception used to invert the identity of criminal and victim in Vietnam also underlies the basic pattern of American involvement everywhere in the Third World, and, as well, characterizes government relations with minority peoples in the United States. It remains almost impossible to make this case of pervasive distortion in any influential forum and, as a consequence, there is almost no present hope of repudiating these most reprehensible aspects of American foreign policy. The people who brought us the Indochina War are each day quietly achieving the same disastrous results in a score of other hapless countries around the world. Chomsky and Herman make it clear that this wider orbit of terror, sponsored and financed by Washington, persists even in Vietnam despite the illusion that we have ended our involvement there. And who would dare speculate confidently on the extent of our role in the daily horrors inflicted on opponents of repressive regimes in such countries as Greece, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Uruguay, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, South Africa, Iran?

 

 

Richard Nixon is a President who claims that it is a prerogative of his office to bomb foreign countries day after day in secret, to falsify Defense Department reports, and then to authorize "national security" wiretaps on his highest aides when such information is leaked to the press. Even now, amid the furor over Watergate, Nixon refuses to disclose the grisly statistics on sorties, tonnage, and targets in the Cambodia air war. Perhaps we can understand President Nixon's reluctance to release information by considering the explanation given by Mrs. Merry Dawson for her son's (Capt. Donald Dawson) unwillingness to pilot any further B-52 missions over Cambodia: "He felt they weren't bombing anything but people." The long history of Congressional and public acquiescence in the distortion and suppression of truth has taken its toll. One consequence is that all elements in the governing process are disabled and the polity as a whole dispirited. The moral rot is so widely dispersed by now that it seems likely that a full revelation of the ugly truth about American bombing in Cambodia would be greeted by one more shrug of the shoulders, as if genocidal policies are just about what we have come to expect from our leaders. Unless we can overcome this sense of helplessness and indifference there is no prospect at all that the forces of evil which have held sway for so long can be removed from power, or at least dissuaded from following their impulses.

 

Indeed, when we audit the bloody balance- sheet of counter-insurgency, as Chomsky and Herman have done, we realize that "the White House horrors" associated with the domestic "pacification" work of "the plumbers' is virtually benign by comparison to the catalogue of White House horrors we ignore or accept as routine in foreign relations. Surely Nixon's list of enemies is child's play compared with the monthly execution lists of the Phoenix Program in South Vietnam. There is a danger - I wouldn't yet describe it as a plan - abetted by those sensible men who write editorials and headlines for the New York Times, that we will mobilize all of our moral energies of disgust and reform in relation to the Watergate agenda while practically winking at our official complicity in the bloody deeds of our friends and helpmates in repressive regimes around the world.

 

 

In addition to worrying about the exact dimensions of Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate burglary - which in this wider perspective can be dismissed as "a third-rate burglary" - we should insist that a Senate Select Committee also examine the compelling charge made against Nixon by Prince Norodom Sihanouk:

 

We formally accuse him of being the sole person responsible for the war ... He is the arch criminal with the death of tens of thousands of Cambodians on his conscience. (New York Times, July 12, 1973)

 

 

Not to mention tens of thousands more in Thailand, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam! In light of such grim realities, the "gentleman's agreement" between the White House and Congress to go on bombing Cambodia until mid-August 1973, reeks with a stench of degeneracy far stronger than anything contemplated by the debased minds of Segretti, Hunt, Liddy, et al.

 

The main purpose of Chomsky and Herman is to expose in convincing form the Big Lie as it has been told by the United States government in relation to atrocities. This Lie has been told by our leaders because they were either embarrassed by the truth or fearful of its political consequences. According to John Dean, Nixon's anxieties were capable of being aroused on one occasion by a lone demonstrator in Lafayette Park. But the issue cannot be disposed of by reference to the condition of Mr. Nixon's psyche. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are deeply implicated in the double lie that allows us to go on and on killing innocent people in distant lands with a clear conscience. From what hidden reserves of national decency can we find the strength to face this awful truth? And what can we possibly do about it? There are no easy answers, no prospect of a "quick-fix," but this monograph provides firm ground.

 

July 1973 Richard A. Falk Hardwick, Vermont

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

'Bloodbath" is a familiar word to Americans. Commonly, the term is applied to describe alleged enemy acts of violence and terror against civilian populations - past, present and prospective (in the event that our side did or does not triumph). In the official version of recent Vietnamese history, for example,only we and our spunky Saigon ally have stood between the 17 million people of South Vietnam and a bloodbath by the barbarian hordes of North Vietnam (DRV) and their southern arm, the Vietcong. The impression conveyed in the standard media fare is one of humanitarian concern for the victims of "violence' on the part of American leaders; the public has been led to believe that American policies in Vietnam have been shaped to some degree by the resort to violence and threat of a bloodbath on the part of others.

 

Even a cursory examination of recent history, however, suggests that concern over violence and bloodbaths in Washington (in Moscow and Peking as well) is highly selective. Some bloodbaths seem to be looked upon as "benign" or even positive and constructive; only very particular ones are given publicity and regarded as heinous and deserving of indignation. For example, after the CIA-sponsored right-wing coup in Cambodia in March 1970, Lon Nol quickly organized a pogrom-bloodbath against local Vietnamese in an effort to gain peasant support. Estimates of the numbers of victims of this slaughter range upward from 5000 ^[1] and grisly reports and photographs of bodies floating down tlie rivers were filed by western correspondents. The United States and its client government in Saigon invaded Cambodia shortly thereafter, but not to stop the bloodbath or avenge its victims; on the contrary, these forces moved in to support the organizers of the slaughter, who were on the verge of being overthrown.

 

 

The small-scale and "benign" Lon Nol bloodbath, of course, was followed by a much more substantial "constructive" bloodbath mainly in the form of firepower carried out by the United States and its Saigon affiliate. In the words of one observer with an intimate knowledge of Cambodia ^[2]: Cambodia has been subjected in its turn to destruction by American air power. The methodical sacking of economic resources, of rubber plantations and factories, of rice fields and forests, of peaceful and delightful villages which disappeared one after another beneath the bombs and napalm, has no military justification and serves essentially to starve the population. Refers to footnotes appearing at the back of this module Those who paid close attention to the American slaughter of Cambodians in 1970 would have had no reason to be surprised by the intensive bombing of heavily populated civilian areas in a last-ditch effort to save the collapsing U.S.-backed regime three years later. This was simply a minor variant of a policy, consistently pursued in Cambodia, which President Nixon has called "the Nixon doctrine in its purest form." ^[3]

 

The regularly publicized and condemned bloodbaths, whose victims are worthy of serious concern, often turn out, upon close examination, to be fictional in whole or in part. These mythical or semi-mythical bloodbaths have served an extremely important public relations function in mobilizing support for American military intervention in other countries. This has been particularly true in the case of Vietnam. Public opinion has tended to be negative and the war-makers have had to strain mightily to keep the American people in line. The repeated resort to fabrication points up the propagandistic role that the 'bloodbath" has played in Washington's devoted attention to this subject. The evidence on myth creation (discussed below) also makes obvious the fact that stories emanating from this source, whether produced by the military, intelligence, or state-affiliated "scholarship" should be evaluated by the standards and methods normally employed in assessing the output of any Ministry of Propaganda.

 

 

The great public relations lesson of Vietnam, nevertheless, is that the "big lie" can work despite occasional slippages of a free press. Not only can it survive and provide valuable service regardless of entirely reasonable and definitive refutations ^[4], but certain patriotic truths also can be established firmly for the majority by constant repetition. With the requisite degree of cooperation by the mass media, the government can engage in "atrocities management" with almost assured success, by means of sheer weight of information releases, the selective use of reports of alleged enemy acts of atrocity, and the creation and embroidery of bloodbath stories and myths. These myths never die; they are pulled from the ashes and put forward again and again, although repudiating evidence is readily available. For example, the New York Times has given significant space to claims of mass murders by the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front (NLF) at Hue twice within the last year - the first claiming with assurance 5700 murders, the most recent 2800, and neither citing any specific source of evidence. ^[5] As we show below, this myth is concocted from the confusion of many deaths and mass graves (the bulk apparently occupied by victims of "allied" firepower) and the deliberate mistranslation and misinterpretation of documents by the Saigon - U.S. propaganda machine. But with the New York Times' concept of "balance," official lies are entitled to their fair share of space. In general, this amount of space usually is rather more substantial than that allotted to the low-keyed refutations that may be permitted to present the "other side" of the question. With this balance of opinion, plus official domination of news releases and run-of-the-mill editorialists and columnists, atrocity myths can be institutionalized.

 

At the same time, our own atrocities can be dismissed as the "unintended consequences of military action," ^[6] or as an historical inevitability for which we bear no responsibility ^[7], or as "isolated incidents" for which the guilty are punished under our system of justice. The more fanatic state apologists can thus conclude from the Vietnam experience that ^[8]

 

...there are nations more civilized than others, for reasons of history and providence however freakish. We would not, in America, in this day and age, treat prisoners of war in the way the Vietnamese did. And we are, however humbly, reminded that we fought in Indochina to repel the atavistic forces that gave historical and moral justification to the torture and humiliation of the individual.

 

 

More balanced minds perceive that "unfortunately, the record is not unflawed" and that "the highest United States authorities cannot escape responsibility" for certain "violations of the spirit if not the letter of international law...even if the violations were not expressions of official policy" - while insisting, to be sure, that the "damning indictment of the Vietnamese communists...cannot be erased by the pious denials of the North Vietnamese or their apologists in this country" and that a compelling case can and should be made against the North Vietnamese for their clear violations of the Geneva Convention of 1949 ^[9]

 

A discussion of the machinery of atrocities management and the reasons for its continued success is beyond the scope of this monograph, which has a more modest purpose. We attempt here to establish, first, that bloodbaths are not necessarily considered bad in the perspective of the American leadership; they may be unremarkable, benign, or positively meritorious. A large proportion of the really huge bloodbaths of the past two decades, in fact, have been viewed in this light by Washington (with some directly administered or indirectly engineered). It seems to us an elementary and obvious truth that the leadership in the United States, as a result of its dominant position and wide ranging counter-revolutionary efforts, has been the most important single instigator, administrator, and moral and material sustainer of serious bloodbaths in the years that followed World War II.

 

 

After presenting some illustrations of benign and constructive bloodbaths, we turn to some of the nefarious and mythical bloodbaths that have played important roles in the defense of U.S. intervention in Vietnam. We examine in particular the relative levels and strategies of violence employed by Saigon, the United States, and the revolutionary forces, the 1955-56 events in North Vietnam, and the Hue massacres of 1968. Finally we discuss the intensifying repression and threat to political prisoners in the charnel house the United States has built in South Vietnam - an illustration and application of the now long standing U.S. policy of support for 'constructive" bloodbaths.

 

 

 

BENIGN AND CONSTRUCTIVE BLOODBATHS

 

Post-Colonial Rot and Counterrevolutionary Terror

 

The response of American leaders to bloodbaths has been related closely to the nature of the victims and executioners and the political consequences seen as flowing from the massacre and terror. In the Third World, where the United States has set itself firmly against revolutionary change since World War II, it has tried to maintain the disintegrating post-Colonial societies within the "Free World," irrespective of the drift of social and political forces within those countries. This conservative and counterrevolutionary political objective has defined the spectrum of acceptable and unacceptable violence and bloodshed. From this perspective killings associated with revolution are bad, nefarious and perhaps also mythical - and represent a resort to violence which is improper and unethical as a means for obtaining social change. Such killings are carried out by "terrorists." The word "violence" itself is generally confined to the use of force by elements and movements which we oppose. An AID report of 1970, for example, refers to the improving capability of the South Vietnamese police, certainly the most extensive employers of torture in the world, as "preventing the spread of violence." ^[10] And the 1967 "moderate scholars" statement on Asian policy, sponsored by Freedom House, defended the U.S. assault on Vietnam and, by implication, the mass slaughters in Indonesia, at the same time explicitly condemning those who are "committed to the thesis that violence is the best means of effecting change" (presumably the NLF, DRV and the Indonesian Communists). ^[11]

 

 

Bloodbaths carried out by counter-revolutionary forces are regarded in a different light as they are in the interest of a return of Third World populations to that desirable "measure of passivity and defeatism" such as prevailed before World War II ^[12], also commonly referred to as "stability," ^[13] or "political equilibrium." Killings undertaken to return these populations to passivity are rarely described as bloodbaths or as involving the use of violence - they are "readjustments" or "dramatic changes" tolerated or applauded as necessary and desirable. This is true whether the bloodbath destroys both the organizational apparatus and the population base of radical movements (as in Indonesia), or kills more modestly, merely disorganizing and terrorizing a population sufficiently to permit rightist totalitarian rule (as in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala or Brazil ^[14]), or falls somewhere between the two extremes (as in the case of the U.S. effort in South Vietnam).

 

That revolutions are costly in human life and that those undertaking them should weigh these heavy costs against any potential gains is a conventional cliche. Less attention has been paid to the enormous human costs that have resulted from "stabilization" and counterrevolutionary attempts to forestall revolution. On the evidence of the past two decades of U.S.-sponsored counterrevolutions, a good case can be made that these are far more bloody, on the average, than revolutions. This is conspicuously so where modern technology is put to work in direct counterrevolutionary intervention. Here the indiscriminate violence puts into operation a feedback process of "Communist creation" that affords the intervention legitimacy in the eyes of the imperial power while at the same time giving it a genocidal potential.

 

 

Beyond this, of course, are the even larger human costs of "success" in keeping Third World populations in the desired state of "passivity and defeatism," such as has been achieved in, say, the Dominican Republic or Guatemala. In these countries, there has been a restoration of the corrupting dependency on a foreign power, rule by a reactionary exploiting elite, social polarization, degradation and insecurity for large numbers, and a low level of morale and cultural esprit. ^[15] In North Vietnam, which had the misfortune to fall into the "iron grip" of Communism, the fighting qualities of its armed forces and the failure of the society to show the smallest signs of disintegration under the most ferocious assault in history have been a puzzle to western analysts. In seeking the sources of strength" of the DRV, Rand specialist Konrad Kellen recently noted the absence of any "signs of instability," the lack of "resort to the kind of pressure against their population in the North that might have alienated the people"; and he concludes that "the Hanoi regime is perhaps one of the most genuinely popular in the world today. The 20 million North Vietnamese, most of whom live in their agricultural cooperatives, like it there and find the system just and the labor they do rewarding." ^[16] The contrast with Free World controlled areas of South Vietnam is startling. ^[17]

 

Or consider Greece, where "the Sixth Fleet looks more and more like an extension of the regime and occupying army"; ^[18] where the survival of the junta is a continuing problem as it jockeys between force, external support, and opportunistic maneuvers, relying upon 'domestic pacification, foreign investment, American tolerance, martial law, a dilating police force,purges of the professions, media control and military hardware." A great many people (Greeks, that is) don't like it in Greece, and a labor shortage is widespread with 10% of the work force (much of it young and able) having emigrated during the last five years. And while talking of "cultural purity," the Colonels have placed great emphasis on encouraging tourism, diversification via "eye-popping incentives" to foreign captial, and a huge influx of an American commodity-culture mix. ^[19] But Greece represents "stability," and its torture chambers have been bothersome to American leaders mainly because they have furnished ammunition to critics of our unswerving support for this incompetent little tyranny.

 

 

It is a notable fact that in the Third World countries subjected to a heavy U.S. hand and thereby kept within the Free World, graft, corruption, and the amassing of huge fortunes by the leadership of the collaborating elite have been uniform phenomena (in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, the "new" Cambodia, Laos, the "old" China and Taiwan, and South Vietnam). In the case of Chiang Kai Shek's "old China," General Stuwell's lengthy experience with the Kuomintang led him to the oft-expressed conclusion that they were simply "gangsters," who believe (accurately it turned out) that they can "go on milking the United States for money and munitions by using the old gag about quitting if...not supported." ^[20] As Kolko remarks, "No serious account of China during the period 1942-1945 differs on the proposition that the corruption and venality of the ruling elite was its sole consistent characteristic." ^[21] A study of $43 million in U.S. savings certificates and bonds put up for sale in October 1943 showed that the bulk was in the hands of Kuomintang leaders: T. V. Soong held $4.4 million; K. P. Chen,$4.1 million; H. H. Kung $1.4 million; and so forth. ^[22]

 

The Philippines show the same pattern. A recent Business Week, in expressing scepticism on the likelihood that Marcos will stamp out corruption, notes that ^[23]

 

the President and his close associates are hardly free from suspicion. Since taking office seven years ago as a man of relatively moderate wealth, Marcos has become one of the Philippines' top ten taxpayers. In a country with its share of multimillionaires, that is not bad on his official salary of $4,500 a year. It is also well known that Marcos has demanded that he and his associates in the government be cut in on the profits of local businesses.

 

 

And in the case of South Vietnam, huge fortunes were being made by comprador elements even before the escalation of 1965 brought in really large resources capable of being stolen. General Khanh, leader of the South Vietnamese state by American choice for a brief period [241 in 1964, and an expatriate shortly thereafter, prided himself on his restraint in having built up an estate of only $10 million prior to his exit. ^[25]

 

In the official American view, all of this is treated as a rule of "Asian nature." As pointed out recently by Donald Kirk, Far Eastern correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, "Kim [a South Korean poet) blames the suffering of his people in large part on the kind of bribery and chicanery that American officials smilingly dismiss as 'routine' in 'all Asian countries' -notably those allied with the United States." ^[26] Both Kim and the American officials are right, as the "Asian nature" familiar and relevant to the Americans is of those willing to cooperate with the imperial powers in suppressing revolutionary nationalism and maintaining Free World control. Under U.S. auspices, the native leadership consists of carefully selected elite military and comprador elements who, if capable of meeting American criteria, are likely to lack social vision relevant to their own country and any basis or capacity to mobilize large numbers of their compatriots. ^[27] By the nature of the policies and in- terests they must pursue in order to meet their external sponsor's demands, their constituency almost certainly is going to be a reactionary and priveleged local elite (plus the dominant foreign power). Their ideology centers in a negative and single-minded anti-Communism, which is what brings them into symbiosis with the U.S. leadership in the first place. Their solutions to national problems-invariably consistent in general outline with the desires of their sponsor-place heavy weight on free enterprise and external aid and the importation of huge amounts of foreign capital. ^[28] (It is a small irony, although perfectly understandable in a functional context, that Richard Nixon, of self-reliance fame, should be attracted so uniformly to Third World leaders whose specialty is international welfare and blackmail!)

 

 

Forcible repression of the revolutionary forces is a natural for the Colonels to whom the dominant power gravitates. Not very sophisticated as social analysts despite their schooling in Panama and Washington, D.C., and chosen for the purity of their anti-Communism, these creatures of imperial policy uniformly interpret revolutionary ferment as the product of a Communist conspiracy that must be forcibly suppressed. They espouse no positive social values and offer no constructive solutions to the critical problems of poverty and under- development. Often crass opportunists or outright plunderers, invariably associated with corruption, they rule by force. Their armies and police, quasi-mercenary forces trained, supplied, often paid and directed by the United States, lack social purpose, motivation, and discipline -- still another factor reinforcing bloodbath tendencies. Restraints coming from the dominant power tend to be minimal; in fact, bloodshed is facilitated by the generous supply of weapons, and even advanced prison and interrogation methods. The dominant power may, in fact, be outdoing the client and mercenary forces in bloodletting.

 

The general point involved here has not gone unnoticed by the more astute theorists of counterinsurgency. Bernard Fall, writing in the early 1960s, raised the relevant question and provided a partial answer: ^[29]

 

Why is it that we must use top-notch elite forces, the cream of the crop of American, British, French or Australian commando and special warfare schools; armed with the very best that advanced technology can provide; to defeat Viet-Minh, Algerians, or Malay "CT's" (Chinese terrorists), almost none of whom can lay claim to similar expert training and only in the rarest of cases to equality in fire power?

 

 

The answer is very simple: It takes all the technical proficiency our system can provide to make up for the woeful lack of popular support and political savvy of most of the regimes that the West has thus far sought to prop up. The Americans who are now fighting in South Vietnam have come to appreciate this fact out of first-hand experience.

 

The Americans indeed did come to appreciate this fact, and they now are facing the familiar problem once again in Cambodia. The lesson is obvious enough, though it is almost never drawn by American political commentators, who continue to maintain a pose of self-righteousness even as they deplore the "errors" or "blunders" that led to this or that catastrophe. This pervasive inability to perceive the meaning of the facts that Fall cites, and that are now even more overwhelmingly evident, gives revealing insight into the nature and quality of imperial attitudes and ideology.

 

 

Thailand: A Corrupt "Firm Base"

 

 

An illustrative case of great current relevance is Thailand, which emerged from World War II as the only state in Southeast Asia whose military leadership had collaborated with the Japanese to the extent of declaring war on the United States and Great Britain. Immediately after the war U.S. officials refused to go along with the British desire to dismantle the apparatus of military power in Thailand. Thereafter the U.S. gradually increased its support of the military faction. As a result, after but a few years of constitutional rule characterized by "temporizing" support of democratic forces by the U.S., the military were able to reestablish full control, and Phibun Songkhram became "the first pro-Axis dictator to regain power after the war.... ^[30] Phibun quickly mastered the art of extracting both moral and material support from the American cold warriors ("milking," to use Joe Stilwell's earthy reference to Chiang), constantly creating alarms of external and internal Red threats, encouraging local newspapers "to denounce the United States so that his government could appeal for more American aid on the grounds that it would help to pacify this 'anti-American' segment of public opinion"^[31]; and, of course, serving as a loyal agent of his North American supporters in SEATO and elsewhere.

 

In the apt language of the NLF's description of the Diem regime and its successors, this was a "country-selling government" in the Orwellian perceptions of Washington officialdom, however, this all reflected the free choice of the Thai people ("Thailand [sic] decided to adopt collective security as the basis for its foreign policy.") ^[32] Phibun used the diplomatic support, money and arms provided by the United States leadership as his primary source of political power in Thailand, frequently timing his violence against his opponents to "coincide with an important meeting of the SEATO alliance, thereby minimizing local and foreign criticism." ^[33] As the Thai police state consolidated itself and became both more bloody and more corrupt, American support was in no way diminished and criticism by American leaders, public and private, was minimal. In fact, "a notable trend throughout this period was the growing intimacy between the Thai military leaders and the top-level military officials from the United States." ^[34] Legion of Merit awards were given to three Thai generals in 1954, and in 1955 Phibun himself was given a Doctorate of Laws at Columbia University, and the Legion of Merit award by Eisenhower for his services in "the cause of freedom." Vice President Nixon referred to Thailand's "dedication to freedom," while New York Governor Dewey was most impressed with the "settled, orderly situation.. .a steady improvement toward stability." ^[35]

 

 

When attention is called to the fact that Thailand under U.S. auspices has been a military dictatorship, the official response has been to point to "encouraging" political trends. If none can be dredged up at a particular moment, "Asian nature" and customs are cited, along with the need to preserve Thailand's "independence." Those who are still more cynical contend that it would be "arrogant" (Rogers) for us to intervene -- God forbid that we should ever descend to it -- and impose our views on other people. At the time of Ambassador Leonard Unger's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1969, a constitutional facade was in fleeting existence, and he was greatly encouraged by this development, which "rounds out a system in which the people of the country feel that they do have representation in Bangkok ^[36] But if their democracy is not quite like ours, the Thai people "have their own conviction about the better system of government, about how representation should be carried out. ..and I personally believe it would be a mistake for us to try to lecture them on the operation of democracy." ^[37] Our lectures in fact have been accolades to the military dictators, and to fend off criticism at home, philosophical observations on Asian nature have been coupled with the plea that it would be arrogant of us to intrude into the internal affairs of these "independent" states. In fact, however, our impact and influence have been continuous and decisive in helping the military faction to extinguish the constitutional regime of 1946-7 and to consolidate its rule thereafter.

 

The large inflow of U.S. aid and arms, which totalled in excess of $2 billion between 1949 and 1969, in the official (Unger) view, helped Thailand "to improve its internal security forces so that it will be better able to meet the guerilla and terrorist threats which have been mounted by the Communists." ^[38] In reality, throughout this period, until the American invasion of Vietnam in 1965, the Communist "threat" in Thailand was slight and the obvious and predictable use and effect of this aid was to establish a police state and suppress the substantial non-Communist opposition.

 

 

Another facet of the official mythology and propaganda regarding arms aid is that it "contributed to Thailand's economic growth by enabling Thailand to devote a greater share of its resources to economic development." ^[39] Awkwardly, however, between 1954, the year of the SEATO treaty, and 1959, the value of Thai military expenditures rose by 250%. This is explained by Unger as a result of growth stimulated by military aid, which provided "an expanding income some of which could be devoted to security expenditures." ^[40] But Thai income per capita in 1959 was well below the levels of 1950-1952. ^[41] Control by an internally unconstrained military junta, dependent on the largesse of an external sponsor engaged in an anti-Communist crusade, is the key to this huge expansion of military outlays in a country with pressing development needs.

 

Rising security expenditures were part of the total package of aid-armament-repression that was immensely advantageous to the Thai military elite and at the same time met the requirements of the selectively benevolent tutelage of the American cold warriors. In this package the military leaders of this "land of the free" (Dulles) not only were able to rely on U.S. support to establish and control a police state, but also with virtually no restraint were permitted to convert their political power into graft and monopoly income, including significant contributions by the American taxpayer. From 1948 onward they "took over the directorships of banks, private companies, and government corporations, and they diverted large amounts of public funds to themselves." ^[42] Each military leader developed a huge private income to finance his own political organization. Police Chief Phao (U.S. Legion of Merit, 1954) "derived most of his funds from the opium trade," while army chief Sarit (U.S. Legion of Merit, 1954) got the proceeds of the national lottery. ^[43] At his death in 1963 Sarit left a fortune of approximately $140 million, a matter disclosed only as a result of relatives squabbling over the booty. ^[44]

 

 

A substantial fraction of American aid almost certainly went into the pockets of the military junta, sometimes revealed "in the extensive travel and luxuries they enjoyed after fleeing the country." ^[45] Darling suggests that the military leadership of Thailand was able to siphon off for their personal use a staggering 12% of national income.^[46] The acceptability of this huge plundering to the American leadership can be interpreted as recognition of the "Asian nature" of the elements who could best serve cold war ends (the same people, in this case, as could best serve the aims of the Japanese co-prosperity sphere during World War II), and the necessary costs to the American taxpayer of purchasing the services of these "patriots."

 

Bloodshed by the Thai military junta in consolidating its police state was substantial, but was not noticeably disturbing to its sponsors. Truman's ambassador Stanton was particularly energetic in urging even more vigorous repression, and "frequently encourage Phibun to be alert to the allegedly increasing signs of Communist subversion among intellectuals, students, priests, and writers." ^[47] After a 1957 coup, according to Darling ^[48]:

 

 

It was also discovered that the police chief [Phao, opium trader and recipient of the U.S. Legion of Merit award] had been much more ruthless in suppressing his political opponents than formerly assumed. Some of his atrocities rivaled those of the Nazis and the Communists. The graves of Nai Tiang Sinkliand and four unidentified persons were uncovered in Kan bun province, and further investigation revealed that these victims had been strangled to death while being interrogated by the police. Tiang had been a courageous leader in the Free Thai movement during World War II and later served in the National Assembly. Phao claimed that the former Free Thai leader had escaped from Thailand and joined the Communists. ^[49] The deaths of other victims of the police were also investigated, but the extent of the torture and murder committed by the former police chief will probably never be fully known.

 

One of the "major assets" of the police chief was "the extensive assistance he received from the American-owned Sea Supply Corporation which enabled him to build the police force into a powerful military organization which was better led, better paid, and more efficient than the army... By 1954 American assistance enabled Phao to increase the police force to 42,835 men or one policeman for every 407 people. This was one of the highest ratios between policemen and citizens of any country in the world." ^[50] The pattern has a familiar ring.

 

 

The benefits to the American leadership from this support of a bloody and corrupt tyranny were simple and decisive. For American money and help in preserving their power and filling their pockets, this military clique was willing to subordinate its foreign policy to that of the United States ^[51], serve as agent and errand boy, maintain an "open door" to American economic interests, and allow the use of Thailand as a base for U.S. counterrevolutionary intervention in Southeast Asia. Immediately following the Geneva Accords of 1954 the National Security Council laid out a plan for subversion throughout Southeast Asia, with Thailand "as the focal point of U.S. covert and psychological operations," including "covert operations on a large and effective scale" throughout Indochina, with the explicit intention of "making more difficult the control by the Viet Minh of North Vietnam [5~ The toleration level of U.S. leaders for graft, torture, and bloodbaths by "patriotic leaders" willing to defend their independence against Communist aggression by serving as a firm base" for their sponsor's activities, is large.

 

The acquiescence of American leaders in depredations of friendly military juntas extends beyond mere graft and local bloodbaths; it carries to the point where they will support and cover up for activities involving serious and direct damage to the American citizenry. The most interesting illustration of this has been Washington's long-term alliance with and toleration of heroin traders. It is another small irony that the defeat of one of our instruments of "stability," Chiang Kai Shek, with the resultant "shut down of China's vast illicit market with the change of governments there in 1949," is listed by the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics as the most important event in the postwar history of the heroin trade. ^[53] But the slack was taken up by leadership elements in each of America's remaining Asian satellites. We have already noted Thai police chief Phao's heavy involvement, but a very important part was also played by Kuomintang, Lao ^[54], and South Vietnamese generals and high-level politicians. ^[55] The epidemic of heroin use that struck American GIs in South Vietnam in 1970 and continued thereafter was a direct result of the extensive trade in the American protected Golden Triangle, and the aggressive sales campaign among the GIs carried out by pushers who were protected by the South Vietnamese police and army, and who worked as part of an apparatus in which Marshal Ky and other South Vietnamese officials had long been involved. ^[56] While using "any means possible to protect the Thieu regime from investigation of its involvement in the heroin trade," the Nixon administration has at the same time been "dumping" back into the United States one or two thousand CI addicts per month on grounds of their having "negligible value to the United States Army." ^[57] The CI addicts may well be fathering a generation of junkies, and the rich sources of heroin protected by Washington have found new routes to the United States. The American leadership, in brief, is quite prepared to accept as "benign" a huge drug addiction toll among Our Boys (as well as large numbers of secondary home population victims)- although controlling addiction and protecting Our Boys are both allegedly first priority for Washington-in pursuit of "stability" and the preservation of Third World comprador regimes and "firm bases."

 

Benign and Constructive Bloodbaths: East Pakistan, Burundi, and Indonesia

 

 

Bloodbaths carried out by counterrevolutionary regimes ordinarily are given very little attention in the U.S. mass media. Thousands have been slaughtered by the Rightists installed and/or supported by the United States in Guatemala ^[58] and the Dominican Republic ^[59], but even a sharp media watcher would have to be alert for the small back-page items in which these events are hinted at. The huge rape and slaughter of Bengalis in East Pakistan carried out by West Pakistani military forces in 1971 was given greater publicity, however, and a small segment of the American public became aroused and active in opposition to American policy in this area. This resulted in part from the sheer magnitude of the massacres, which one authority described as "the most massive calculated savagery that has been visited on a civil population in recent times." ^[60] For the Nixon administration, nevertheless, this was a "benign" bloodbath, and its scope and brutality failed to deter Washington from continuing military and economic aid to the government engaging in the slaughter. This was a bloodbath imposed by a friendly military elite with which U.S. authorities had a traditional affinity -- "notorious in Mr. Nixon's case" as Max Frankel pointed out ^[61] -- and American policy "tilted" toward Pakistan just enough to maintain the friendly relationship with the ruling junta required by U.S. strategic planning for the Persian Gulf and South Asia. ^[62] Consequently the matter was purely internal" ^[63] to Pakistan, the bloodbath was benign, and Washington was "not nearly so exercised about Pakistani suppression of the East Bengalis as about what they saw as Indian aggression against Pakistan." ^[64]

 

During the spring and summer of 1972 as many as 250,000 people were systematically murdered in Burundi by a tribal minority government that attempted "to kill every possible Hutu male of distinction over the age of fourteen." ^[65] According to an American Universities Field Staff report on Burundi, which U.S. officials judged accurate, the extermination toll included ^[66] ..the four Hutu members of the cabinet, all the Hutu officers and virtually all the Hutu soldiers in the armed forces; half of Burundi's primary school teachers; and thousands of civil servants, bank clerks, small businessmen, and domestic servants. At present (August) there is only one Hutu nurse left in the entire country, and only a thousand secondary school students survive.

 

 

The Prime Minister of Belgium advised his cabinet as early as May, 1972 that Burundi was the scene of "veritable genocide," and in June the term "genocide" began to appear in State Department internal memos and cables. Yet after a small news flurry in June, and speeches on the subject by Senators Kennedy and Tunney, the U.S. press and Congress lasped into virtual silence. ^[67] In confirming a new ambassador to Burundi in June, 1972 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee showed itself to be not only uniformed on the history and recent events in that country, but also quite unconcerned with the massacre. ^[68]

 

A recent Carnegie Endowment study of American policy toward the Burundi massacres states that "the United States has still not uttered a single public word to describe the immensity of the crime against humanity in Burundi -- or to condemn it." ^[69] Although the United States buys 80 per cent of the main export crop (coffee) of Burundi, at no point in the unfolding of the massacre was a threatened or actual withdrawal of this fundamental support to the massacre leadership ever considered. ^[70] In fact, no serious or potentially effective action was taken by the United States government, despite its detailed knowledge of events in Burundi (kept out of the public domain insofar as possible), and despite an internal memorandum prepared within the African Bureau that suggested a U.S. legal obligation to act in the face of massive abuses of human rights. ^[71] The Carnegie study observes ^[72] that this was ..one of those rare episodes in recent American foreign policy in which the ostensible humanitarian concern of the United States had not collided with competing interests. In Bangladesh, the human disaster had been subordinated to Washington's relationship with Pakistan and the tangled secret diplomacy with Peking. In Bia Ira, relief seemed choked not only by the politics of a civil war, but also by a State Department policy which placed more value on good relations with the regime in Federal Nigeria. Yet there appeared to be no comparable interests in Burundi to weigh against the human factor.

 

 

In the end, however, the relevant considerations were the absence of significant American political or economic interests, along with "the conviction in the African Bureau that avoiding the disapproval of African states was more important than the human lives or the international legal issues in Burundi." ^[73] This was an unremarkable, or benign bloodbath.

 

The huge massacre in Indonesia 1965-69 provides the most impressive demonstration of the U.S establishment's response to a major bloodbath where the political results of the slaughter are regarded as "positive." During the Indonesian counterrevolutionary bloodbath of 1965-66, at a minimum several hundred thousand men, women and children were butchered summarily in cold blood, with the estimated numbers of victims running up to a million. ^[74] The army played a key role in this holocaust, doing a large part of the killing directly, supplying trucks, weapons and encouragement to para-military and vigilante death squads, and actively stimulating an anti-Communist hysteria that contributed greatly to wholesale mass murder. This slaughter was described by the anti-Communist Indonesia expert Justus M. van der Kroef as "a frightful anti-Communist pogrom where, "it is to be feared, innocent victims of mere hearsay were killed" (as opposed, presumably, to the guilty Communist men, women and children who fully deserved their fate). ^[75] In 1968 there was a renewal of mass executions, and in one single case in early 1969 army and local civic guards in Central Java "were said to have killed some 3500 alleged followers of the PKI by means of blows of iron staves in the neck." ^[76]

 

 

During this period of massacres, the number of political prisoners, almost invariably untried and often maltreated, ran from a minimum estimate of 70,000 to well over 100,000. Similar numbers remain imprisoned today, untried and with little prospect of trial. ^[77] The rule of law was (and still is) suspended for the purposes of this continuing bloodbath and mass incarceration, according to van der Kroef, it was a period of "endless and often arbitrary arrests, brutalization of prisoners, and an atmosphere of distrust in which exhibitions of violent anti-communism are believed to be the best way to convince suspicious local military of one's bona tides." ^[78]

 

Meanwhile, this land of mass murder and huge concentration camps has become "a paradise for investors." ^[79] Following the "showcase contract" with Freeport Sulphur (which included, among other things, a lengthy tax holiday), things tightened up a little, but applications for licenses to exploit Indonesia's mineral resources increased rapidly. Speaking at a news conference held in the Wall Street offices of International Nickel Company in July, 1970, a high official of the Indonesian government pointed out that foreign capital was showing great confidence in his country's ability to resist nationalization pressures. ^[80] This investor appeal has not been noticeably affected by (and has gone hand in hand with) the "rampant corruption in the bureaucracy and the armed forces... . Some foreign investors bidding for concessions find that they have to pay huge bribes." ^[81]

 

 

All things considered, then, the developments of the past seven years in Indonesia have been favorable to the predominant interests of the Free World. Appropriately, therefore, the American response to the holocaust proper was restrained. No Congressman denounced it on the floor of Congress, and no major American relief organization offered aid. ^[82] Media treatment of the events was sparse with the victims usually described merely as "Communists and sympathizers." Little mention was made of the large numbers of women and children massacred or the modes and details of the slaughter. For the leaders of the United States this bloodbath was a plus. In a Freedom House advertisement in November, 1966, signed by "145 distinguished Americans" including Jacob Javits, Dean Acheson, Thomas D. Cabot, Harry Gideonse, Lewis E. Powell, Whitelaw Reid, Lincoln Bloomfield and Samuel Huntington, the events in Indonesia were treated as follows.' "It [the Vietnam intervention by the United States] provided a shield for the sharp reversal of Indonesia's shift toward Communism, which has removed the threats to Singapore and Malaysia." ^[83] And in the statement on Asian policy sponsored by Freedom House and signed initially by 14 leading "moderate" political scientists and historians, the series of events that included the huge Indonesian bloodbath were described merely as "dramatic changes" implicitly constructive in character, although these scholars, as noted earlier, condemn "violence" as a mode of achieving social change. ^[84] This humanistic treatment was paralleled by that of the late Prime Minister of Australia, Harold Holt, who told the River Club of New York City in July 1966 that "with 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathizers knocked off, I think' it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place." ^[85]

 

Late in 1972 General Maxwell Taylor explained to U.S. News and World Report that "Indonesia's independence today and its relative freedom from an internal Communist threat is attributable, to a large degree, to what we've accomplished in South Vietnam." With large U.S. forces moving into Vietnam the Indonesian anti-Communists "were willing to run the risk of eliminating President Sukarno and destroying the Indonesian Communists." ^[86] That's all. It apparently does not even occur to this "military adviser to four Presidents" that there might be any moral issue in "destroying the Indonesian Communists." This was a constructive bloodbath. The victims, once identified as Communists, have lost all claim to humanity and merit whatever treatment they received. Since the result is the preservation of a neo-colonial economic and social structure and an "open door" to American investment, only sentimentalists will moralize over the bloodbath. America's academic, business and political leaders must turn their attention to more serious matters.

 

Repacification in the Philippines

 

 

There is no better illustration of the promise that American policy holds for Southeast Asia than the case of the Philippines, the only official U.S. colony in Asia for half a century and now, once again, the scene of a rising insurgency. Filipino nationalists had declared their independence from Spain in 1898, only to bejaced with an extended American war of counterinsurgency, complete with massacres of civilians, depopulation campaigns, burning of villages, and the other appurtenances of pacification. In those less cynical days American commanders openly admitted their intention to turn resisting areas into a "howling wilderness." ^[87] The problem faced by the American conquerors was well expressed by General J. Franklin Bell, who explained that "practically the entire population has been hostile to us at heart." Thus it was necessary to terrorize them into submission, keeping them "in such a state of anxiety and apprehension that living under such conditions will soon become unbearable" and their "burning desire for the war to cease" will ultimately "impel them to devote themselves in earnest to bringing about a real state of peace...[and]...to join hands with the Americans." ^[88] Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were pacified permanently in this early exercise in winning hearts and minds.

 

After the defeat of Japan in World War II, the Philippines were granted technical independence under the rule of a conservative oligarchy closely linked to the U.S. and with the pre-war colonial economy restored. The first President was Japanese collaborator Manuel Roxas, reinstated by General McArthur under the pretext that he had been a double agent. The Philippine Communist Party (PKP), which had been in the forefront of the anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle, attempted "to enter the Philippine political arena legally through a front political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA)," but "failed, as DA-elected members of the Phillippine Congress were denied their seats..." ^[89] The insurgency that followed was suppressed with extensive American aid. As Jonathan Fast observes, the Philippine counter-insurgency effort of the early 1950s served as a laboratory for later American involvement in Vietnam," where General Lansdale "tried to repeat his Philippine success with Ngo Dinh Diem." ^[99]

 

 

The salient features of this "success are described by van der Kroef: "declining real wage rates ^[91], persistent extreme disparities in income levels, the seemingly unchecked power of private U.S. capital (especially in the context of the operations of a few Filipino family corporations)" ^[92]; and "graft and corruption prevalent everywhere, but particularly in government, whose machinery of justice was felt to benefit only the rich." ^[93] The Philippines had evolved into a virtual gangster society, dominated by a tiny and very wealthy elite, including the U.S. favorite Ferdinand Marcos. American investment in the Islands is variously estimated at $1 to $3 billion.

 

As the domestic crisis began to get out of hand, Marcos declared martial law in September, 1972 with widespread arrests of opposition figures and intellectuals, tight control of the press ^[94], and new constitutional proposals considerably more favorable to American business interests than leftist and more radical nationalist sentiment in the [Constitutional] Convention would have wanted." ^[95] Marcos "seemed eager to stay on the right side of the U.S. capital... He also seemed intent on expanding opportunities for the domestic Philippine business of a few powerful families whose links with foreign interests, and preponderant power in so many aspects of Philippine political life have long been viewed, particularly in PKP and NPA [New People's Army] circles, as major obstacles to all significant reforms" ^[96] -- and rightly so.

 

 

Before the Constitutional Convention was aborted by the Marcos coup, charges had been made that USAID and the CIA were training Philippine police under the public safety program "for eventual para-military and counterinsurgency operations as part of a global programme designed to militarize and 'mercenarize' the police forces of client states." ^[97] Between 1948 and 1968 more than $1.7 billion had been provided in U.S. economic and military grants and loans under the U.S. military assistance program, including more than $400 million in hardware. ^[98] Under the rubric of "technical assistance," U.S. AID finances the Office of Public Safety (OPS), which has been extensively involved "in reorganizing, funding and training the Philippine police apparatus both in the Philippines and the U.S. from 1965 to September 21, 1972, the day martial law was declared."^[99] In December, 1966, Frank Walton, fresh from service in Saigon, where "he oversaw the growth and large-scale reorganization of the South Vietnamese police force -- all part of the overall CIA plan to dissolve the political infrastructure of the NLF" ^[100] -- was installed as "Team Chief" for AIDIOPS. He was assisted by a variety of U.S. officials with experience in Brazil, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, as well as by Philippine intelligence officers who had been trained by the CIA during the U.S.-backed suppression of the Huk insurgency, "and had become resident experts on counter-intelligence operations in and around Saigon." ^[101] Walton's group submitted a report to USAID in February, 1967 which "served as the impetus for a drastic reorganization of the Philippine police apparatus and for a much enlarged and more involved US Public Safety Division." ^[102] For fiscal year 1972-3, the expanded Public Safety program was budgeted by the U.S. government at $3.9 million, a marked increase. Police are trained in the United States at CIA, FBI, army and local police training centers, and in the Philippines at training academies which "were easily converted into detention camps to hold the large numbers of political prisoners" after martial law was declared. ^[103]

 

With increased U.S. involvement in internal security problems, the new program is patterned on the CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) program -- the pacification program -- in Vietnam. The new Philippines project is staffed by former CORDS officials from Vietnam headed by Thomas Rose, who was AID public administration chief in Saigon, and Richard Knegel, former CORDS provincial adviser in Bindinh province. American military units have been "involved in 'civic action' operations in conjunction with the Filipino army that clearly had a relevance to internal security problems." ^[104] On July 12, 1973, William Sullivan was confirmed by the Senate for the post of Ambassador to the Philippines. Sullivan had been U.S. Ambassador in Laos from 1964 to 1969, where, as Anthony Lewis remarks, he 'played a decisive part in what must qualify as the most appalling episode of lawless cruelty in American history, the bombing of Laos." ^[105] Sullivan has had a major role in organizing and coordinating U.S. subversive and military activities in Southeast Asia, and although his contributions to the people of Laos pale before those of his murderous successor, G. McMurtrie Godley, who implemented the Nixon-Kissinger program, they nevertheless achieved considerable scale. ^[106] It is altogether appropriate that Sullivan should now be shifted to the Philippines, just as Lansdale moved from the Philippines to Vietnam twenty years earlier, as part of the continuing effort to assist the people of Southeast Asia to remain in the Free World.

 

 

There are, and always will be, the naive, or credulous, or simply deceitful, who see American actions in Vietnam as an aberration, a deviation from the disinterested concern and noble goals that animate American policy in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. For many years the Philippines have stood as a neglected monument contradicting the "error" view, from the brutal exercise in pacification at the turn of the century to the early post-World War II "Philippinization" and repression. As the groundwork is being laid in neo-colonial economic and social conditions, aided by U.S.-financed and -sponsored pacification techniques and policies, no one should be surprised if a renewed constructive bloodbath begins to unfold in that country. And as has been pointed out by Geoffrey Arlin ^[107]:

 

All talk of American withdrawal from Asia not withstanding, the evidence is that America will pursue its old policy of interference and domination in Asia through other means. At one end of the spectrum is the case of Laos, where Thai merceneries are being organised and paid by the U.S. to carry on the fight for the 'Free World'. At the other end, the Philippines continues to provide a classic example of the American stranglehold working to perfection.

 

CONSTRUCTIVE BLOODBATHS IN VIETNAM

 

French and Diemist Bloodbaths

 

 

Although the only pre-1965 bloodbath recognized in the official doctrine is that which occurred in North Vietnam during its land reform of the mid-5Os, there were others. In 1946, without warning, the French bombarded Haiphong, killing an estimated 6000 civilians ^[108], probably greater than the number of victims of the well publicized North Vietnamese land reform episode (discussed below). But as part of the French recolonization effort, and with Vietnam of little interest to the American leadership, this bloodbath was ignored and has not been mentioned yet by President Nixon or Douglas Pike in their historical reconstructions.

 

Diem's bloodbaths also were impressive, but as they were in the service of anti-Communism and the preservation of our client, Diem, they fall into the constructive or benign categories. Under our tutelage, Diem began his own "search and destroy" operations in the mid-and late 1950s, and his prison camps and torture chambers were filled and active. In 1956 the official figure for political prisoners in South Vietnam was fifteen to twenty thousand. Even the Diem friend and adviser, P. J. Honey, concluded on the basis of talks with former inmates, that the majority of these were "neither Communists nor pro-Communists." ^[109] The maltreatment and massacre of political prisoners was a regular practice during the Diem period, although these problems have become much more acute in recent years. ^[110] The 1958 massacre of prisoners in Diem's concentration camp Phu Loi led to such an outcry that P. J. Honey was dispatched to inquire into these events; and according to Lacouture, Honey could not verify more that twenty deaths at Phu Loi. ^[111]

 

 

"Pacification" as it developed from the earliest Diem period consisted in "killing, or arresting without either evidence or trials, large numbers of persons suspected of being Vietminh or 'rebels.' ^[112] This resulted in many small bloodbaths at the local level, plus larger ones associated with military expeditions carried out by Diem against the rural population. One former Vietminh resistance fighter gave the following account ^[113] of the Diemist terror and bloodbath in his village:

 

My village chief was a stranger to the village. He was very cruel. He hunted all the former members of the Communist Party during the Resistance to arrest and kill them. All told, he slaughtered fourteen Party members in my village. I saw him with my own eyes order the killing of two Party members in Mau Lam hamlet. They had their hands tied behind their backs and they were buried alive by the militia. I was scared to death.

 

Another former resistance fighter in Central Vietnam claimed that [114]: In 1956, the local government of Quang Nam started a terrorist action against old Resistance members. About 10,000 persons of the Resistance Army were arrested, and a good many of them were slaughtered. I had to run for my life, and I stayed in the mountains until 1960. I lived with three others who came from my village. We got help from the tribal population there.

 

 

The general mechanics of the larger bloodbaths were described [115] by Joseph Buttinger, another former Diem supporter and advisor.

 

In June 1956 Diem organized two massive expeditions to the regions that were controlled by the Communists without the slightest use of force. His soldiers arrested tens of thousands of people... Hundreds, perhaps thousands of peasants were killed. Whole villages whose populations were not friendly to the government were destroyed by artillery. These facts were kept secret from the American people.

 

 

According to Jeffrey Race, a former U.S. Army adviser in South Vietnam who had access to extensive documentation on recent Vietnamese history ^[116],

 

the government terrorized far more than did the revolutionary movement - for example, by liguidations of former Vietminh, by artillery and ground attacks on "communist villages," and by roundups of "communist sympathizers." Yet it was just these tactics that led to the constantly increasing strength of the revolutionary movement in Long An from 1960 to 1965.

 

During the period 1955-60 the Vietminh mission was political, and "though it used assassinations and kidnapping," according to the Pentagon Papers historians it "circumspectly avoided military operations." ^[117] A USMAAG report of July 1957 stated: "The Viet Cong guerillas and propagandists ... are still waging a grim battle for survival. In addition to an accelerated propaganda campaign, the Communists have been forming 'front' organizations ... seeking to spread the theory of 'Peace and Co-existence.' " ^[118] On the other hand, Diem, at least through 1957, was having "marked success with fairly sophisticated pacification programs in the countryside." ^[119] In a precise analogy with his sponsor's pacification efforts of 1965-72, "By the end of 1956, the civic action component of the GVN pacification program had been cut back severely." ^[120] The Pentagon historians refer to "Diem's nearly paranoid preoccupation with security," which led to policies that "thoroughly terrified the Vietnamese peasants and detracted significantly from the regime's popularity." ^[121]

 

 

According to the Pentagon historians, "No direct links have been established between Hanoi and perpetrators of rural violence." ^[122] The phrase "perpetrators of rural violence" is applied by the Pentagon historians only to the Vietminh, who admittedly were concentrating on political activities, and not to the Diem regime, which as they note was conducting a policy of large-scale reprisals and violence, so extensive and undiscriminating as to be counterproductive. It is not difficult to establish "direct links" between Washington and perpetrators of the Diemist repression,incidentally. Once again it is clear that "constructive" bloodbaths can never involve "violence" for establishment propagandists and scholars; the word is reserved for those seeking social change in an illegitimate direction and under improper auspices.

 

Diem's extensive use of violence and reprisals against former Resistance fighters was in direct violation of the Geneva Accords (Article 14c), as was his refusal to abide by the election proviso. Diem had publicly repudiated the Accords in January, 1955, and the United States gave him complete support until he became a liability in 1963. The analogy with the later scenario and the Agreement of January, 1973 and its surrounding events is, once again, depressingly apt. Thieu has plainly expressed a similar disdain for the Accords. The constitutional structure of his regime -- which remains "intact and unchanged" with full U.S. support, Washington announces -- outlaws the second of the two parallel and equivalent parties that are to achieve peaceful reconciliation in South Vietnam. And Thieu's open retaliatory activities and intentions are completely incompatible with those parts of the 1973 Agreement that prohibit all acts of reprisal (Article 11), and require settlement through negotiations (Articles 10,12 and 13). But then, the entire U.S. strategy and policy of militarization of and support for its minority faction is incompatible with the commitment to nonintervention (Article 4), selfdetermination for the South Vietnamese (Introduction and Article 9), settlement of all disagreements "through negotiations, and avoid[ance of] all armed conflict" (Article 10). In brief, even more clearly than in 1954 the United States and its agent have entered into an agreement, which is incompatible with their clearly stated aims and policies -- indeed, with the very nature of the Saigon regime. ^[123]

 

The Overall U.S. Assault as the Primary Bloodbath

 

 

In a very real sense the overall U.S. effort in South Vietnam may be regarded as a deliberately imposed bloodbath. Military escalation was undertaken to offset the well understood lack of any significant social and political base for the elite military faction supported by the United States. Despite occasional expressions of interest in the welfare and free choice of the South Vietnamese, the documents made available as part of the Pentagon Papers show that U.S. planners consistently regarded the impact of their decisions on the Vietnamese at most as a peripheral issue, more commonly as totally inconsequential. Nonintervention and an NLF takeover were unacceptable for reasons that had nothing to do with Vietnamese interests, they were based on an assumed adverse effect on our material and strategic interests. It was assumed that an American failure would be harmful to our prestige and would reduce the confidence of our satellite governments that we would protect them from the winds of change. ^[124] The Thai elite, for example, might "conclude that we simply could not be counted on" to help them in suppressing local insurgencies. What is more, there was the constant threat of a "demonstration effect" of real social and economic progress in China ^[125], North Korea ^[126], and North Vietnam ^[127].

 

In spite of official reiterations of the alleged threat of Chinese and North Vietnamese "expansionism," it was recognized by U.S. policy makers that a unified Communist Vietnam probably would have limited ambitions itself, and would provide a barrier to any Chinese moves further South. ^[128] It is not the threat of military expanison that official documents cite as the justification for the huge assault on Vietnam. Rather, it was feared that by processes never spelled out in detail, "the rot [might] spread to Thailand" ^[129] and perhaps beyond. The "rot" can only be the Communist "ideological threat" that is, the possibility of social and economic progress outside the framework of American control and imperial interests, which must be fought by American intervention against local Communist uprisings, whether or not any armed attack is involved. This is the rot that might spread to Thailand and beyond, inspiring Communist-led nationalist movements. But no skillful ideologist would want such implications spelled out too clearly, to himself or to others. Consequently, the central factors involved remain vague, their place taken by propagandistic fabrications about aggression, threatened bloodbaths, and our interest in self-determination.

 

 

It is important to bear in mind that these concepts -- in fact, even the terminology in which they were expressed -- were not invented by Vietnam planners. Rather, they merely adopted a standard mechanism of proven effectiveness in mobilizing support for American intervention. When Dean Acheson faced the problem of convincing the "leaders of Congress" (his quotes) to support the Truman Doctrine in February, 1947, he outlined the threat as follows: ^[130]

 

In the past eighteen months, I said, Soviet pressure on the Straits, on Iran, and on northern Greece had brought the Balkans to the point where a highly possible Soviet breakthrough might open three continents to Soviet penetration. Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France, already threatened by the strongest domestic Communist parties in Western Europe.

 

As Acheson well knew, Soviet pressure on the Straits and Iran had been withdrawn already and American control was firmly established. Further, there was no evidence of Soviet pressure on Northern Greece - on the contrary, Stalin was unsympathetic to the Greek guerrillas. Still the rot might spread unless the U.S. undertook to rescue the terroristic regime in Athens, and a "Soviet breakthrough" was a useful propaganda device with which to mobilize domestic support. Acheson was concerned with the more remote dominoes - the Middle East and the industrial societies that were subject to the "threat" of internal democratic politics that might bring Communist parties to power, thwarting American intentions. Similarly in the case of Indochina, it was the potential exit from the Free World of Indonesia with its rich resources, and industrial Japan, that obsessed American planners as they contemplated the threat of falling dominoes and rotting apples.

 

 

As the Pentagon Papers show, the U.S. leadership knew that in Vietnam the "primary sources of Communist strength in the South remain indigenous," with a corresponding "ability to recruit locally" and it was recognized that the NLF "enjoys some status as a nationalist movement," whereas the military government "is composed primarily of technicians" lacking in "positive support from various key segments of the populace" and determined "to remain the real power in South Vietnam" without any "interference from the civilians in the conduct of the war." ^[131] The experienced pacification Chief John Paul Vann, writing in 1965, put the matter more brutally ^[132]:

 

A popular political base for the Government of South Vietnam does not now ....... The existing government is oriented toward the exploitation of the rural and lower class urban populations. It is, in fact, a continuation of the French colonial system of government with upper class Vietnamese replacing the French The dissatisfaction of the agrarian population... is expressed largely through alliance with the NLF.

 

It was thus well known to American authorities in 1965 that we were fighting a nationalist mass movement in favor of a corrupt oligarchy that lacked popular backing. The Vietnam war was fought to return this nationalist mass movement to that measure of passivity and defeatism" identified by Pool as necessary for "stability" in the Third World (see note 12). It must be brought under comprador military control such as we have imposed or supported in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Bolivia, Greece, Thailand, etc. The power to rationalize self-interest is great, however, and some American leaders may have been able to keep their minds from being cluttered with inconvenient facts. In so doing, they preserved the belief that because we were the good guys our purposes must be benign and democratic and must have some positive relationship to the interests of the South Vietnamese people. Even the evidence that we were directing a large part of our military effort to assaulting and uprooting the rural population of the South, already overwhelming before the end of 1965, was easily assimilated into the Orwellian doctrine of "defense against aggression."

 

 

The decision to employ technologically advanced conventional weaponry against the southern countryside made a certain amount of sense on two assumptions: first, that the revolutionary forces were predominant in the rural areas, so that the war had to be a true anti-population war to force submission; and secondly, that the "demonstration effect" is important to U.S. interests, and that our job was to terrorize, kill and destroy in order to prove that revolution "doesn't pay." The first assumption was true in fact and must be assumed to have contributed to the gradual emergence of a full-fledged and semi-genocidal policy of search and destroy and unrestrained firepower. The second assumption was evidently important in the thinking of high level U.S. planners and advisers and also contributed to the evolution of policy. ^[133]

 

The character of U.S. policy was also influenced by the gradual recognition of two additional facts: first, that the South Vietnamese victims of "pacification" were essentially voiceless, unable to reach U.S. or world opinion even as effectively as the North Vietnamese, ^[134] with the result that the population being "saved" could be and has been treated with virtually unrestrained violence (see the descriptions in the sections which follow) The second fact was that relevant U.S. sensitivities (i.e those of politically significant numbers of people) were almost exclusively related to U.S. casualties. Both of these considerations encouraged the development of an indiscriminate war of firepower, a war of shooting first and making inquiries later; this would minimize U.S. casualties and have the spin-off benefit of more thoroughly terrorizing the population. The enhanced civilian casualties need not be reported -- the enormous statistical service of the Pentagon always has had difficulty dredging up anything credible on this one question -- or such casualties could be reported as "enemy" or "Vietcong." Years of familiarity with this practice has not caused the news services to refrain from transmitting, as straight news, Saigon and Pentagon handouts on "enemy" casualties.

 

 

Other factors were involved in making the entire U.S. enterprise in Vietnam a huge bloodbath; faith in technological solutions, racism reinforced by the corruption of "our" Vietnamese and the helplessness of the victimized population, and the frustrations of the war. But essentially the initial high level decisions to bomb freely, to conduct search-and-destroy operations, and to fight a war against the rural population with virtually unlimited force were the source of the bloodbath.

 

The immensity of the overall American-imposed bloodbath can be inferred to some degree from the sheer volume of ordnance employed, the nature of the weaponry, and the principles which have governed their use. Through the end of 1971 over 3.9 million tons of bombs were dropped on South Vietnam from the air alone - about double the total bomb tonnage used by the United States in all theaters during World War II - with ground ordnance also employed in historically unique volume. ^[135] A large fraction of the napalm used in Indochina has been dropped in South Vietnam, an illustration of the abuse visited on the voiceless South Vietnamese (in protecting them from aggression"!) by the American command in collaboration with its client government in Saigon Over 90% of the air strikes in South Vietnam were classified officially as "interdiction" ^[136], which means bombing not carried out in support of specific on-going military actions, but rather area bombing, frequently on a programmed basis, and attacks on "what are suspected" to be "enemy base camps, or sites from which a shot may have been fired.

 

 

One former military intelligence officer with the American Division in South Vietnam told a Congressional Subcommittee: "Every information report (IR) we wrote based on our sources' information was classified as (1) unverifiable and (2) usually reliable source ... The unverified and in fact unverifiable information, nevertheless, was used regularly as input to artillery strikes, harassment and interdiction fire (H & I), B-52 and other air strikes, often on populated areas." ^[137] In the words of Army Chief of Staff General Johnson, "We have not enough information. We act with ruthlessness, like a steamroller, bombing extensive areas and not selected targets based on detailed intelligence." ^[138] This is an expression of indiscriminateness as a principle, and it is a perfect complement to the other facets of a policy which was from the beginning semi-genocidal in purpose and method, resting in large part on the fact that the civilian population has been regarded as enemy or, at best, of no account.

 

The number of civilian casualties inflicted on South Vietnam is unknown, but surely is underestimated by the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees at 400,000 dead, 900,000 wounded and 6.4 million turned into refugees. ^[139] Conservative as these figures are, however, they mean "that there is hardly a family in South Vietnam that has not suffered a death, injury or the anguish of abandoning an ancient homestead." ^[140]

 

 

That the overall American assault on South Vietnam has involved a huge bloodbath can also be inferred from the nature of "pacification," both in general concept and in the details of implementation. We shall not here go into the general concept and the ways in which it was applied and was rapidly transformed into the wholesale killing and forced transfer of civilians. ^[141] We shall confine ourselves to an examination of three cases: a specific operation by U.S. forces over a brief time period; a series of atrocities perpetrated over a six or seven-year period by our South Korean mercenary allies,with the certain knowledge and tacit acceptance of U.S. authorities; and the Phoenix program of extra-legal counter terror against enemy civilians. These are by no means the only blood baths that typify the constructive mode, but they are offered as illustrative and deserving of greater attention.

 

"Operation Speedy Express"

 

Operation Speedy Express was only one of a great many major pacification efforts carried out by the U.S. command. It is unusual, apparently, only in that it was studied and reported by a competent and experienced correspondent, Kevin P. Buckley of Newsweek. He examined the military and hospital records of the Operation and interviewed South Vietnamese inhabitants and pacification officials of the Mekong Delta province of Kien Hoa, the site of Speedy Express. In the latter part of 1968 the American command launched an "accelerated pacification program" to wrest territory from the NLF and place it back under the "control" of Saigon. "Operation Speedy Express" was the code name for a six-month campaign by the U.S. Ninth Infantry Division under that program. The campaign was carried out in a heavily populated Delta province that had traditionally supported the NLF. Buckley reported ^[142]:

 

All the evidence I gathered pointed to a clear conclusion: a staggering number of noncombatant civilians - perhaps as many as 5,000 according to one official - were killed by U.S. fire power to "pacify" Kien Hoa. The death toll there made the My Lai massacre look trifling by comparison...

 

The Ninth Division put all it had into the operation. Eight thousand infantrymen scoured the heavily populated countryside, but contact with the elusive enemy was rare. Thus, in its pursuit of pacification, the division relied heavily on its 50 artillery pieces, 50 helicopters (many armed with rockets and mini-guns) and the deadly support lent by the Air Force. There were 3,381 tactical air strikes by tighter bombers during "Speedy Express"...

 

"Death is our business and business is good," was the slogan painted on one helicopter unit's quarters during the operation. And so it was. Cumulative statistics for "Speedy Express" show that 10,899 "enemy" were killed. In the month of March alone, "over 3,000 enemy troops were killed... which is the largest monthly total for any American division in the Vietnam war," said the division's official magazine. when asked to account for the enormous body counts, a division senior ofticer explained that helicopter crews often caught unarmed "enemy" in open fields. But Vietnamese repeatedly told me that those "enemy" were farmers gunned down while they worked in their rice tields... There is overwhelming evidence that virtually all the Viet Cong were well armed. Simple civilians were, of course, not armed. And the enormous discrepancy between the body count [i.e 11,000] and the number of captured weapons [i.e 748] is hard to explain - except by the conclusion that many victims were unarmed innocent civilians...

 

The people who still live in pacified Kien Hoa all have vivid recollections of the devastation that American firepower brought to their lives in early 1969. Virtually every person to whom I spoke had suftered in some way. "There were 5,000 people in our village before 1969, but there were none in 1970," one village elder told me. "The Americans destroyed every house with artillery, air strikes, or by burning them down with cigarette lighters. About 100 people were killed by bombing, others were wounded and others became refugees. Many were children killed by concussion from the bombs which their small bodies could not withstand, even if they were hiding underground."

 

Other officials, including the village police chief, corroborated the man's testimony. I could not, of course, reach every village. But in each of the many places where I went, the testimony was the same: 100 killed here, 200 killed there. One old man summed up all the stories: "The Americans killed some VC but only a small number. But of civilians, there were a large number killed"

 

 

Although Buckley states that pacification chief John Paul Vann found that Speedy Express had alienated the population (a profound discovery), he reports that the Army command considered its work well done. After all, "the 'land rush' succeeded. Government troops moved into the ravaged countryside in the wake of the bombardments, set up outposts and established Saigon's dominance of Kien Hoa." The commander of the unit responsible for this achievement was promoted with an accolade from General Abrams, who felt that "the performance of this division has been magnificent." On another occasion, when awarding him the Legion of Merit, Abrams referred to George Patton III, the man most noted for converting "pacification" into plain killing, as "one of my finest young commanders." ^[143]

 

The 43-plus My Lais of the South Korean Mercenaries

 

South Korean mercenary forces were contracted for and brought into South Vietnam by the Johnson