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Show The Gadfly Behind The Mask By MICHAEL W. McKAIN In a world of false faces and role playing, a man or even a nation is not always what it pretends to be. And a judgment of what is real requires a close look at the role being played and even a peek under the mask. On the world's stage, the United States plays the good guy, the world's policeman, protecting all from Communism, Commu-nism, regardless of their desire or need for such protection. Yesterday the U.S. protected China and Korea: today she protects Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia. The U.S. first displayed its concern for the people of Southeast South-east Asia by supporting the French attempt to regain colonial colon-ial possession with $1.5 billion bil-lion in aid between 1950 and 1954. With the defeat of France and her withdrawal from Indochina, Indo-china, the U.S. with unreasoning unreason-ing fear of the "Communist conspiracy," rushed to the rescue res-cue of the "anti-Communist" regime in South Vietnam. Between 1954 and 1965, the U.S. spent up to $2 million per day "advising" the Saigon government gov-ernment how to stop losing the war against the South Vietnamese Vietna-mese nationalists. At present, however ,the U.S. has been forced to discard the mask of adviser, due to the presence of 125,000 U.S. troops, the U.S. 7th Fleet (125 ships) . and both land and sea based bomber and fight squadrons (2000 planes). The U.S., to defend de-fend the Vietnamese, has tried bombings which include the use of napalm and gas, and defoliation defolia-tion of jungle and crop areas in both North and South Vietnam. Now it has the job of protecting pro-tecting the Saigon government from the trained North Vietnamese Viet-namese army and local peasants peas-ants alienated by the -bombings of their homes and families, in addition to the South Vietnamese Vietna-mese nationalist forces. But the U.S. has just begun to fight; the protection of this area from Communism is worth any price, even the present $4 million per day plus a few hundred American lives. After all, Southeast Asia is an underpopulated, under-populated, food surplus area that produces 85 per cent of the world's natural rubber, 55 per cent of the tin, tea, pepper, and has barely tapped reserves of oil, lumber, coal, zinc and manganese. While control of this area may not be necessary for defense, it would certainly be profitable. The U.S. has gone a long way since Nuremberg where the Allies held that last great crusader against Communism, Nazi Germany, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. hu-manity. But, perhaps it is still not too late. The Geneva Accords of 1954 are still there for a nation genuinely concerned with world peace, the establishment of law and order and respect for the rights of others. |
