FPF - 24-01-2005 - In Vietnam it was the same discussion: how to make friends, and win the minds and hearts of the people which the US wanted to conquer.

Flying aboard a US bomber plane, up north in Vietnam in 1971, and reflecting about the huge amount of money represented by all the bombs in the holds, most of the military crew and we journalists aboard agreed: if this had been the equivalent in crispy dollar notes to be dropped, the US would have had the best friends in the world among many local populations. Be it in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia or other by the US invaded and bombed countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.

But even as we all agreed - flying high above the misery, below on the ground or in the bar of the Caravelle journalists hotel in Saigon: the US cannon fodder ''had no choice'' they said. And it was very scary, not only to see it in the war in Vietnam and the rest of South East Asia, but also later on when being based in Latin America (Chile '72 - '74) this deadly effect of the "Orders are Orders" mentality: there was nothing humane left to 'win hearts and minds': they all - incuding the troops - became "Dead Friends".

Most people will remember the picture of the little Vietnamese girl - running away from her bombed village with her napalm burnt back -  http://tinyurl.com/54jaj - a show case of the horror of war, which seems to be forgotten or impossible to imagine for the Washingtonian 'chicken hawks' - sending of soldiers to war.

Again a US war, and based again on lies, fakes and brutal force. A gruesome situation in which not the law, but US made 'Might makes Right' prevails. With a daily and globally growing resistance, proving that one doesn't make friends by kicking them in the groin or other sensitive parts. Killing fellow human beings is not the answer.

If the Vietnamese girl had been photographed in a new 'ao dai' - the elegant Vietnamese dress -  http://tinyurl.com/63vuj - for a price the equivalent of what the napalm burning her life had cost, money
dropped as 'Manna from the sky' by the B-52's - the story might have been very different, especially for the US.

Fomented by the American's murderous 'gun ship policy' with it's deadly effects, there's a daily growing hate against the US and it's killing allies, everywhere in the 199 countries surrounding the US. And Americans now travel as fake 'Canadians' to avoid the revenge and angry reactions of the people they have betrayed.

The world knows the US is not benevolent but a bully

The logic of making friends by helping - instead of killing etc. - seems to have been lost in Washington's warmongering circles. Where the zionist neocon 'tail' not only wags - but apparently also has fully blinded the american warrior dog.

Now mass graves and cemeteries everywhere are filled with people which have been killed instead of helped, and the US will never again be regarded as benevolent: the world knows the US is a bully.

On the well known web site - 'Axis of Logic' - Canadian writer Paul Harris* once wrote: "If the US is a nation of Peace Lovers, than help us God.''

And american writer Howard Zinn a few days ago explained in an eloquent article in the Miami Herald* that the best support for the troops (of all nations - HR) - is to bring them home as soon as is possible:

"We must withdraw our military from Iraq, the sooner the better. The reason is simple: Our presence there is a disaster for the American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people. It is a strange logic to declare, as so many in Washington do, that it was wrong for us to invade Iraq but right for us to remain.

A recent New York Times editorial sums up the situation accurately: "Some 21 months after the American invasion, United States military forces remain essentially alone in battling what seems to be a growing insurgency, with no clear prospect of decisive success any time in the foreseeable future.'' 

And then, in an extraordinary non sequitur: "Given the lack of other countries willing to put up their hands as volunteers, the only answer seems to be more American troops, and not just through the spring, as currently planned. . . . Forces need to be expanded through stepped-up recruitment.'' 

Here is the flawed logic: We are alone in the world in this invasion. The insurgency is growing. There is no visible prospect of success. Therefore, let's send more troops?

The definition of fanaticism is that when you discover that you are going in the wrong direction, you redouble your speed. 

But the first step is to support our troops in the only way that word support can have real meaning -- by saving their lives, their limbs, their sanity. By bringing them home." - [end quote]

But Washington's neocons stubbornly keep proving the saying:

'Nobody is blinder, than one who does not want to see'.

Blindest are the Dead.


Henk Ruyssenaars


Iraq Body Count - Url.:  http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ 

Howard Zinn - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/6wmp4 - © 2005 Miami Herald

Canadian writer Paul Harris - US ''Peace Lovers'' - Url.:
 http://tinyurl.com/72eyy

The deplorable US military history - Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/5sa2c

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
 http://tinyurl.com/5uvtv
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
 http://tinyurl.com/5uvtv
The Netherlands
 FPF@Chello.nl

The Dutch author has this far worked abroad for 4 decades for international media, as a foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East.

Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism ! (Former) US Senator Holdings agrees:  http://tinyurl.com/2ylmv

Evil triumphs when good men, women and we journalists remain silent: -  http://tinyurl.com/3tgqa - Let's fight today, because tomorrow it may be too late...

Help the troops come home ! Url.:  http://tinyurl.com/3o6tr - We need them badly to fight our 'governments':  http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

HR

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