VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM
The University of Kansas Student Auxiliary
V.V.A.R.: Leading the student revolt on campus against speech codes, political correctness, multiculturalism, gender feminism, dormitory re-education, lying about Vietnam, and other instruments of academic oppression.
Leonard Magruder - Founder/President
Former professor of psychology - Suffolk College, N.Y.
Member: National Association of Scholars
CONTACT: Magruder44@aol.com - Phone: 785-312-9303
KERRY - THEY WERE NOT “STANDING UP FOR YOU.” YOU DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT WAR, AND YOU ARE NAIVE ABOUT THIS ONE.
By Leonard Magruder
2/21/04
(Part 1 of 2 parts)
There are a great number of organizations that represent Vietnam veterans. To our knowledge, ours is the only organization that still represents those who fought the ‘war on the homefront’ supporting both the soldiers and the cause in Vietnam, going back thirty-five years to Mr. Magruder’s first one-man protests on campuses against the war protestors. We have a huge archive on the activities of the Left, which engineered these protests, up to today when its totalitarian views on reality totally dominate the American campus.To expose the lies of the Movement would end that tyranny. The hugh waves of anti-Semitism and the sugary nonsense about Islam on campus are only the latest atrocities of the Left. Now that the Kerry campaign has raised the issue, we call for a national effort to end the lies the Left told about the Vietnam War once and for all.
We honor Kerry for his courage and service in Vietnam. But there are problems with what he did when he returned. When everyone was searching for Kerry’s 1971 testimony to Congress, we had it, in our archives. We sent it to “Northwest Veterans Newsletter,” which posted it for all to see. Then we sent out an article showing that many of Kerry’s arguments were identical to those of the campus war protestors--“Students Call on Kerry to Disavow 70’s Anti-war Statement or Drop Out.” Today we will show you why he must do that. That was not an honest movement. It was all too often nothing but Leftist propaganda for Hanoi.
We have in our archives a very rare book, containing 118 of the most important pieces of literature handed out by the antiwar movement between the years 1964 and 1974--“Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: the Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War.” Edited by G. Louis Heath, a professor of sociology at Illinois State University, it was published in 1976 in a very limited edition. In his Introduction he writes that the book “consists of flyers, leaflets, letters, reports, manuals, and documents produced by or relating to the antiwar movement in the United States collected from over one hundred groups, many of them organized on university campuses... selected so as to present an accurate cross-section of the American resistance to the Vietnam War during 1964-1974.”
Containing mostly information on Who, What, Where of the various demonstrations and marches, and a lot of antiwar rhetoric that doesn’t explain anything, we are interested in the Why. We carefully went through all 597 pages of this book for all material that focused on the reasons for the protests. Here, greatly reduced to their essence to fit on these 5 pages, are the ONLY such statements we found. And although all of these themes are found at greater lengths in other forms, the essence of what the anti-war movement told others as to what the war was all about, is found here. We will send this book overnight to any Vietnam veteran leader acceptable to both sides of the Kerry issue, because this apparently is what he and Vietnam Veterans Against the War endorsed, to check our work to assure you that all this is true, that we have not let our own biases on this issue distort this study in any way.
And once again, as we did in our recent article,”Students Appeal to World Media as American Media Engages in Cover-Up of Kerry’s Weakness on National Security,” we call on the national media, especially TV news, to stop campaigning for Kerry and start asking him the right questions.
From “Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly: The Literature of the American Resistance to the Vietnam War”
The May 2nd movement is launching an anti-induction campaign on the campuses. ...based on the refusal to fight against the people of Vietnam. Some chapters of May 2 plan to campaign to donate blood and other medical aid to the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) to concretely show our support for national liberation struggles. Receiving blood from U.S. college students will be a terrific morale booster for the Vietnamese people.
–May 2nd Movement - Sept. 8, 1965
The game of the rich has caught up to Pig America. The Vietnamese have kicked ass out of U.S. occupational troops. More and more G.I.’s will no longer listen to Pig Nixon’s orders and are turning their guns around on the real enemy. The Provisional Revolutionary Government in Vietnam (Viet Cong) has led the Vietnamese people to complete victory.
–Roxboro School SDS- Cleveland Heights – June 4, 1972
The Provisional Revolutionary Government becomes the political head of the “broad social strata” in South Vietnam which is determined to settle for nothing short of complete independence. The National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) becomes simply the military arm of that government. We support the Provisional Revolutionary Government.
–Distributed to delegates to the National Anti-War Conference,
by the San Francisco Chapter of the New Mobilization
Committee to End the War in Vietnam - July 4-5, 1969
Recently many articles have appeared in the movement press expounding the virtues of deserting and going AWOL. “Come to Canada and be a man.” “Soldiers are pigs,” “To remain in the imperialist U.S. Army rather than leaving is comparable to being a Nazi.” Last year there were, by Pentagon counts,, 250,000 AWOL’s and over 53,000 deserters. This has not made much of a dent in the fighting strength of the U.S.Army. That dent has clearly come from the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people under the leadership of the NLF and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.
–New York Regional SDS distributed at Boston University - Feb. 22, 1969
Letter from Ho Chi Minh to a radical activist in Youth Against War and Fascism, Free University of New York:
My Dear -------
I have received your letter. You and the progressive American people, especially the youth, feel indignant at the barbarous crimes perpetrated in Vietnam by the U.S. imperialists who have thus besmeared the honor of the American people and the noble traditions of the United States. I am glad to learn that you and many other young Americans are actively endeavoring under varied forms to help push forward the movement against the war of aggression in Vietnam and in support of the Vietnamese people.
With affectionate greetings,
Signed, Uncle Ho
June 18, Nov. 25, 1965
On February 7, 1965, the U.S. began its systematic air massacre of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The U.S. also plans to bomb the system of dikes in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam which helps the North Vietnamese from drowning and starving. Just as the U.S. is attempting to drown in blood the liberation struggle of the South Vietnamese people because it is the model for liberation struggles everywhere, so North Vietnam is being bombed to bits because it shows all colonial and former colonial countries, by living example, that Socialism can solve their problems.
–Youth Against War and Fascism, Free University of New York - Aug. 27, 1966
As far as the Vietnamese are concerned, we are fighting on the side of Hitlerism, and they hope we lose. You are supposed to be fighting to “save the Vietnamese people from Communism.” Certainly Communist influence is very strong in the National Liberation Front, the rebel government. Yet most of the people support the NLF. Why ? The war in Vietnam is not being fought according to the rules. Prisoners are tortured. Our planes drop incendiaary bombs on civilian villages. Our soldiers shoot at women and children. Your officers will tell you that it is all necessary, that we couldn’t win the war any other way. We believe that the atrocities which are necessary to win this war against the people of Vietnam are inexcusable.
–Vietnam Day Committee, San Franscisco - Aug. 2, 1966.
(This is the only mention of Communism in this entire literature. Page 138)
Among those who signed the various documents represented here, basically the major leaders of the anti-war movement, we list the following:
· Al Hubbard - Vietnam Veterans Against the War
· Jane Fonda - actress
(both signed the People’s Peace Treaty of 1971)
· Noam Chomsky, MIT
· Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr. Yale
· Rennie Davis, May Day Collective
· Rev. Daniel Berrigan,S.J.
· Dave Dellinger, People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice
· Daniel Ellsberg - MIT
· Richard Falk - Princeton
· Tom Hayden - Berkeley
· Abbie Hoffman - WPAX, NewYork
· Sidney Peck - People’s Coalition for Peace and justice
· Bobby Seale- Black Panther Party
· Benjamin Spock, doctor
· Gloria Steinem - author
· George Wald, biologist, Havard
· Cora Weiss - Women Strike for Peace
(Many of the people who signed the various documents in this book appeared again as signers of the recent “Not In Our Name” ad that appeared in papers all over the country, denouncing Bush and the wars on terrorism and Iraq.)
The New Mobilization Committee was formed in July, 1969, and organized the November 15 March on Washington. Neither of these coalitions was a stable, long-term formation because of the centrifugal political forces which operated on the constitutent elements. While the New Mobe contained forces which were not in the National Mobe, both of these coalitions rested in large part on three main elements, the Trotskyists, the Communist Party, and the radical pacifists.
–Antioch College - Nov. 30, 1970
The latest escalations result from the complete failure of Nixon’s “Vietnamization” program. His attempt to conceal his violation of the Cooper-Church Amendment by sending U.S. troops into Cambodia dressed in civilian clothes is especially pernicious. Richard Nixon exhibits an absolute contempt for the American people’s desire for peace. The GI’s in Vietnam are refusing to fight in the dirty war any longer.
–National Peace Action Coalition, Univ. of California, Berkeley - Feb. 3, 1971
(Signed by eight organizations, including Vietnam Veterans Against the War)
Mr. President: What will you do then, if the North Vietnamese launch a major offensive next summer, after you have reduced American forces to the promised level of 250,000 troops? Will you then feel you have the right to, and responsibility to, send in more American troops to protect the troops still there?
–Fellowship of Reconciliation - Oct. 27, 1970
(This pamphlet is the only one out of 118 pieces of literature, from 1964 through 1974, to suggest that South Vietnam was being aggressed against by North Vietnam. Signed by 6 organizations, including Al Hubbard, National Executive Secretary for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Although Kerry said it was not the “Reds” who threatened the U.S., but the crimes the soldiers were committing. He made reference to “the mystical war against Communism,” and referred to it as a “civil war.”)
It is important for us to tell people why the demands of the NFL and the PRG represent the only hope for peace, independence and unity in Vietnam. To anyone who knows the political-military situation in Vietnam, to declare for immediate withdrawal is to support the NLF without saying it. What is important... is to show that Vietnam is only a place where U.S. policies of neocolonialism have met with active resistance.
–Stanford University – November 15, 1969
Just when Westmoreland was boasting that there were only small guerrilla groups left, he was hit in October 1967 with a division-sized unit. While he was explaining that this was a desperate last fling, he was hit by another division- sized unit. The U.S. forces never recovered from this. Wetstmoreland started panic measures. Forced to disperse, he opened the way for the NLF’s mighty Tet offensive in late January that sealed the fate of the “limited war” because from then on Westmoreland, and General Abrams after him were forced onto the strategic and tactical defensive.
–Radical Student Union - Univ. of California- Berkeley- Dec. 11, 1969
I want Spiro Agnew to know that I bring this assembly a message of greetings and solidarity with the American people from the Viet Cong. I want Agnew to know that this generation is establishing its own diplomatic relations, because we are not at war with the people of Vietnam. Our war is with the Pentagon, Wall Street, and Spiro T. Agnew. Nixon plans to win. ..by withdrawing enough troops to deflate antiwar sentiments at home , while fortifying major cities like Hue and Saigon and from this position of fortification carry out the raging air war against the countryside that most students of Vietnam now understand is controlled some 80% by the National Liberation Front.
–Speech by Rennie Davis, San Francisco Peace Rally - Nov. 15, 1969
The resistance of the people of South Vietnam is an indigenous movement of politically and religiously diverse groups and individuals which was organized in response to years of oppression and illegal action by the U.S. government and its various “puppet” regimes in Saigon. In order to counter the U.S. government’s propaganda --which falsely teaches the public that the “enemy” is an outside, “communist” aggressor - we will continue to make use of various educational means. The U.S. government is trying to stifle, at tremendous cost and risk, a liberation struggle which is setting the example for all oppressed peoples.
–The U.S. Committee to aid the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong)
New York City - May 10, 1966
(Here it is—the heart of the matter—the Big Lie that runs throughout all this literature. We were fighting, not Communist oppression, but indigenous peasants yearning for liberation from Saigon. We will take a closer look at this in Part 2)
This article may be reproduced in any form.
Founder/President, V.V.A.R.
Phone: 785-312-9303
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