China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba Win Seats On UN Human Rights Council, Drawing Scorn

[JackRiddler]

58. The U.S. invasion of Indochina

North and South Vietnam were new and temporary constructs created by the ceasefire line between the Viet Minh and the French in 1954. Under the Geneva Treaty there was to be a vote of all of the people, after which the two temporary territories would be unified as one state. Ho Chi Minh was going to win this vote fairly in both north and south, as the U.S. was well aware. The Eisenhower administration therefore sabotaged the process, prevented the elections, set up a dictatorship in the south under a group of Catholics from the north (there's your invasion from the north!) and led a counterinsurgency campaign against the southern majority who supported the National Liberation Front. When this initial illegitimate and imperialist intervention failed, in part thanks to the entirely legitimate help to the southern resistance forces from the north, the U.S. escalated and invaded with 500,000 of its own troops and bombed with more bombs than were dropped in all of WWII and occupied and rounded up populations into concentration camps and established "free fire zones" and poisoned the land with Agent Orange and finally committed the equivalent of any genocide -- millions were murdered. Two other nations were invaded, bombed and destroyed in the process. The best thing that can be said of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam was that by 1969-71 the majority of the drafted soldiers were engaged in a passive mutiny, refusing to engage the enemy because they had understood by then that the whole thing was bullshit. It's taken 30+ years of "rambo" propaganda to cover up the reality.

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