1823 – Philippines – The “Spanish American War”. Thousands of Filipinos die.
1901 – Philippines, Luzon – In one province, 3/4 of population, 300,000 people killed by army of General James Bell, and the famine and disease induced by that war.
1903/4 – Philippines, Samar – murderous lout Colonel LWT Waller slaughters every Filipino over age 10. Subsequently acquitted in court martial, Waller then moved to Haiti. Roosevelt calls Filipinos “Chinese half-breeds”, “Malay Bandits”, “Savages, barbarians, a wild and ignorant people”. Later awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
Post WW2 planning – The Third World defined as “to fulfil its major function as a source of raw materials and a market to the western industrial societies”
1948 – Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh are recognised by the U.S. as the major local nationalist interest. People governing in their own interests and failing to recognise U.S. entitlement to Indochinese resources cannot be tolerated. U.S. must control the area for themselves and to give concessions and a sphere of influence to Japan to prevent them being sucked into a deal with Chinese communism.
1949 – France has a total of 20,000 nationals fighting in the whole of Indochina. The original Viet Cong are not communists but simply the anti-French resistance. The French are defeated by 1954.
July 1949 – Military historian warns that “the widening political consciousness and the rise of militant nationalism amongst the subject people could not be crushed by force and that Vietnamese nationalism cannot be reversed”.
1950 – American Army planners estimate 80% of Vietnamese support Ho Chi Minh and of those, 80% are not communists.
1950s – Diem’s dictatorship and GVN Party, supported by US, lack popular support. Regime resorts to large scale terror, eliciting resistance that it could not control from the National Liberation Front who won the battle in the rural areas by the end of 1965.
1954 – Geneva Conference – this Convention defined use of force as unacceptable except in the face of armed attack. U.S. stated in contravention to this throughout 1950s policy documents that military force would be used in the case of local communist subversion or rebellion not constituting armed attack. This was stated in National Security Council (NSC) memorandum 5429/2, which was subsequently falsified by Pentagon historians and removed from history.
1954 – U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conclude “No amount of external pressure and assistance can long delay complete communist victory in South Vietnam without a strong base of popular support.
1954-65 – U.S. intervention aiding the French to re-conquer its former colony. 10,000 killed by 1957. 75,000 dead by 1959. North Vietnam intervene at this stage. 1/2 million dead by 1965.
1956 – Height of Kennedy’s anti-communist hysteria – “Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the free world in South East Asia… red tide of communism” etc. All this while the U.S.’s dictator Diem enjoyed “inspiring political liberty” courtesy of the U.S., by slaughtering the locals in a typical Latin American- style terror state.
1958 – Cambodia – Election – Despite massive U.S. efforts to subvert, 9 Pathet Lao (NLHS) victories including Prince Souphanouvong, 4 “left”, 5 “right”, 3 non-party delegates. U.S. didn’t like result, ultra-right installed in power pending next election, so crudely rigged that even pro-U.S. observers were appalled.
1958 – Indonesia – U.S. attempt to overthrow President Sukarno using CIA-trained dissidents and mercenaries in the Philippines.
Early 1960s – Cambodia – U.S. and Kissinger unleash the equivalent of 5 Hiroshimas.
1961 – 66,000 killed in last 4 years. Kennedy escalates war effort – 3 helicopter companies, troop carrier squadron (32 planes), combat aircraft, reconnaissance unit, 6 C-123 aircraft equipped for defoliation.
June 1962 – U.S. military personnel in Vietnam increased from 841 to 5576.
July 23, 1962 – U.S. Military Conference, Honolulu asserted that U.S.-trained Vietnamese forces should be able to overcome the Viet Cong by 1965.
Summer 1962 – Migration of 125-300,000 tribesmen migrating from “Open Areas” where no bombing restrictions are in place. The Viet Cong find it increasingly easy to recruit members. U.S. bombing attempted to herd people into strategic hamlets away from the Viet Cong, to execute Viet Cong supporters and to persuade the rest to support the U.S. while under armed guard, having been driven from their homes by Napalm bombing. Unsurprisingly, unsuccessful – too much indiscriminate bombing to win anyone over. By the end of the year, 2048 air attack sorties had been flown.
1962 – Pentagon budget is now $52.1 billion, up from $45.3 billion in 1961.
January 1963 – Kennedy – State of the Union address – “the spear point of aggression has been blunted in South Vietnam.”
1963 – U.S. covert actions escalate in Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and Africa.
April 12, 1963 – Nhu (Diem’s brother) tells Washington Post – South Vietnam would like to see half of the 13,000 U.S. troops here leave the country.
mid 1963 – U.S. Client Regime in the South (Diem and his brother Nhu) making peaceful overtures with the North. Backed by France who told the Americans from the beginning that they could never win a war in Vietnam.
November 1, 1963 – U.S. ambassador Lodge assists in coup to overthrow Diem-Nhu regime. Both brothers murdered.
November 6/10th, 1963 – New York Times – “U.S. should undertake International negotiations for the settlement of the Vietnam problem”. Editor informed on the 13th that “it would be folly” to do so and that the Newspaper should counter further efforts to “peddle” this sort of stuff through the Media. US deplore diplomacy throughout due to the total lack of local political support for them. Both Kennedy and Johnson administrations knew that “the Generals are all we have got”. Military strength and world media manipulation combined can overcome (temporarily) the blatant fact that no-one in Vietnam wanted the Americans to sort out their affairs for them.
November 1963 – U.S.A – Kennedy assassinated. Lyndon Johnson assumes presidency.
January, 1964 – Discovery that falsely optimistic information fed to U.S. military by the Vietnamese undermines hopes for quick war victory. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommend action on Laos and support of the Government in aerial bombing of critical targets in North Vietnam and mining the sea approaches to that country. Also commit greater troop numbers in action in the South and the North.
1964 – French foreign minister Couve de Murville. The South Vietnamese are out of the game – all that exists is a professional army supported by the Americans.
August 2, 1964 – Tonkin Gulf – U.S. Destroyer “Maddox” attacked. CIA Director McCone informs NSC “the North Vietnamese are reacting defensively to our attacks on their offshore islands”. But the attack was advertised as “unprovoked” allowing later use for it as justification for escalation.
Early 1965 – The U.S. ground invasion of South Vietnam, intervening to prevent political settlement between South and North. The US break the following international laws – UN Charter, Geneva Accords 1954, the Nuremburg Code, the Hague Convention, the Geneva Protocol 1955, the Paris Agreements 1973.
February 19, 1965 – Laos – first raid against the population centre.
March 1965 – U.S. take up the war directly and expand to full-scale attack. Bombing in the South vastly intensifies. Bombing of the North starts and begins to spread around Indochina. U.S. combat forces start to arrive. Enclave strategy – restricted domain with upper limit of 100,000 troops – rejected. “To make progress in this country it is necessary to level everything… to reduce the inhabitants to zero, to eliminate their traditional culture, for it blocks everything” (American diplomat to Le Monde newspaper). Other witnesses make it clear that “Americans are not interested in hunting communists, they’re interested in hunting Asians”. Or “they’re not fighting freedom, they’re fighting the birth rate”.
April 1965 – 89,000 killed in last four years.
1965 – U.S.A – Black sections call for the fight for a better life at home for ALL Americans rather than fighting a war out in South East Asia. Frustration turned to violence, the National Guard called in to assist Police. In Watts, a district of Los Angeles, 36 people die in riots.
October 1965 – Indonesia – A CIA coup murders anti-American Generals and is blamed on the communists. There is a flaw in the accusation – it appeared that the pro-American Generals including Suharto were the ones to survive this coup. A second coup (to overthrow the communists) places Suharto at the head of a new, anti-communist Government who slaughter several hundred thousand peasants and secure Indonesia’s riches for foreign corporations. Events described by the New York Times as “a gleam of light in South East Asia” with “spectacular investment opportunities”. Acknowledged retrospectively that with the U.S. controlling Indonesia and the Philippines that the continuation of the war in Vietnam was unnecessary. 10 years on from Kennedy’s pronouncement, apparently Vietnam is no longer worthy of the status of the “cornerstone of the free world”.
1965 – the Space budget is now $5 billion up from $400m in 1962. By the end of Kennedy over 78% of all Research and Development in the US is now funded by the federal government out of taxes.
May 1966 – Marine Commandant and ex-Kennedy favourite General Shoup “I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty bloody dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people they would arrive at a solution of their own. That they design and want. That they fight and work for (not one) crammed down their throats by Americans”.
Another 60,000 dead in the last year.
1966 – U.S. Government study of Viet Cong defectors and prisoners showed few of them considered themselves to be communists or could give a definition of communism.
Are we arriving at this point at a new definition of Communist? A person who doesn’t believe in the intrusion of foreign Governments in to their lives. An anti-Imperialist need not be a Communist – they just want foreign troops and interests to stop stealing from them.
Summer 1967 – Detroit, Newark and dozens of others cities in the U.S.A – further riots, deaths and Urban War Zones. By this stage 500,000 Americans were fighting in Vietnam. 10,000 Americans and 50,000 Vietnamese were dead. War costs standing at around $3 billion/month.
January 1968 – The Tet offensive is launched by the Viet Cong. US statements that 200,000 more US troops will be required leads to a dramatic decline in support for the war. Propaganda reconstruction starts – U.S.A drop “No withdrawal without victory” line and start backtracking and rewriting history.
March 17th and 19th, 1968 – Laos – Phosphorus bombing. 65 villages destroyed in the last 3 years. Heaviest bombing in history (until Cambodia a few years later). “The most appalling episode of lawless cruelty in American history.”
1969 – Troop numbers – 50,000 Korean mercenaries, 20,000 others and 500,000 U.S. troops.
1969 – Withdrawal of some U.S. troops co-ordinated with most devastating and ferocious campaign of mass murder yet undertaken by the expeditionary U.S. Force. Also escalation of war against civilians in Laos and Cambodia. 12,000 air raids per month on Laos.
1969-75 – Cambodia – U.S. bombing started 1970 reached peak in 1973, ended in 1975. Directed against inner Cambodia. It killed about 600,000 people over that 5 year period and estimated that 1 million would die subsequently of hunger and disease in the wreckage. World’s press silent. Bombings thought to have built up peasant support for the Khmer Rouge. But grants from World Health Organisation help Cambodia to beat Malaria and Tuberculosis, until…
1971 – By the end of this year, 3.9 million tons of bombs had been dropped on South Vietnam from the air alone, excluding ground ordnance. This is double the amount used by the US in all theatres since World War 2.
1972 – Nixon’s Christmas bombing of Hanoi.
1973 – U.S. forced to sign treaty. Washington declares that it will subvert it in every crucial respect. And after all the fighting against the North Vietnamese, what’s so wrong with communism? Rand corporation foreign affairs specialist Konrad Kellen concluded … “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 co-operatives, like it there and find the system just and the labour they do rewarding.”
1974 – East Timor, Southern Indonesia – Portuguese colonial occupation ends. Attempted coup by Indonesian elements beaten by bloody civil war. 3,000 dead. 90% of Indonesian military equipment bought from U.S.
December 7, 1975 – East Timor – U.S. President Gerald Ford and Foreign Secretary Henry Kissinger visit the Indonesian military junta in Djakarta for civic reception. Hours later, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor begins. 200,000 dead by 1979. Senator Daniel Moynihan blocks UN action on Timor. He says… “The U.S. Department of State desire that the UN prove utterly ineffective …this task was given to me.” Ford and Kissinger knew that the invasion was imminent. Australia had already withdrawn its nationals from the territory. Kissinger tells the Press in Djakarta that the US do not recognise East Timor and that “the United States understands Indonesia’s position on the question.”
1975 – Cambodia – Pol Pot comes to power and takes over atrocities from the U.S.. Immediately condemned as genocidal only a few weeks later by the World’s press. The Khmer Rouge boast that they have killed 2 million people. This is picked up by world media and supporting photos convince the public of the sheer barbarity of them – the official enemy. Pol Pot’s destruction of hospitals, murder of doctors etc means that twenty years later, 1/4 of the population again suffer from malaria and TB, mostly children.
1975 – Vietnam War ends. 3 million dead in the last 10 years. Another million in Cambodia and Laos. 10 million refugees. If the U.S. can’t have the resources, they can stop the locals from having them and supplying the “threat of a good example” to the embarrassment and exposure of the Western model of “Civilisation”.
The U.S., after their defeat in Vietnam, impose a trade embargo. Aid from the World Bank, Europe and Japan is also blocked. UNICEF are denied permission to hand milk and food aid to Vietnam. India is threatened with U.S. action for trying to send 100 buffaloes (used as tractors). Mennonite Group in U.S. threatened for trying to send pencils, and shovels to dig up the unexploded bombs.
Imposed starvation as a result of the U.S.-orchestrated world Trade embargo forces the “Boat People” to leave the country. U.S. proclaim this as the barbarian savagery of the Vietnamese leadership.
The Vietnamese are portrayed as merciless savages who have failed to apologise for atrocities against the U.S.A. Note that the U.S. also used the same ploy against Native Americans, trying to portray the victim as the blood-thirsty aggressor. But the “Vietnam Syndrome” of ongoing protest means that civil rule at home is becoming increasingly difficult. Planners talk of the “Crisis of Democracy”.
1977 – US Congressional Hearings. Chairman Donald Fraser, concerning the Indonesian invasion of East Timor… “To write off the rights of 600,000 people because we are friends with the country that forcibly annexed them does real violence to any profession of adherence to human rights or principle”.
April 17, 1978 – Cambodia – First day of Year Zero. Khmer Rouge enter Phnom Penh and march the entire population into the countryside, telling them that the city was about to be bombed by the U.S.. Pol Pot and his Paris intellectuals are anti-peasant and anti-Vietnamese – border war starts with Vietnam. Vietnamese invade to oust Pol Pot who is threatening Vietnam as well. Pol Pot falls. Hun Sen comes to power, installed by the Vietnamese.
1980 – Cambodia – CIA deny Pol Pot carried out any executions in the last two years, although there were 1/2 million of them.
1982 – Cambodia – Britain vote for Pol Pot’s defunct regime to occupy the Cambodian seat at the UN.
1985 – Cambodia – Vietnam, who invaded to oust the Khmer Rouge causing trouble on the Vietnamese border, ask as only condition for withdrawal that the Khmer Rouge be prevented from returning to power. Welcomed by several Indo-Chinese Governments but rejected by the U.S..
1986 – Cambodia – Pol Pot has received $85 million in the last 6 years. Arms reach Pol Pot from U.S., German and Swedish suppliers, passed on by Singapore or made by their own Chartered Industries under license. These weapons have been captured from the Khmer Rouge. U.S. and British SAS in Malaysia train guerrillas allied to Pol Pot. In the UK, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher agrees that the British will take on training alone after U.S. Irangate scandal to avoid further damage to U.S. reputation.
1988 – Cambodia – Oxfam publish “Punishing the Poor: the International Isolation of Kampuchea” by Eva Mysliwiec. Censured for material on Kampuchea 3 years later by Charity Commission threatening to remove charitable status.
1989 – Cambodia – Vietnamese forces withdraw. Western support for the Khmer Rouge increases. Alliance between Hun Sen and Prince Sihanouk “torpedoed” by the U.S. State Department.
1990 – Vietnam Syndrome – Retrospective survey on the Vietnam war. 71% regarded the war not as a “mistake” but “fundamentally wrong and immoral”. Compare this figure to 45% among decision makers, including the clergy).
1990 – Cambodia – a former member of U.S. special forces discloses that he had been ordered to destroy records that showed U.S. munitions in Thailand ending up with the Khmer Rouge. The records implicated the National Security Council.
1990 – Thailand reformists offer secret help and a regional conference excluding the Western Powers to deal with the Khmer Rouge. U.S. threatens to withdraw Thailand’s trade privileges under the “Generalised Special Preferences”. The conference never took place.
June 25, 1991 – Cambodia – British Government admits that SAS has been secretly training the allies of Pol Pot since 1983.
1991 – Vietnam – U.S. again blocks European and Japanese efforts to end 16-year economic embargo imposed by U.S..
Khieu Samphan, the public front of Pol Pot, visits Phnom Penh in secrecy guarded in the UN security compound.
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton renews relations with Vietnam. Analysts have suggested that there is more money to be made in investing in Vietnam (Oil) than in China and so the issue of missing American POWs that justified the long Trade Embargo slowly slips off the agenda as U.S. corporations fear being beaten to the investment opportunity by Japan and Europe. And Vietnam throughout the 1980s had been receiving $3 billion per year in economic and military aid from Russia.
As with Burma, so with Vietnam. American Presidents have to compete with influence from Russia, China and other upcoming economies including India, and so have increasingly courted Vietnam as the now unified country sets course to being one of the economic powerhouses of the 21st century.
The Communist Party in Vietnam have softened their approach to the idea that the State must own everything and now allow private capital.
The Vietnamese would be well advised to observe the US’s “Track1” style of encroachment that I have discussed with reference to Chile and which has been used extensively elsewhere – the encouragement of Vietnam to hold “free and fair” elections… at which point a heavily funded pro-American candidate favourable to the interests of American business will blitz the American-funded Vietnamese airwaves to woo the voters with all kinds of promises and finally return control over Vietnamese resources once more to a Leader that serves the needs of American capital.