The Vietnam War was a holocaust

Two years later I finally have gotten around to writing a plot summary for IMDB and since I have already been accused by various Kossacks of writing this blog solely to sell DVD's, and since I like to reuse things, I thought I also publish it here to get some feedback and maybe sell a few more DVDs. Especially now that Ken Burns is copying after me by announcing his own plans for a documentary on the Vietnam War.

A Plot Summary

Vietnam: American Holocaust opens in the present day at the Veterans for Peace Arlington West Memorial to the fallen US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in Santa Monica. Here the strong connection between our current wars and the war in Vietnam is first made. The question of what makes a holocaust is also raised. Then the scene shifts to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. and while the narration continues it is revealed that the youngest US soldier to die in Vietnam was a Black Marine age 15.

A clip of Vietnam era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in Hanoi in 1995 shows him saying that 3.4 million Vietnamese were killed during the war. Further news clips from the time reveal some of the horrors of that war and show that news commentators referred to it as a holocaust at the time.

This is followed by a brief history of the 19th century French conquest of Indochina and the Vietnamese liberation struggle from 1945 through the defeat of the French in 1954. This is done with archival footage, much of it very rare, and Martin Sheen's excellent narration and the voices of the principals on both sides of the conflict. Since the focus of the documentary is the American War in Vietnam the pace slows as more details are given about this part of the history.

The reasons for opposing the Vietnamese independence struggle are given by President Eisenhower in a clip from one of his speeches. Then the young Ho Chi Minh is introduced, with special attention to his time in Harlem, NY and his relationship with Marcus Garvey. Again very old and rare footage is used to illustrate these years while Mr. Sheen describes the crucial events.

The story of the lead up to the American war is presented with footage that also includes Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Diem, Gerald Ford, Joe McCarthy, Nixon, Senator Morse, and many others. We hear Bobby Kennedy question the NSC plans for a coup in South Vietnam only weeks before President Kennedy is assassinated. In another connection to the present conflicts, we learn of the role the Kennedy administration played in putting Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq.

Since the Tonkin Gulf incident played such a big role in promoting and justifying the war, the film goes into considerable detail about it. Through interviews with the captain of the US ship that was allegedly attacked, the chief gunner, a North Vietnamese general and the recollections of pilots that flew air cover on the fateful night, it shows that this attack never happened. Most significantly, using White House tapes released only a few years ago, it shows that McNamara and LBJ had foreknowledge of this phony attack that never took place. This material has never been used in a documentary before.

The next segment illustrates the incredible damage done to Vietnam by the massive US air war which included bombing, napalm and agent orange. With a particularly potent instrumental from the Mama's Boys blues band that provides the sound track for the film, we hear from LBJ, Curtis LeMay, a Hanoi doctor, Vietnamese victims, and American airmen among others in a way that really brings home the brutality of the air war. The agent orange section will send chills up your spine.

From there the film goes into the horrific ground war that was the real holocaust in Vietnam. This is done through the voices of American and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians that give you a real window into the tragedy of war on a human level. The Vietnam War was a My Lai every week and this point is driven home by recounting some of the many other massacres that took place. Extremely graphic images are used in this segment. You are witness to real deaths happening on the screen. You will understand why so many Vietnam vets came home with a great deal of mental anguish because of what they saw in this war.

Finally we return to Arlington West in the present and the Iraq War. Again the point is made that those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it and a plea is made both by Martin Sheen and the director, Clay Claiborne, to stop this madness.

You may purchase your very own copy on DVD from the movie website:
VietnamAmericanHolocaust.com or alternately, from Amazon. Today I also discovered that it is available for bittorrent download, which kinda makes me feel like I've arrived. [Anything worth stealing is worth something.] But you don't seriously expect me to tell you how to find that. In fact I am now seriously considering dropping my opposition to the Copyright Infringement Bill and reversing everything I have said on that subject. NOT!

Notices

It was a holocaust. Every American should see this film!
- Ron Kovic,Vietnam veteran author Born on the 4th of July
[Ron Kovic and Martin Sheen are Honorary Co-Chairs of my fundrasing committe for the sequel Vietnam: People's Victory

I do a lot of public speaking on the subject of Vietnam. As I was watching the documentary, I kept thinking, ‘Wow, I can't wait to get this into the high schools.’ Clay has done an excellent job of piecing together the historical record. He uses footage, some of which I've never seen before, and it is so good. In my talks, I will say Eisenhower said this or McNamara said that. This documentary shows them actually saying it.
-Scott Camil, 1st Marines (1965-1967), Winter Soldier (1971)

Good job with the film. Very powerful. I think [Clay] did a good job of connecting Vietnam and Iraq without beating it into the ground. White phosphorous moment isparticularly strong.
-David Zeiger, Director Sir! No Sir!

I love it .It's the best thing I've seen. I've seen Winter Solider, Hearts & Minds, you name it, I've seen it. This is the best thing I've seen.
-David Slaky, Veterans for Peace, St. Louis

This is the best political video on Vietnam and its historic relevance to our times I have ever seen. You really got to it, from the Garvey connection in Harlem of Ho Chi Min to our support of the French and the British release of the Japanese in Vietnam. It cuts deep enough to enrage me.
-Stuart M. Chandler, Rotten Tomatoes

The best documentary ever made on the Vietnam War.
- Blase Bonpane, Director of the Office of the Americas

Thank you so very much.Thank you.
- Vy Xuan Hong, Member, NA, Vietnam

Are they throwing babies out of incubators yet?

Certain people on the left think they can dismiss all the evidence that Mummar Gaddafi is guilty of using massive violence against his people by the use of the term "demonization" and by reference to the Nayirah episode where false stories about Iraqi troops in Kuwait throwing babies out of incubators was widely reported the 1990 built up to the first Gulf War.

This comment on the HPost in response to Gaddafi Forces Firing On Civilians In Misrata is typical:

“Right, and are they throwing babies out of incubators yet? How easy it is to sway public opinion with a few "news" stories.”

How easy it is to dismiss charges of atrocities today with throwaway references to the propaganda lies of the past.

In view of the fact that a number of people seem to be using this incubator comparison to deny all the reports that Gaddafi is committing war crimes and those same people are withholding support for a people's just struggle against a police state dictatorship, I think this comparison needs to be given more than a passing glance to see if it really holds water.

The "incubator allegations" were made after the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990. They played an important role in mobilizing US public support for the first Gulf War. The story was that the Iraqi's were so brutal in their looting of Kuwait that in one case 23 babies had died because Iraqi soldiers had thrown them out of incubators so that the machines could be shipped back to Iraq.

The story was told first on September 2, 1990 in a letter from Kuwait's UN rep to the UN Secretary General. Some evacuees also described looting "even infant incubators." On September 5, the Kuwaiti health minister, then in exile in Saudi Arabia told the tale at a press conference. That same day the UN rep backed up the health minister with another letter to the Secretary General. But what really sealed the deal was when "Nurse Nayirah" testified in front of the US Congress that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. "Dirty Iraqi Looters Throw Babies on the Floor!" The Media took it an ran with it. People were outraged.

Years latter it came out that it was all a Big Lie. According to wikipedia:

It is a misinformation campaign created by the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for promoting the entry into the war by the western powers against Iraq.

And "Nurse Nayirah" turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwati ambassador to the US. She was lying, as were the letter writers and other operatives of the Kuwaiti government. No babies died, no babies were thrown out of incubators. This so-called "war crime" turned out to be 100% fraud.

Which is not to say that all reports of war crimes are false or can be rendered so by reference to incubators. So let's dig a little deeper and look at the supports for those allegations then and how they compare with the one's that are being made now.

In the case of the "incubator" story we have the testimony of two Kuwait government officials plus the very dramatic testimony of the an "eye witness" and maybe a few "evacuees.", so the whole story rested only on the word of a few people. There were no pictures offered. No video. Of course, this was twenty years ago and before the Internet. That would never fly now. The only video was shot by Hill & Knowlton of "Nurse Natirah" before congress and they made sure that got shown around. This one story also stood out because it wasn't just one of many similar tales being told at the time.

The thing that is so very different today is the technology, especially the Internet and the very wide distribution of cameras that can talk to it. This means that the uprising in North Africa and the Middle East have been cover in depth and in detail like no other event in human history. If one is willing to take the time and do the research you will find almost everything of significant is recorded by multiple videos from independent non-media sources. Look at the cell phone videos on many protests, shootings, struggles, etc. you will see in them other cell phones recording the same event. Many of these get posted directly to the Internet by the those that recorded them. The shear impossibility of 'faking' so much supporting material really precludes an incubator type story.

But that doesn't preclude those that refuse to believe what they are being shown with their own eyes from dismissing it with some reference to "incubators." That is how one writer handles a CBS News story:

Remember the "The Kuwaiti Incubator Baby Hoax" used against Iraq/Saddam? Here's the same spin from MSM about Libya/Gaddafi:
Libyan: Qaddafi forces shoot hospital patients

A resident of the increasingly violent Libyan capital of Tripoli told CBS Radio News Thursday that armed supporters of Muammar Qaddafi, the country's longtime leader, have stormed into hospitals to shoot wounded demonstrators and take dead bodies to an unknown location.

"They go in with guns into hospitals," said the resident, identified only as Adel to protect his safety. "They take the bodies that are dead. In some hospitals, they have shot the wounded. This is true. I know it's very strange for the States, but this is happening today in Tripoli."...

What gives it away is this stup!d bit: "take dead bodies to an unknown location". Like they have nothing better to do!

But if he had not been so quick to dismiss these serious allegations of war crimes and looked for other sources for this story, Arab sources, he would have found them, and with them many more details than in the more easily dismissed CBS version. For example, from yaLibnan Gaddafi forces execute hospital patients, bomb mosque

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi stormed hospitals in Tripoli and summarily executed injured anti-regime protestors who were being treated, a report said Thursday. Members of the Libyan Revolutionary Committee, the backbone of Gaddafi’s regime, “burst in hospitals and killed wounded people who had protested against the regime,” said Slimane Bouchuiguir, who leads the Libyan branch of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), cited by Italian news agency MISNA.
...

“They transported the corpses to make them disappear, perhaps to burn them, because they know that foreign journalists are moving closer,” he said of the incidents that took place Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Doctors who objected were threatened,” he added.

The account reached Bouchuiguir in Switzerland, where the rights group is based, because independent organizations are banned in Libya under Qaddafi’s 41-year rule.

While this UK Guardian report gives some supporting evidence:

In the Khadra hospital in Tripoli, the opposition's injured are visibly absent. The only wounded people on view are supporters of the regime, who claim to have been shot by "bearded men" – shorthand for the Islamists whom the regime blames for the country's uprising.

The journalists confront Dr Hawas. He is asked about the other casualties of recent violence in the city, from the districts of Tajoura and Fashloum, from which reports of attacks have come.

He admits that, if there are casualties from those places, they would be brought here. So where are they? He looks nervous and breaks into a visible sweat. "I don't know," he answers finally.

In the corridors of the Khadra, other staff speak, unseen by the minders. They suggest that more victims did come in, perhaps as many as 25. That leaves a deficit of injured people.

There are grim rumours – though they are no more than that – that at other hospitals in Libya the opposition wounded have been taken by police.

Opponents of the regime who live abroad alleged five days ago that forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi stormed hospitals in Tripoli and summarily executed injured anti-regime protestors who were being treated. The claim is impossible to verify, but what is true is that they have fed a sense of fear and paranoia.

So this story may have a little more substance than the incubator story and probably shouldn't be dismissed so easily. Especially since there are many other reports of Gaddafi attacks on hospitals, like this raw video on YouTube:

[SAVE-LIBYA] Injured Babies Children's Hospital Bombed By Gaddafi in Misratah, Libya (23/03/2011) which was uploaded on Apr. 10, 2011

Which gets the comment:

I remember stories that were put out before the Gulf War of evil Iraqi soldiers killing small babies in Kuwait and all that jazz. Now we see this rubbish again.? ALthough one baby has a harelip, and both are? dusty. Is this Misratah? Could be anywhere in the Arab world...
TheSuperpig66 2 weeks ago

This time there is video, clearly there are babies in distress in the video but it is dismissed as an elaborate fake. But if one cares to spend a little time investigating rather than dismissing it's not too hard to find other supports for the above claim. This video, for example was uploaded on the same day by somebody else:

Children's Hospital Babies Bombed By Gaddafi Today In Misratah Libya 23/03/2011

and this one from yet a third source showing the injured babies being treated:

Misuratah Misrata baby infected in the hospital from of 3-23-2011 Free Libya!


If you know anything about filmmaking then you will know how difficult and expensive it would be to produce these three videos if they are not what they purport to be. And these are just three videos about one attack and there are hundreds of videos and pictures and blog accounts and recordings about many many instances of Gaddafi war crimes. This is a far cry from a few government official spinning a tale about incubators and these Gaddafi supporters should stop denying these babies their sympathies by the easy device of a comfortable people in some off-hand reference to incubators.

Continuing Discussion with a Gaddafi Supporter

This is a continuation of an email discussion I have been having with a Gaddafi supporter that considers himself an anti-imperialist and a socialist. My first dairy in this thread was Tuesday. I am publishing it here pretty much as-is because most of the work is already done and for what it's worth the thoughts here may have a wider utility than our private discussion. As before, names have been changed to protect the politically innocent. He is angry because I compared him to a birther

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 8:49 AM, XX wrote:

So now you are getting personal because you make allegations that cannot be proven?

No. This is not personal. This is political. I am saying that I have concluded that there is no proof that I can offer that you will accept.

I point out that the UN, the ICC, HRW as well as numerous eye witnesses and reporters say that cluster munitions have been used on the civilian population of Misrata. I even send you pictures. You don't deal with them piecemeal. You deny them en mass and tell me "you disseminate this information without proof at all."

You ask me for proof, so I send you a video. I said,

If you look at my YouTube video,

You will see what I'm talking about. That was in Feb. weeks before NATO got involved and you started paying attention. You really should watch it, although i know you won't, but you really should. It's only 2 min. long. It's a study in the contradiction between the way the MSM media was playing the story then and the facts on the ground. So you really should watch it because no matter how much you believe such carnage isn't being caused by Gaddafi, the truth is he chose the path of massive violence and I have you down as supporting the slaughter portrayed in the video.

Have you looked at it? Since you make no comment beyond "you disseminate this information without proof at all", I think not. Anyway, a little more about that video. I posted it on Feb. 28. Most of the gruesome footage is from before that but after #feb17. None of it was major media, some of it got disappeared from the web after I downloaded it. This was back when I was strongly rooting for the still mostly non-violent protesters to take up arms because I believe in shooting back when you are shot at. This was before the UN passed any resolutions or NATO got involved. It was also before IAC, PSL and pretty much anyone else on the American left had a clue about the struggle in Libya. But I did. I had already enrolled myself full-time, and I mean 24/7, for six weeks in the service of the people's uprising in North Africa as anyone familiar with my writings in this period at the first piece supporting the protest movement in Libya was published Jan. 18, 2011. What was your position on those housing protests in Libya in January? Did you support or oppose them? If you had been reading my blog, you would have at least known they were going on. I offered you as proof my entire body of writing on the people's uprisings in MENA and still I get "you disseminate this information without proof at all." So I concluded:

You are like the birthers exactly. There is no proof that you will ever believe. You believe what you believe and you won't let the facts get in the way.

This is not a personal attack, this is an astute political assessment. Like the birthers you are deciding that your view of what is politically correct will determine your acceptance of what is fact. You have stumbled into idealism. You have decided that ideas will determine the facts rather than the other way round. For example, you say:

You are saying that cluster bombs have been used in Libya and imply that Gaddafi is a monster, a boogie man like Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, etc..

No. I am saying that I have seen sufficient proof to conclude that Gaddafi is using cluster bombs. Those are the facts. You can decide for yourself what that implies. You seem to turn fact finding on it's head. Since you know Gaddafi is not " a monster, a boogie man like Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, etc.." there can be no proof of his use of cluster bombs. You whole narrative is riddled with that type of thinking. First you determine what political conclusions you think are served by a certain set of facts and then you apply that filter to the facts. Just like the birthers will never see a birth certificate they don't think a forgery, you my friend, will never be shown proof of Gaddafi's use of cluster munitions you won't think a lie and a fraud. So my statement was not personal. It was political. In Struggle, Clay


Click here for a list of our other blogs on Libya

Stealth Helicopter Technology on Your Desktop

As soon as I caught glimpse of the first leaked pictures showing the tail rotor of the helicopter that seal team 6 had destroyed and left behind in Abbottabad, I knew it was a new type of stealth helicopter. It was not so much my interest in aeronautics as my experience as a computer technician that gave me the clue.

The blades of the tail rotor had a very familiar shape, one I've seen a lot of. They had been designed to optimize certain aerodynamic properties. They looked very similar to the blades of the fans routinely used for cooling in our desktop computers. And those fans are designed to be quiet.

Boston Globe oped supports Gaddafi with fraudulent journalism

I wrote this yesterday in as part of an email exchange with a Gaddafi supporter. Then I thought; that was a pretty good critique of the Boston Globe article XX sent me; what else can I do with it? So here it is:

On 05/02/2011 01:03 PM, XX wrote:

Spread the word and protest during African Liberation Month - as NATO kills the son and grandchildren of Moammar Kaddafi.

False pretense for war in Libya?

By Alan J. Kuperman
Boston Globe, April 14, 2011

EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.

But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

Once again XX, do you consider HRW a reliable source or not? When I quote them, they are not to be believed. Then you come back citing them as fact when you think they support you. What's up with that?

Unfortunately Alan Kuperman didn't provide his HRW source, so I went looking for it. What I found was some stuff that will cause you to claim they aren't reliable again:

Libya: Cluster Munitions Strike Misrata
Human Rights Watch Witnesses Attack Into Residential Area
(New York) - Government forces loyal to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, have fired cluster munitions into residential areas in the western city of Misrata, posing a grave risk to civilians, Human Rights Watch said today.

You will notice that I give my source as a convenient link, and my source is the HRW website - no middle men - generally I think that is the best way to back up you point. Now I am asking you specifically how you would square the above citation with the statement "Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government?"

I am requesting a serious response here. Not the usual. You ignore the point and move on to a new one, send me more stuff that somebody has cobbled together, which I also should not bother critiquing because you're not listening.

And while you are promoting the counter-revolutionary lie about the kindness of the Gaddafi dictatorship, you might also want to consider these reports from HRW:

Libya: Journalists Killed in Misrata
April 20, 2011

Libya: Government Attacks in Misrata Kill Civilians
Unlawful Strikes on Medical Clinic
April 10, 2011
(Benghazi) - Attacks by Libyan government forces in the western city of Misrata have endangered civilians and targeted a medical clinic in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said today. The assessment is based on interviews with two doctors still in Misrata and 17 wounded civilians recently evacuated from the city, which is largely cut off from the outside world by Libyan government forces.

and in that article we find the statement:

According to Dr. Muhammad el-Fortia, who works at Misrata Hospital, medical facilities have recorded 257 people killed and 949 wounded and hospitalized since February 19, 2011. The wounded include 22 women and eight children, he said

Now we can see that the failure to cite was not accidental because this HRW publication is no doubt the basis for the Alan K. distortion:

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women.

But Dr. el-Fortia didn't say that only 257 people have died did he? He said that only 257 deaths had so far been recorded by the hospitals [as of some date before April 10th], which is quite another matter isn't it? Because in Misrata we hear many stories of corpses rotting in the streets because people can't get to them. Because nobody bothers to take dead people to the hospital. Because Muslims, when they can get to the bodies, bury their dead in 24 hrs. Because the hospitals themselves are under assault by Gaddafi's forces, a point that HRW makes in very first para of the article from which Alan K. no doubt is taking his numbers to create the illusion that HRW is saying "that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government."

And that is complete rubbish. It is shoddy and deceptive journalism. It is dishonest and as such cannot serve the people. It is propaganda worthy of Goebbels but the Boston Globe should be ashame.