McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War

Published April 2016

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Noam Chomsky on CIA Covert Action and the Secret Bombing of Cambodia (1995)

Published on 14 May 2013

Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia and Laos from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War. The targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and Base Areas of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and forces of the Viet Cong, which utilized them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The effects of the bombing campaign are disputed by historians.

An official United States Air Force record of US bombing activity over Indochina from 1964 to 1973 was declassified by US president Bill Clinton in 2000. The report gives details of the extent of the bombing of Cambodia, as well as of Laos and Vietnam. According to the data, the Air Force began bombing the rural regions of Cambodia along its South Vietnam border in 1965 under the Johnson administration. This was four years earlier than previously believed. The Menu bombings were an escalation of these air attacks. Nixon authorized the use of long-range B-52 bombers to carpet bomb the region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_B...

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,[8][9] cognitive scientist, logician,[10][11] historian, political critic, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years.[12] In addition to his work in linguistics, he has written on war, politics, and mass media, and is the author of over 100 books.[13] According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall.[14][15][16][17] He has been described as a prominent cultural figure, and he was voted the "world's top public intellectual" in a 2005 poll.[18][19]

Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics"[20][21] and a major figure of analytic philosophy.[8] His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.[22][23] He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky--Schützenberger theorem.

After the publication of his first books on linguistics, Chomsky became a prominent critic of the Vietnam War, and since then has continued to publish books of political criticism. He has become well known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy,[24] state capitalism[25][26] and the mainstream news media. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media. He describes his views as "fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism",[27] and often identifies with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky

Was Henry Kissinger a War Criminal? Christopher Hitchens on the Controversy (2001)

Published on 2 Jun 2013
Kissinger's involvement in Indochina started prior to his appointment as National Security Adviser to Nixon. While still at Harvard, he had worked as a consultant on foreign policy to both the White House and State Department. Kissinger says that "In August 1965... [Henry Cabot Lodge], an old friend serving as Ambassador to Saigon, had asked me to visit Vietnam as his consultant. I toured Vietnam first for two weeks in October and November 1965, again for about ten days in July 1966, and a third time for a few days in October 1966... Lodge gave me a free hand to look into any subject of my choice". He became convinced of the meaninglessness of military victories in Vietnam, "...unless they brought about a political reality that could survive our ultimate withdrawal".[22] In a 1967 peace initiative, he would mediate between Washington and Hanoi.

Nixon had been elected in 1968 on the promise of achieving "peace with honor" and ending the Vietnam War. In office, and assisted by Kissinger, Nixon implemented a policy of Vietnamization that aimed to gradually withdraw US troops while expanding the combat role of the South Vietnamese Army so that it would be capable of independently defending its government against the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a Communist guerrilla organization, and North Vietnamese army (Vietnam People's Army or PAVN). Kissinger played a key role in a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia to disrupt PAVN and Viet Cong units launching raids into South Vietnam from within Cambodia's borders and resupplying their forces by using the Ho Chi Minh trail and other routes, as well as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion and subsequent widespread bombing of suspected Khmer Rouge targets in Cambodia. The bombing campaign contributed to the chaos of the Cambodian Civil War, which saw the forces of US-backed leader Lon Nol unable to retain foreign support to combat the growing Khmer Rouge insurgency that would overthrow him in 1975.[23][24] Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea.[25] The American bombing of Cambodia killed an estimated 40,000 Cambodian combatants and civilians.[26] Pol Pot biographer David Chandler argues that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted -- it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh,"[27] while Christopher Hitchens asserts that the bombing may have increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge.

Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed the January previous.[20] Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam.[28] Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility."[29][30] The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in a North Vietnamese victory in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao in Laos towards figurehead status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ki...

#Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case involving #Malaysia, #Indonesia and #Vietnam

Today, 29th July 2014 WikiLeaks releases an unprecedented suppression order by the Australian Supreme Court in Melbourne, Victoria, made on June 19th 2014, with regards to a multi-country, multi-million dollar corruption case. The suppression order forbids any disclosures, by publication or otherwise, of any information relating to the court case by anyone, including the Australian media, ensuring complete secrecy around the largest corruption case in Australia. The order also forbids any disclosures about the order itself, and specifically commands no mention be made of the affirmed affidavit submitted to the court by Gillian Bird, a career diplomat, currently appointed as a deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Bird is one of Australia's most senior and experienced diplomats and is responsible for relations with South East Asia which is why her affidavit, currently held sealed by the court, is so important. 

Read the GENERAL FORM OF ORDER

Read the full press release here. 

Download the full Australia-wide censorship order for corruption case involving Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

 
Source: WikiLeaks.org