The primary motive for the Indochina wars, going back to the early 1950s, was presented here as the domino theory. But what that meant was, if you read the internal records, that there was a fear, a justified fear, that successful independent development in Vietnam might spread through the region, might spread contagion through the region. Others would attempt the same path, that itself was of no great significance, but it might spread as far as Indonesia, which has rich resources, and there, too, there might be a move towards independent development, independent of U.S. domination. And it was even feared that that might bring in Japan. John Dower, the famous Asia historian, described Japan as the "superdomino." The U.S. was concerned, deeply concerned, that if Southeast Asia moved toward independent development, Japan would "accommodate," the word that was used, to East and Southeastern Asia, becoming its technological industrial center and creating a system, an Asian system, from which the U.S. would maybe not be excluded, but at least which it wouldn’t control. Now, the U.S. had fought the Second World War to prevent that. That’s Japan’s new order, and it was in danger of being reconstituted if Indochina gained independence. That’s the domino theory. And that was understood. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy-Johnson national security adviser, in retrospect, observed that the Vietnam War—the United States should have called off the Vietnam War in 1965. Why 1965? Well, because in 1965 a U.S.-backed military coup took place in Indonesia, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people, wiping out the only mass-based political party and instituting a regime of torture and terror, but opening the country up to Western exploitation, with its rich resources, and that meant that the Vietnam War was essentially over. The U.S. had won its main objectives. It was pointless to continue it. - Noam Chomsky, September 11, 2013, Democracy Now!
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 18:57:57 +0000
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