 | The Cavalier daily Friday, February 12, 1971 |  |
On A Growing Conflict In Southeast Asia
In the Symington Committee hearings, Senator
Symington—who's a very strong opponent of the war in
Vietnam, incidentally—and Senator Javits—who, again,
has a reputation as a dove—say that the war in Laos is
very successful. In fact, Javits says at one point this is
one war that is successful, so let's not keep it a secret.
And Symington made a statement that in
Vietnam—especially North Vietnam—the bombing was
really not very fair because there were too many
restrictions and it wasn't fair to the pilots because they
couldn't bomb the center of Hanoi. But, he says, in Laos
we've used the military without shackles—it's his
phrase—and we've shown what air power can really do.
And then he says we ought to advertise this. We
shouldn't keep it a secret because it would help
overcome the frustration of American youth—which he
thinks is due to the fact that we weren't able to win in
Vietnam.
But it's not really going that well.
They're losing on the ground, but it's a question of
whether they care. They're keeping the Mekong Valley.
Suppose the Pathet Lao took over Vientiane. It's fairly
clear what would happen—the city would just be wiped
out. Nothing they can do about it—if not by American
bombardment, then by Thai artillery across the river.
There are a lot of open questions; for example, in the
population of Thailand, which is about 33 million, there
are about 8 million Lao, mostly within the Northern
areas. I would assume that the Pathet Lao are organizing
there. I don't have any facts, but they'd be crazy if
they're not, and if something happens in the areas of
Thailand bordering Laos, then it's a different story. But
short of that, I don't see how they could move into the
Mekong valley. They'd be wiped out.
I think the Tet offensive was a very striking indication
to them and to everybody what it means to win. During
the Tet offensive, in effect, the NLF just won the whole
war. They took over all the cities—they hadn't taken over
all the bases and they hadn't taken over all of Saigon but
basically they conquered the cities after having taken the
countryside.
But it didn't do them any good. The U.S. just wiped
out all the cities. It was no sweat. That indicates to them
that they can't take over the cities even if they have that
military capacity. Most people in Laos think that the
Pathet Lao could have taken over the last CIA bases like
Long Cheng but they didn't want to pay the cost.
What do you think would happen in Thailand if a
revolutionary force there gained enough power to attack
the American B-52 bases as the NLF did in Vietnam
before they were removed?
The United States can't lose. We can always fight
from the sea. During the Tet offensive the NLF actually
did threaten the bases and, in fact, the helicopter bases
were attacked. I think about a thousand or fourteen
hundred helicopters were destroyed on the ground. So
what the U.S. did was send in a helicopter carrier.
The United States has infinite resources compared
with the NFL or any Vietnamese force, any indigenous
Southeast Asian force, and I think we'd fight even harder
to preserve Thailand than Vietnam for all sorts of
reasons.
But if it were ever threatened...The bombing of
Vietnam also goes on from Okinawa. It's an Asian war.
Is the situation in Thailand—the situation of the people—
comparable to that in the other three countries?
One difference is that Thailand has had a pretty stable
military dictatorship for over 20 years now. Thailand's a
very rich country by Asian standards. There hasn't been
a great deal of guerrilla insurgency. Bangkok is
superficially rather affluent and it's basically a Western
city implanted in Thailand. For some part of the Thai
population—that part which is either the elite or those
who are involved in service for the elite—has a fair
amount of commodities.
As far as the peasantry are concerned, up until
recently there haven't been overwhelming sources of
peasant discontent except in the tribal areas of the
northeast.
But the United States has moved in Thailand very
soon and very quickly. They want to undercut the thing
before it begins. The preventive counter insurgency
just flooded with anthropologists.
There was a good article in the New York Review [of
Books] last week about counterinsurgency research in
Thailand which showed how the anthropological
profession has committed itself almost completely to a
major counterinsurgency effort there.
And its not just that—for example, in Thailand the
Meo happen to be the guerrillas. In Laos they're the CIA.
How did the Laotian Meos come to fight for the CIA?
There always have been antagonisms between the
mountain tribesmen and the lowland peoples and they
were exploited very effectively by the CIA, who offered
them guns and told them they would protect them
against the Lao or lowland people and also the North
Vietnamese whom they're very afraid of.
And they buy their opium and no doubt the CIA
ships it through Saigon or wherever the outlet is.
Incidentally the Meo are split, there are Meo on the other
side too.
Can you make any kind of estimate of how many people
have died in Southeast Asia?
Well over a million at least. How can you even count
the casualties? I went to a refugee camp in April and
counted about 400 people. A Dispatch correspondent
went back in June, and in those months two months ten
people had died of malnutrition and disease.
They're not even counted as war casualties. But they
had all been wealthy peasants in the Plain of Jars.
If the U.S. withdrew very soon, what kind of economy
would be possible in South Vietnam?
Well, I suppose they have some sort of chance. In
North Korea, for example, which was incredibly
devastated—and which incidentally didn't get a lot of aid
from China and the Soviet Union, they've paid off all aid
they got—there isn't a lot of information, but it seems
that there was a very substantial and very successful
economic reconstruction in a very short period.
Won't it make a difference that we are using so many
more powerful chemical weapons in Vietnam?
That's really unknown. Nobody knows what the effect
of the chemical warfare will be in the long run. I guess
you know the statistics. The area of heavy defoliation is
now about 8000 square miles. That's about the size of
Massachusetts. Nobody really knows what the effect
will be.
Professor Meselson at Harvard is working on a study
of this now.
What the effects on population may be is unclear. The
chemical warfare does appear to have serious genetic
effects. One thing that is clear is that the destruction of
forests may be irreversible.
The mangrove forests are valuable lumber and the
areas where they have been destroyed have been taken
over by bamboo which is very hard to get rid of and
useless.
But it may be much more severe. There's this problem
of lateralization—the turning of the soil into a sort of
brick like substance. I don't know what Meselson
discovered—he couldn't do much work on the ground
really because they can't land in these places, it's
dangerous.
Do they have no more conscience than it appears?
There are some people who may be concerned about
the real issues—I assume McGovern or Goodell or
Hatfield. But as far as I can see the major response seems
to be that it was a blunder and we ought to fix it up as
best as possible and that's the whole issue.
In fact most of the commentators, even the liberal
commentators on the subject say quite clearly that if the
United States were to win they will support it. Take
somebody like Arthur Schlesinger. He's been absolutely
explicit. He says, if, contrary to my judgment, the
government proves to have been successful, then we will
all be applauding the wisdom an statesmanship of the
government. And I don't think that statement is in any
sense outlandish. I think it does reflect the almost
automatic opinion of liberal America on the subject.
Which isn't terribly surprising. The Germans were
perfectly civilized people. Would they have opposed the
war if they had won?
Then how does it come about that a large part of the
country understands that these people are nuts?
That's the student movement. I think what's unique
about the United States—different from other countries
in the past—is not the fact that everybody's willing to
accept it if we win; that's normal. But rather it's things
like the student movement, which is the really organized
mass segment of the population against the war. There
have been anti-imperialist movements in the past but
they've been pretty restricted. That's why it would be a
great tragedy if the student movement lapses into
apathy. Especially when the Saigon student movement
really needs support desperately. Because there might be
a terrific repression in Saigon any time now and if the
American student movement doesn't respond to that it
would really be a tragedy.
It's not surprising. Why did the student movement
demonstrate against Columbia and not against General
Motors? As soon as you answer that question, it's
obvious why they could crush it.
As soon as the universities become like General
Motors, that's the end of that. At General Motors you
can't demonstrate on the premises, because they'll just
call out the National Guard and kill you and something
like that. It took the universities about a year or two to
use the force of the state to protect themselves and to
get rid of people who make trouble. But, that was bound
to happen.
Now I think things have to turn toward the issue of
the war itself, not peripheral institutions like the
University.
Do you really think there's a chance that anything we
can do can persuade the government to stop the war?
That's a question that's put all the time. But I think
its really the wrong question to ask. It's not just a
two-state affair, in which you either stop the war or the
war goes on. There are a lot of degrees.
I think the student movement has been quite
successful in constraining the war to some extent. It's
hard to say that, considering the scale, but they haven't
wiped out North Vietnam, they haven't bombed China
yet.
I think just Cambodia alone is an example of the
effectiveness of the student movement. I'm sure they had
much bigger plans for a large-scale invasion and a
permanent occupation. Instead, they're down to just
sending the Saigon air force and carrying out an aerial
bombardment, which is not very nice but it's better than
it might have been. And I think this kind of pressure
can win partial victories.
I've felt ever since 1968 that the student movement
was wasting a lot of effort and making an error of
judgment and analysis as well in turning its attention
toward universities, which I don't think are all that
important.
That kind of movement is easily crushed and has to
some extend been crushed. The universities become like
any other institutions in society — they protect themselves
through the police and so on, which everybody else does
automatically.
| The Cavalier daily Friday, February 12, 1971 | |