Viet Cong Quotes
Refusing induction into the armed forces during the Vietnam War:
Calley was the officer who gave orders to kill men, women and children of My Lai, a Vietnam village which Army intelligence felt had been sympathetic and given help and assistance to the Viet Cong. Calley was convicted by Court Marshall, but was released after serving a very light sentence. No one above Cally was held in any way responsible.
The Viet Cong used Cambodia as a sanctuary from American bombing in the Vietnam War. They would transport arms and ammunition without the chance of American interdiction. The King wanted them out, and the American government started secretly bombing the Vietnamese in Cambodia. The Cambodians and the North Vietnamese obviously knew about the bombing and shared it with different intelligence agencies friendly to them. The only people who did not know about the Cambodian bombing were the American public as the administration kept it “secret” for domestic political purposes when the anti-war movement was gaining much support.
A number of the American soldiers refused to obey Calley's illegal order. Some helped some villagers to escape, and a helicopter pilot landed betreen Callery's men and the villagers they were shooting at, and ordered his helicopter machine gun crew to fire on the soldiers if they did back off. The soldiers stopped firing at the civillians. However, his and other reports of the massacre were covered up by the military for a few years. Mai Lai was not the only major war crime perpetrated by Americans in the Vietnam War; there had been a few others. But given the years of fighting and the many opportunities war crimes violations under orders were quite rare. The Viet Cong had many more war crimes that they perpetrated, and our South Vietnamese allies repeatedly committed war crimes against their own people.
Colby was then the CIA Station Chief in Saigon. This is just one of the many memos and reports that were issued by the CIA and the Defense Department giving a positive picture of American success in the war effort. While some of these false reports were the results of optimism and wishful thinking, most were out and out fabrications. Colby, later when he became CIA director, lied and broke the law, continuing this pattern. See {62151}.
All sides had agreed to free and fair elections. However, the South Vietnam government was so corrupt and uncaring for its people, that they had little political support. Chern's assessment that the Communists would win in a free and fair election was a reality that forced the United States to support the South Vietnamese refusal to hold the required elections.
