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[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, #5, Jan. 28, 1966, pp. 5-6.]
IN the past month, the Johnson Administration has staged a most shameless farce over the Vietnam question. While nearly every day singing “peace,” “peace,” “peace” in a high key, its actions have been for war, war, war. Just look at the facts.
On December 28, the United States sent 4,000 more troops to south Vietnam.
On January 18, it dispatched another 9,000 aggressor troops to south Vietnam.
On January 19, Johnson formally asked for an extra 12,300 million U.S. dollars to finance the war of aggression in Vietnam.
On January 20, McNamara announced that the United States planned to increase its armed forces by over 450,000 men.
Facts have again irrefutably proved that the louder the U.S. aggressors sing the tune of “peace,” the more feverish are their efforts to fan the flames of their aggressive war in Vietnam.
It is now exactly a month since the United States on December 24 began its “pause in the bombing” of north Vietnam and launched with much fanfare its so-called “peace offensive.” During this period, the Johnson Administration has on different occasions played the same tunes of “peace” which are long, wordy and malodorous. But what have the U.S. aggressors really done?
Have they stopped their aggressive war in south Vietnam? Just the contrary. They have been applying on an even bigger-scale the “scorched earth” policy of “kill all, burn all and destroy all.”
Have they withdrawn a single soldier from south Vietnam? Just the contrary. They have shipped in another 13,000 aggressor troops to the south Vietnam battlefield.
Or have they perhaps shown some small bit of “consideration” for the south Vietnamese people? Just the contrary. They have been using poison gas with still greater frenzy, and displaying still greater savagery in their killing.
Anyone who respects facts will see that the Johnson Administration has not the least desire to solve the Vietnam question peacefully in accordance with the aspirations of the Vietnamese people. What it is interested in is throwing in more troops, more ammunition and more dollars for bellicose activities against Vietnam.
From what the U.S. aggressors did yesterday and what they are doing today, it is not difficult to predict what they will do tomorrow. In the past, every time they chanted a “peace” psalm, they added a faggot to the flames of their aggressive war. They are now busy with their “peace talks” hoax and at the same time stepping up efforts for war escalation. They are resorting to political deception because they realize that they can no longer hold back the victory of the liberation struggle of the south Vietnamese people by military means alone. However, once their political deception becomes totally discredited, they will revert to new adventures and seek in vain for a way out by expanding the war.
In his State of the Union Message on January 12, Johnson made it quite plain when he indicated that if his “peace talks” trick failed, the United States “will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, every dollar and every decision—whatever the cost or whatever the challenge.” Neither did McNamara mince his words when he said on January 20 that “[the United States will] provide whatever military forces are necessary to defeat the communists and to guarantee south Vietnam’s freedom.” Facts show that the U.S. aggressors are sliding down the slope of war expansion and they are bent on imposing a still more cruel and barbarous aggressive war on the people of Vietnam and all Indo-China.
A life-and-death trial of strength is now bding carried out on Vietnamese territory. Either the aggressors are driven out according to the will of the Vietnamese people, and so the cause of Vietnam’s independence, sovereignty, unification and territorial integrity is accomplished, or Vietnam is divided and south Vietnam is occupied according to the will of the aggressors and thus the Vietnamese people are plunged into the abyss of enslavement and dismemberment. This is a life-and-death struggle. The enemy is most ferocious and cruel. But the outcome of this struggle will inevitably run counter to the wishes of U.S. imperialism and it will end in the defeat of the aggressors.
A spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, in a statement issued on January 21, strongly condemned the United States for sending reinforcements to south Vietnam behind a “peace” smokescreen and reiterated the warning of the Vietnamese people. He said that no troops of the U.S. aggressors could retrieve their critical situation in south Vietnam. In its New Year commentary, the South Vietnam Liberation Press Agency pointed out that the Vietnamese people harboured no illusions whatsoever on the “peace” ballyhoo from the war-like Washington bigwigs, and that they must concentrate all their power to strike still harder blows at U.S. imperialism. All these forceful words once more express the indomitable will of the 31 million Vietnamese people to safeguard the country’s independence and national dignity and resist imperialist aggression.
The Chinese Government and people resolutely support the Vietnamese people’s firm stand of carrying through the struggle against U.S. aggression and for national salvation to the end. The Chinese people are convinced that the Vietnamese people who have been tempered in the raging flames of anti-imperialist struggle in the last 20 years will redouble their efforts to smash the Johnson Administration’s plan for war expansion and destroy the U.S. invaders.
(Slightly abridged translation of “Renmin
Ribao’s” editorial, January 24, 1966.)
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