Other than "Bad America" and "heroic enemy" as per his usual fare, I fail to see any point in this wandering drivel.

Shadow Minister,you know the West is in the wrong in Iraq,Afghanistan and Pakistan.It is nothing but Israeli/US imperialism hidden under the cloak of terrorism.Zibigniew Brzezinski prior 911 "What we need is a truely massive and widely perceived direct external threat." Enter the sum of Bin Laden whom the FBI say haven't the evidence to convict him for 911.

The whole terror saga is a lie and a beat up,to stage wars and steal resources/energy.

I think that it's worthwhile revisiting the stupid
Vietnam War in the context of Australia participating
in yet another unwinnable war in a far-off land at the
behest of the USA.

Like the Vietnamese, the Afghan people have seen off
any number of attempts by powerful imperialists to
invade and subjugate their country. What was achieved
in the Vietnam War beyond the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of people and the restoration of its independence?

I have a very strong sense that the war in Afghanistan
is going much the same way.

Pilger seems to want to pretend that the cold war was an insignificant event in all of this tradgedy. The Soviets spent 2 million dollars a day throughout the vietnam war to prop up Ho Chi Minh's so called nationalists. They sent 2000 tanks 7000 artillery pieces and 10's of thousands of advisors to help out Ho and his communist mates. The North Vietnamese army that eventually defeated the south, was entirely equipped with Soviet and Chinese equipment

The simple fact is that Ho was a communist threatening to take over a non-communist state at the height of the cold war. The South Vietnamese state may have been corrupt, but the Communists can't claim any high ground there.

The west had clashed with the communist block repeatedly in the preceding decade. The expansionist tendencies of the communists were undeniable. Local communist uprisings across asia were heavily banrolled by the Soviets and ChinCom.

One has only to look at the countries where the West was successful in keeping the communists out, South Korea, West Germany, Taiwan and Hong Kong and compare them with North Korea, East Germany, Tibet, Burma to see that whilst the west methods may have been questionable, their ideology was undoubtedly superior.

Look at the damage inflicted by Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao and Ceausecu on their own people and you can see the essential problem the west faced when dealing with the communists.

Arjay,

Your infantile/paranoic fantasies are well worn and cliched. They are also demonstrably false. Communism has been vanquished throughout the world and has been exposed as the bankrupt philosophy that it was.

Australia's vietnam veterans fought a war they were directed to fight by the elected gov't of the day. It was their duty. And to a large extent they fulfilled that duty admirably.

It should be obvious to even a fanatic like yourself that the reponsibility for the war does not rest with the soldiers who are ordered to fight it.

You don't need to agree with the war, in order to recognise the courage, honour and sacrifice of Australia's vietnam veterans.

Thanks PAULL for both your comments and sentiments apropos Veterans who fought in South Vietnam.

Funny thing, I essentially agree with most of whats been stated herein about the Vietnam War being...a filthy war etc etc !

Just a small point that I would like to make. We didn't lose the bloody War in Vietnam, at least the combat component ! It was lost in the streets, in the parliament, in congress, and in the hearts and minds of most folk who were not directly involved.

We Vets, really couldn't delineate between friend or foe? Who the actual enemy was ? The NVA/VC in country, or the long haired demonstrator/activist yelling abuse, shouting all manner of bitter vitriolic remarks and comments, when we returned home ?

And in my humble opinion, many who burnt their 'call-up' papers because they're against the war...I really do wonder, if that was true, or were they simply cowards hiding behind their so called activism and antipathy towards the war ? Perhaps that may be closer to the truth ?

And of course, we have individuals like Ms. Jane Fonda roaming around North Vietnam telling all and sundry that it was an illegal and immoral war, and most Americans were against it. True, some were, many were not! Ms Fonda, was a straight out traitor.

Anyway, there are many of you reading this thread, thinking I'm just an old idiot. That's probably true too. But this idiot can look in the mirror, and he sees an idiot. However, there're many protesters of that era who, when they look into a mirror, what do they see, an upstanding, morally flawless, activists ? Or, do they see a coward ?

Perhaps John Pilger would like to either take the current despotic Communist Government in Vietnam to task for all its failiures or alternatively explain in another article while they can be despotic and still admired by him?
Pilger is still smarting from a lifetime apologising for and praising the filthy communists and seeing them fail and all his dreams come to nought.