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Postwar 'Bloodbath' in Vietnam ?

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Dan Clore

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Jan 3, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/3/98
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Since certain inhabitants of these groups rely on the work of Desbarats
for their evidence, I thought this post might interest them. Those who
are interested will have to check the works referenced for themselves.

Carl Thayer wrote:
>
> >Postwar 'Bloodbath' in Vietnam?
> >
> >A Decade After War's End, Researchers Say 65,000 Political Executions Likely
> >
> >Berkeleyan / May 1, 1985
> >Lynn Atwood
> >
> >Jacqueline Desbarats, research social scientist at the Institute of East Asia
> >Studies, and Karl Jackson, associate professor of Political Science, conducted
> >three years of interviews with 831 Vietnamese refugees at varied locations in
> >the US and France.<
>
> The last time this article was posted I made the same reply. The
> methodology adopted by Desbarats and Jackson has been totally discredited.
> The made sloppy statistical errors and double counted. Some Vietnamese were
> executed after 30th April 1975 but no bloodbath of the proportions
> suggested in the Desbarats and Jackson study occurred.
>
> See: Gareth Porter and James Roberts, 'Creating a Bloodbath by Stratistical
> Manipulation,' Pacific Affairs [University of British Columbia], 61 (Summer
> 1988), 303-310.
>
> Carl Thayer
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN CONTACT DETAILS:
>
> Professor Carl Thayer _--_|\ On Sabbatical Leave:
> School of Politics / \ c-th...@adfa.oz.au
> Australian Defence Force Academy \_.--._* Telephone : +61 2 6251 1849
> Canberra, ACT 2600, AUSTRALIA v Home fax : +61 2 6251 3749
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> After 1st February:
>
> Professor Carl Thayer _--_|\ Visiting Fellow
> Strategic & Defence Studies Centre / \ c...@coombs.anu.edu.au
> Australian National University \_.--._* Telephone : +61 2 6251 1849
> Canberra, ACT 0200, AUSTRALIA v Home Fax : +61 2 6251 3749
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....

The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

James A. Donald

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Jan 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/4/98
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Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> > The last time this article was posted I made the same reply. The
> > methodology adopted by Desbarats and Jackson has been totally discredited.
> > The made sloppy statistical errors and double counted. Some Vietnamese were
> > executed after 30th April 1975 but no bloodbath of the proportions
> > suggested in the Desbarats and Jackson study occurred.

Lie:

1: The article has not been discredited.

2: The estimates given by Desbarats and Jackson are consistent with
conversations I have had with Vietnamese refugees. Since they were
terrorized, presumably large numbers of people were terrorized, thus
the estimates by Desbarats and Jackson must be roughly in the right
ballpark.

2: By way of comparison around five hundred thousand people are
estimated by to have died at sea in the course of fleeing Vietnam
after the fall of Saigon. Rummel guesses that about the same number
died in re-education camps as well as Desbarats's extrajudicial
executions and the like after the fall of Saigon. This is consistent
with the number of refugees that Desbarats reports as being personally
intimidated by casual extrajudicial executions,
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/Repression.htm) and also assumes the usual
high death rate in totalitarian slave labor camps. It is reasonable to
expect that the number who died fleeing should be of the same order of
magnitude as what they were fleeing from, so we have two independent
lines of evidence both indicating similar murder and wrongful death
rates.

Dan Clore

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Jan 4, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/4/98
to

James A. Donald wrote:
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:

> > > The last time this article was posted I made the same reply. The
> > > methodology adopted by Desbarats and Jackson has been totally discredited.
> > > The made sloppy statistical errors and double counted. Some Vietnamese were
> > > executed after 30th April 1975 but no bloodbath of the proportions
> > > suggested in the Desbarats and Jackson study occurred.

> Lie:

Notice, everyone, that James Donald, pretending to reply to Carl
Thayer's post, simply snipped the supporting evidence -- because he
cannot deal with it. So here it is again:

> See: Gareth Porter and James Roberts, 'Creating a Bloodbath by Stratistical
> Manipulation,' Pacific Affairs [University of British Columbia], 61
> (Summer 1988), 303-310.

When James Donald presents his critique of the article cited above, then
perhaps we can take him seriously.

--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:

Mark Roddy

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Jan 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/5/98
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On Sun, 04 Jan 1998 00:32:42 -0800, Dan Clore
<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:

>James A. Donald wrote:
>> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
>> > > The last time this article was posted I made the same reply. The
>> > > methodology adopted by Desbarats and Jackson has been totally discredited.
>> > > The made sloppy statistical errors and double counted. Some Vietnamese were
>> > > executed after 30th April 1975 but no bloodbath of the proportions
>> > > suggested in the Desbarats and Jackson study occurred.
>
>> Lie:
>
>Notice, everyone, that James Donald, pretending to reply to Carl
>Thayer's post, simply snipped the supporting evidence -- because he
>cannot deal with it. So here it is again:
>
>> See: Gareth Porter and James Roberts, 'Creating a Bloodbath by Stratistical
>> Manipulation,' Pacific Affairs [University of British Columbia], 61
>> (Summer 1988), 303-310.
>
>When James Donald presents his critique of the article cited above, then
>perhaps we can take him seriously.

Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the number of
murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or are 'bloodbaths' only an
issue when the perpetrators are left wing governments?

Mark Roddy

James A. Donald

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Jan 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/9/98
to

Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> See: Gareth Porter and James Roberts, 'Creating a Bloodbath by Stratistical
>> Manipulation,' Pacific Affairs [University of British Columbia], 61
>> (Summer 1988), 303-310.

Chomsky similarly dismissed estimates for the bloodbath in Cambodia as
plucked from the air with no supporting evidence,
(http://www.jim.com/jamesd/chomsdis.htm) yet when a change of tyrants
led to tbe bodies being dug up, those estimates turned out to be
pretty reasonbale

Indeed, it is true that there is no concrete evidence of the precise
scale of the blood bath in Vietnam, that these estimates are merely
guesses.

We do however know:

1. We know that most of those executed were executed without obvious
reason, on vague grounds such as "being an evil person".

Such executions are characteristic of, and suggestive of, murder by
quota.

We have evidence, (provided by the CIA and US army, not always
reliable sources) that the communists did issue murder quotas to their
troops. Regardless of whether we can believe the CIA, we do know that
the actual killings were conducted in a manner that suggests murder by
quota.

Such methods are employed to create large scale terror, and therefore
suggests that the high estimates are in fact accurate.

2. We have multiple independent sources supporting the death of 50 000
to 100 000 by execution, for example the statement by former communist
government official Nguyen Cong Hoan is consistent with the estimates
Desbarats made from refugees.

3. We know that a substantial fraction of the Vietnamese population
was placed in slave labor camps.

Slave labor camps in communist regimes, especially the kind of
communist regime that employs murder quotas, tend to have a high death
rate.

cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/9/98
to cl...@columbia-center.org

In article <6965og$2i1$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:

The following article, according to a relevant scholar, shows that
Desbarats estimates of extrajudicial executions are founded on
double-counting and other errors:

> >> See: Gareth Porter and James Roberts, 'Creating a Bloodbath by Stratistical
> >> Manipulation,' Pacific Affairs [University of British Columbia], 61
> >> (Summer 1988), 303-310.

And since James Donald has no answer whatever to this charge, he attempts
to change the subject with one of his favorite lies:

> Chomsky similarly dismissed estimates for the bloodbath in Cambodia as
> plucked from the air with no supporting evidence,
> (http://www.jim.com/jamesd/chomsdis.htm) yet when a change of tyrants
> led to tbe bodies being dug up, those estimates turned out to be
> pretty reasonbale

This is not the case. There are two claims that Donald may have in mind:
the allegation that Khieu Samphan had "boasted" that the Khmer Rouge had
killed 1.2 million people after coming to power (we know that this
"boast" is a pure fabrication, BTW). That, and Lacouture's claim that
they had killed 2 million -- which he later retracted.

So, how do these claims stack up against the actual facts? -- Not very
well. Population figures show *total deaths* for the whole period 1975-78
as around 1.2 million, whereas these claims were merely for 1975-76. We
know, contrary to James Donald's apparent claim here, that the Khmer
Rouge did not suddenly become angels in 1977 and not kill anyone for the
next two years. In fact, those years had the greatest number of killings
by far, with especially massive purges in 1978. It may be ironic that
something similar to the lies told about 1975 did happen in 1978, but
that hardly "vindicates" the tellers of those lies.

---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:

The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
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James A. Donald

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Jan 13, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/13/98
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--

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> > Chomsky similarly dismissed estimates for the bloodbath in
> > Cambodia as plucked from the air with no supporting
> > evidence, (http://www.jim.com/jamesd/chomsdis.htm) yet
> > when a change of tyrants led to tbe bodies being dug up,
> > those estimates turned out to be pretty reasonbale

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> This is not the case. There are two claims that Donald may
> have in mind: the allegation that Khieu Samphan had
> "boasted" that the Khmer Rouge had killed 1.2 million
> people after coming to power (we know that this "boast" is
> a pure fabrication, BTW). That, and Lacouture's claim that
> they had killed 2 million -- which he later retracted.

This is a grotesquely misleading account of Lacouture's correction.

Now that there has been a change of regime, that and the bodies have
been dug up, that estimate was clearly pretty much in the right
ballpark, right in order of magnitude, as he always believed and
always argued.

In the course of our debate, you yourself have steadily
raised the figures that you admit to, until now even you say
1.2 million.

Chomsky repeatedly ridicules estimates that are in
approximately the right ballpark as obviously absurd
propaganda, and concludes that the estimates that he
approvingly describes as "thousands", not tens of thousands,
are more realistic.

Chomsky summarizes his conclusions regarding Lacouture

If, indeed, postwar Cambodia is, as he believes, similar
to Nazi Germany, then his comment is perhaps just, though
we may add that he has produced no evidence to support
this judgement. But if postwar Cambodia is more similar
to France after liberation, where many thousands of
people were massacred within a few months under far less
rigorous conditions than those left by the American war,
then perhaps a rather different judgement is in order.
That the latter conclusion may be more nearly correct is
suggested by the analyses mentioned earlier.

And what were these "analyses" mentioned earlier?

Well there is Chomsky's misleading and deceptive spin on some
reports:

such journals as the Far Eastern Economic Review, the London
Economist, the
Melbourne Journal of Politics, and others elsewhere,
have provided analyses by highly qualified specialists
who have studied the full range of evidence available,
and who concluded that executions have numbered at most
in the thousands; that these were localized in areas of
limited Khmer Rouge influence and unusual peasant
discontent, where brutal revenge killings were
aggravated by the threat of starvation resulting from
the American destruction and killing. These reports also
emphasize both the extraordinary brutality on both sides
during the civil war (provoked by the American attack)
and repeated discoveries that massacre reports were
false.

The other analysis cited by Chomsky and Herman is

He concludes "that executions could be numbered in
hundreds or thousands rather than in hundreds of
thousands," though there was "a big death toll from
sickness" -- surely a direct consequence, in large
measure, of the devastation caused by the American
attack. Sampson's analysis is known to those in the press
who have cited Ponchaud at second-hand, but has yet to be
reported here. And his estimate of executions is far from
unique.

Chomsky also concludes:
Expert analyses of the sort just cited read quite
differently from the confident conclusions of the mass
media.

While Chomsky admits the Khmer Rouge did do a few teeny weeny
little mass murders, he only calls reports by apologists for
terror and slavery "analyses".

Accurate reports by impartial sources are mere propaganda,
according to Chomsky, not "analyses"

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
PIZ90j/clhyn2TnYsLQj5Cu1DQbtQLwuTRBnyPbV
4KzAa11zeV3aJwZsu1ti5s7QXXqZ4RuRfMydAsfKP


cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 13, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/13/98
to

In article <69esvs$ej2$2...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:

> > > Chomsky similarly dismissed estimates for the bloodbath in
> > > Cambodia as plucked from the air with no supporting
> > > evidence, (http://www.jim.com/jamesd/chomsdis.htm) yet
> > > when a change of tyrants led to tbe bodies being dug up,
> > > those estimates turned out to be pretty reasonbale

> cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:

> > This is not the case. There are two claims that Donald may
> > have in mind: the allegation that Khieu Samphan had
> > "boasted" that the Khmer Rouge had killed 1.2 million
> > people after coming to power (we know that this "boast" is
> > a pure fabrication, BTW). That, and Lacouture's claim that
> > they had killed 2 million -- which he later retracted.

> This is a grotesquely misleading account of Lacouture's correction.

> Now that there has been a change of regime, that and the bodies have
> been dug up, that estimate was clearly pretty much in the right
> ballpark, right in order of magnitude, as he always believed and
> always argued.

Blatant lie. I have never seen a single estimate of killings based on the
bodies that James Donald constantly argues were subsequently dug up, and
he has never presented one.

> In the course of our debate, you yourself have steadily
> raised the figures that you admit to, until now even you say
> 1.2 million.

Lie: Donald is deliberately misrepresenting what I have said, in the
desperate hope that no one will check on DejaNews and find out that he's
lying. In particular, he's trying to blur together estimates for a large
number of different things: total deaths during the period of Khmer Rouge
rule, total deaths *caused by* the Khmer Rouge through whatever means,
total *executions* by the Khmer Rouge, executions by the Khmer Rouge *in
a few weeks in 1975*, and so on. Now, if you actually believe that all of
those things are exactly the same, -- as James Donald claims to believe
-- then indeed, I have certainly shifted my numbers. Big surprise, isn't
it?

I snip Donald's latest repetition of his blatant lies, which he
apparently believes will become true if he simply cut-and-pastes them
enough times. They are refuted, for anyone bored enought to care, at:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/jamesd.html In particular, he attempts
to make exactly the same blurring

Here is a typical James Donald favorite lie:

> While Chomsky admits the Khmer Rouge did do a few teeny weeny
> little mass murders, he only calls reports by apologists for
> terror and slavery "analyses".

In fact, the only thing James Donald has ever produced to support this
charge (that these "analyses" are by "apologists for terror and slavery")
is the fact that they do not say what James Donald wants to hear. He has
never impugned their accuracy.

> Accurate reports by impartial sources are mere propaganda,
> according to Chomsky, not "analyses"

Stories that included blatant, known lies, (such as the fabricated
quotes, the set of staged atrocity photos, etc) are the only thing that
James Donald considers "accurate reports by impartial sources".

---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:

James A. Donald

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Jan 14, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/14/98
to

--

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> Here is a typical James Donald favorite lie:

James Donald wrote:
> > While Chomsky admits the Khmer Rouge did do a few teeny
> > weeny little mass murders, he only calls reports by
> > apologists for terror and slavery "analyses".

> In fact, the only thing James Donald has ever produced to
> support this charge (that these "analyses" are by
> "apologists for terror and slavery") is the fact that they
> do not say what James Donald wants to hear. He has never
> impugned their accuracy.

Lie, as usual. I have repeatedly and vehemently impugned
their accuracy.

For example Chomsky gives Hildebrand and Porter's explanation
and account of the depopulation of Phnom Penh as if it was
uncontroversial gospel truth, simple fact that nobody
seriously disputes, never revealing to the reader that this
account primarily rests on official statements by Khmer Rouge
mass murderers.

You may recollect that I have disputed this account
repeatedly and with some vehemence. I depicted it as mass
roundup of people for slave labor, accompanied by extensive
culling of those deemed less useful as slaves.


--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

aNNHX9VGf4mq4YktdVyYt0Mhc2DUzCbX/Z1Gb8sW
4/KX2zElPe6lqQNJHLfb3BkLXFX/nVHPjFYxy986S

---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com


James A. Donald

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Jan 15, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/15/98
to

--

ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
> Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the
> number of murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or are
> 'bloodbaths' only an issue when the perpetrators are left
> wing governments?

Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves of people,
seemingly selected at random, slaughtered in operation
pheonix, even though a new regime is in power in Vietnam and
is perfectly capable of digging up such mass graves if they
existed.

When the communists seized the city of Hue in South Vietnam,
and that city was subsequently recaptured, the victors found
extensive mass graves, apparently the victims of execution by
quota, analogous to the old Roman practice of decimation.
The romans would kill every tenth person, to encourage the
rest.

The killings that we have heard of in South Vietnam after the
communist victory appear to be largely executions by quota,
in that often no intelligible reason was given, or apparent,
for the execution, and the scale of these seemingly random
executions, seemingly conducted to terrorize the masses into
submission, seems to be comparable with those conducted in
Hue.


--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

an2gOLHZ55fAnXKewcsxdq5bej96HfPK21okmUww
402i23CYQaCAP8wNIEi9qi9KQjHEz8uGhtyMYMBHu

Mark Roddy

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Jan 15, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/15/98
to

On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:59:45 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
wrote:

> --


>ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
>> Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the
>> number of murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or are
>> 'bloodbaths' only an issue when the perpetrators are left
>> wing governments?
>
>Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves of people,
>seemingly selected at random, slaughtered in operation
>pheonix, even though a new regime is in power in Vietnam and
>is perfectly capable of digging up such mass graves if they
>existed.
>

So basically you deny that there was a CIA-run operation in S. Viet
Nam in the '60's that executed somewhere around 50,000 people. Your
proof is "Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves." Very compelling.
Of course, operation phoenix is well documented. Our government
doesn't even deny that it happened.

I think that you are ideologically blinded here James.

Mark Roddy

James A. Donald

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Jan 15, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/15/98
to

--
ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
> > > Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the
> > > number of murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or
> > > are 'bloodbaths' only an issue when the perpetrators
> > > are left wing governments?

James A. Donald wrote:
> > Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves of people,
> > seemingly selected at random, slaughtered in operation

> > phoenix, even though a new regime is in power in Vietnam


> > and is perfectly capable of digging up such mass graves
> > if they existed.

ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
> So basically you deny that there was a CIA-run operation in
> S. Viet Nam in the '60's that executed somewhere around
> 50,000 people.

Have you thought about the logistics of killing 50 000
people? When you kill that many people, shipping and
disposal become major problems. You need killing fields
and/or death camps and all the usual stuff.

Since no killing fields, mass graves, etc, have turned up, we
may conclude that the CIA murdered on a substantially smaller
scale than you suggest. Killing on the scale that you claim
would have created fairly extensive evidence.

Of course if you kill people only in the countryside, rather
than in urban environments, or moderately large villages,
then you do not need methods of mass disposal, unless you
kill a significant proportion of the population, but this has
the disadvantage that if you do not employ methods of mass
disposal, you necessarily create vast numbers of
eyewitnesses, whereas if you employ methods of mass disposal,
the number of eyewitnesses is substantially fewer, though you
run the risk that your facilities for mass disposal will
subsequently fall into unsympathetic hands.


--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

zCcomwPHJq4/NLgw917jaRcr8eaX7lDBHm0WAyzv
4bwKhUIlz5BoAb8sM3mffihiumJaahzG8vzZC5wlV

Tim Starr

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Jan 16, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/16/98
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In article <34be0...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:59:45 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>wrote:
>
>> --
>>ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
>>> Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the
>>> number of murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or are
>>> 'bloodbaths' only an issue when the perpetrators are left
>>> wing governments?
>>
>>Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves of people,
>>seemingly selected at random, slaughtered in operation
>>pheonix, even though a new regime is in power in Vietnam and

>>is perfectly capable of digging up such mass graves if they
>>existed.
>>
>So basically you deny that there was a CIA-run operation in S. Viet
>Nam in the '60's that executed somewhere around 50,000 people. Your
>proof is "Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves." Very compelling.
>Of course, operation phoenix is well documented. Our government
>doesn't even deny that it happened.

Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
indiscriminately at will.

I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.

"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police,
the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the
government--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979)

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Think Universally, Act Selfishly

Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of The International
Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), http://www.isil.org/
Personal home page: http://www.creative.net/~star/timstarr.htm

Liberty is the Best Policy - tims...@netcom.com

Mark Roddy

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Jan 16, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/16/98
to

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998 08:56:31 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:

So its okay to assassinate people for their political views, as long
as their views are on the left. However the same behavior on the left
(killing people for being on the right) is a 'bloodbath'. This is pure
hypocrisy. Political killings are political killings are political
killings.

Collateral damage? Like when you plant a bomb in a cafe and kill
everyone in the place including the intended target? Generally this is
referred to as terrorism, but I guess when the intended targets are on
the left, and the 'collateral damage' is just a bunch of slant-eyed
gooks, its ok, huh Tim?

P.s. the basic reference material that documents O.P. is the Pentagon
Papers. In addition, George Colby admitted in the Church hearings to
22,000 assassinations of civilians. CIVILIANS. According to the
Geneva Conventions, our actions at Nuremburg, and the standards to
which we have held the various Bosnian factions, this is criminal
behavior.

But in the view of the Donalds and the Starrs, those brave defenders
of freedom, murdering civilians is just fine as along as their views
are to the left.

Mark Roddy

David Rolfe Graeber

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Jan 16, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/16/98
to

Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
> Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
> of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
> terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
> indiscriminately at will.
>
> I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
> killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
> targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.


Well, I guess there are people willing
to defend _anything_ on the internet. What's next,
an apologia for the Spanish Inquisition? ("The
people they were interrogating were heretics who
would have done much worse if they had been
allowed to take over! They would have destroyed
the social order and the industrial revolution
would never have taken place!")

A few points to add to Roddy's excellent
reply:

First of all, about this "terrorizing
the VN peasantry from at least 1945 on..." I mean,
good god! Reality is that the entire war was
fought because the US refused to honor its
agreement to allow a popular election on
reunification because it concluded that even
in the South, the VC would win. So reality is:
these guys were so popular we knew they'd win
any election so we didn't allow an election
and had a war. When we couldn't even win the war,
we started paying assassins to murder them in
cold blood, one by one.

Second, as I mentioned on an earlier
post to this thread which apparently didn't
reach most newsgroups: if you feel targetting
enemy officials in wartime is legit, how would
you have felt if the VC had tried this
strategy over here? You know, mow down congress,
take out thirty or forty or fifty thousand
government officials around America... you'd
consider this a legitimate act of war, and
shrug off any other casualties that resulted as
"collateral damage"? Sure you would. Posts
like yours are based on the sort of pure
hypocrisy made possible only by overwhelmingly
unequal power. If you even dreamed that other
people might have the power to do to you the
sort of things you want done to them, you'd
have a very different attitude.

Third, as for non-VC not being
targeted, I assume you mean non-NLF, the
NLF (which the US referred to as VC, or
communists) being an umbrella group which
actually probably wasn't even majority
communist, but included all sorts of groups
like Buddhists, feminists, and perhaps
a dozen different political parties. Even
most guerillas were rural populists who
knew next to nothing about Marxist theory.
Anyway, the aim was to destroy the NLF
by killing as many of its personnel as
possible: again, rather as if the VC had
come to the US and decided that anyone
active in the Republican party was pretty
much fair game.

Fourth, actually my fiancee was
originally from Saigon (her family fought
on the southern side) and assures me it
was regular policy, on identifying an
NLF cadre, not only to kill them but to
massacre their entire famiies. Often the
cadre him- or herself self would escape and
discover on returning their entire family
had been killed.

I could go on...

Anyway, the thing which I really
wonder is: you don't find many leftists
coming up with excuses for Stalin's purges
and the like (there's always a few crazies,
of course). Why is it so easy to find
right-wingers willing to defend such
utterly evil things? Don't you guys have
_any_ principles? You'd think there must
be some gung-ho capitalist types who could
conclude "if Vietnamese peasants wanted
to elect a communist government, we should
have let them, hell, communism doesn't
really work so they'd come around soon
enough anyway." But no, instead they have
to justify killing two and a half MILLION
Vietnamese to save them from their own
party preferences! But of course, right-
wingers never _really_ believed Communism
was doomed to collapse until it actually
did; they were taken totally by surprise,
and now are trying to claim credit for
something they never thought was going to
happen at all.
DG

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 17, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/17/98
to

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> > I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
> > killed in Phoenix,

ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
> So its okay to assassinate people for their political views, as long
> as their views are on the left.

Not at all:

However it is OK to kill people who are attempting to exercise control
over the population by military means in the course of a guerrilla
war.

The people killed in operation Pheonix were not killed for their
political views, but for their use of force to implement those views
in the course of the war.

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 17, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/17/98
to

dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> Well, I guess there are people willing
> to defend _anything_ on the internet. What's next,
> an apologia for the Spanish Inquisition?

OK: Here is the apologia for the Spanish inquisition.

Torquemada murdered a mere 8000 or so.

If any socialist leader had murdered so few, you guys would be hailing
him as remarkable case of democracy and liberty and service to the
will of the people.

And while I am at it: Here is the apologia for Adolf Hitler. He
killed fewer communists than most of the communist leaders did.

Oops, come to think of it, I guess that is not an apologia.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 17, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/17/98
to

In article <34bf7...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 16 Jan 1998 08:56:31 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <34be0...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>>>On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:59:45 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> --
>>>>ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:
>>>>> Perhaps James could, at the same time, speculate on the
>>>>> number of murders committed by Operation Phoenix. Or are
>>>>> 'bloodbaths' only an issue when the perpetrators are left
>>>>> wing governments?
>>>>
>>>>Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves of people,
>>>>seemingly selected at random, slaughtered in operation
>>>>pheonix, even though a new regime is in power in Vietnam and
>>>>is perfectly capable of digging up such mass graves if they
>>>>existed.
>>>>
>>>So basically you deny that there was a CIA-run operation in S. Viet
>>>Nam in the '60's that executed somewhere around 50,000 people. Your
>>>proof is "Nobody has turned up unmarked mass graves." Very compelling.
>>>Of course, operation phoenix is well documented. Our government
>>>doesn't even deny that it happened.
>>
>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
>>of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
>>terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
>>indiscriminately at will.
>>
>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
>>killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
>>targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>
>So its okay to assassinate people for their political views, as long
>as their views are on the left.

I'm neither defending nor opposing Phoenix, merely trying to clarify what it
was, how it was conducted, & who was killed. The US shouldn't have even
fought in the Vietnam War.

No one was assassinated for their political views in Phoenix as far as I'm
aware. That certainly wasn't the intent. The intent was to destroy the VC's
ability to terrorize the peasantry by killing the administrators of terror.

"In 1957, the communists began to supplement the domestic death toll with an
active campaign of murder in the South. This campaign was highly selective,
being directed against those individuals who were capable of mobilizing
opposition to the communists. This could include, not just the outspoken
anti-communists, but anyone who exhibited skill or competence, whether a
government official or a civilian. In the countryside, village leaders were
murdered, disrupting the traditional social structure. Communist guerillas
listened in on the classrooms, and when they found teachers who were not
sufficiently sympathetic, killed them too.

"In this way, from 1957 into the early 1960s, the communists denuded South
Vietnam of those individuals who could provide effective leadershi, who could
forge resistance among the people, or who could inoculate the children against
communist lies and propaganda. The number of people killed in this campaign
has been estimated at around six to seven thousand. This is a comparatively
small number, but it was precisely those few thousand who could cause the
communists the most trouble. To the communist, egalitarianism does not mean
everyone is equal. It means those who are superior can be rounded up and shot.
The murder campaign put this theory into practice.

"...

"In the years of direct American involvement in the war, the South Vietnamese
singled out and murdered because of their anti-communism, their association
anti-communists (as friends or family), or simply because of their competence
and ability, numbered in the tens of thousands.

"Alongside this assassination campaign was a more general terror campaign. An
entire village might be massacred, breeding fear in other villages. Roads
used by the civilian population would be mined. Buses would be ambushed with
machine guns and mortar fire, residential neighborhhods were shelled, for no
other purpose than to kill innocent civilians. Refugee camps were attacked as
a matter of policy.

"All told, through assassination, terrorism, and massacre of civilians and
prisoners of war, the communists killed an estimated 164,000 non-combatants
in South Vietnam."
- http://www.freedomsnest.com/fn/rummel_vietnam.html

(The above quote is from a web site summarizing the research of Nobel Peace
Prize Nominee R.J. Rummel on democide. His estimate for the amount of
democide committed by the USA is 6,000 killed.)

The perpetrators of this organized campaign of terrorism against the
Vietnamese peasantry were the targets of Phoenix. They weren't targeted
simply for their political opinions, unless you consider mass-murder just
a political opinion.

>However the same behavior on the left (killing people for being on the

>right)...

That's not the same behavior.

>is a 'bloodbath'. This is pure hypocrisy. Political killings are political
>killings are political killings.

The motivation for Phoenix may have been political, but its targets weren't
chosen simply for their politics. They were chosen for being considered
strategic parts of the VC terrorist organization.

>Collateral damage? Like when you plant a bomb in a cafe and kill
>everyone in the place including the intended target?

That's one example, yes. Methods which keep collateral damage to a minimum
are preferable, of course, but if the only way an enemy can be killed is to
kill others, too, then Western military law allows for that.

>Generally this is referred to as terrorism...

Only by those who use words imprecisely. Terrorism consists in the use of
terror, usually against non-combatants only, for political purposes. Killing
the enemy as primary targets as well as others is only called terrorism by
the primary targets.

[snip]

>P.s. the basic reference material that documents O.P. is the Pentagon
>Papers. In addition, George Colby admitted in the Church hearings to
>22,000 assassinations of civilians. CIVILIANS.

Calculated how? 22,000 civilians who had no part of the Viet Cong, but were
primarily target simply for their political opinions? Or 22,000 civilians
who were killed as collateral damage from attacks upon members of the VC
infrastructure?

>According to the Geneva Conventions, our actions at Nuremburg, and the
>standards to which we have held the various Bosnian factions, this is criminal
>behavior.

Only if the civilians are the primary targets, as in the Allied strategic
bombing campaign against Germany in WWII (especially Dresden), the US fire-
bombing of Tokyo, or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I've yet
to see any evidence that Phoenix primarily targeted innocent civilians.

>But in the view of the Donalds and the Starrs, those brave defenders
>of freedom, murdering civilians is just fine as along as their views
>are to the left.

Lie.

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 17, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/17/98
to

--

dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
>> Well, I guess there are people willing
>> to defend _anything_ on the internet. What's next, an
>> apologia for the Spanish Inquisition?

James A. Donald:


>OK: Here is the apologia for the Spanish inquisition.
>Torquemada murdered a mere 8000 or so. If any socialist

>leader had murdered so few, [...]

Oops, correction. Torquemada murdered a mere two thousand,
which would doubtless qualify any truly socialist leader for
sainthood.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

9wd59UT+Wi3gtmjxHvgdR8hzwwmgUjS2FoZHtpo/
4lacDQYPF0BYsM0TgBIStEKwaL6ScH3Jq55iPZzO6

David Rolfe Graeber

unread,
Jan 17, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/17/98
to

Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
> No one was assassinated for their political views in Phoenix as far as I'm
> aware. That certainly wasn't the intent. The intent was to destroy the VC's
> ability to terrorize the peasantry by killing the administrators of terror.


I am beginning to get the hang of people like
Tim Starr and James Donald. They are basically cowards.
They systematically avoid the strongest arguments
made by their interlocutors, hoping no one will
notice them. For example, this thread, where
they cite insanely biased sources to claim that
"the VC" (by which, as I previously explained, they
really mean the NLF, a very decentralized umbrella
group of all sorts of different political parties
and other associations, even whose guerilla wing was
not mainly made up of dogmatic Marxists) was really
some kind of tightly organized terrorist network
engaged in a systematic campaign of murder and
massacre against innocent peasants - a network so
large, apparently, that even its unarmed administrators
numbered over 40 or 50,000 people (the number killed
in the Phoenix program - we have to assume they
didn't get every single one of them.) Actually,
of course, people actually involved in guerilla
operations of any kind were considered targets from
the beginning, long before the Phoenix program.
The Phoenix program was more aimed at wiping
out the NLF social network, by which it provided
the effective government for most villages in South
Vietnam: this included murdering anyone from tax collectors
to people running peasant coops and women's unions...

The main point cowards like Starr and Donald
cannot deal with though is this: the entire
war was fought because the CIA concluded that,
if they allowed an honest election as they had
promised, the NLF would win. Instead, they represent
the NLF as a maniacal band of vicious terrorists.
murdering peasants with impunity. But if this were
true, of course, why on earth were the overwhelming
majority of peasants prepared to vote for them? Why
did even CIA estimates admit that they continued
to have roughly 70% support throughout the war?
Were Vietnamese peasants masochists who liked
being slaughtered with impunity?

Anyway, I take the fact that Starr and
Donald did not respond to this argument as an
admission of defeat on their part. They know they're
full of shit. And certainly they're not interested
in understanding the truth. They certainly don't
hold to the old-fashioned notion, held at least
by many on the left, that the truth will come out
through honest, rational debate. They have more
the fascist attitude: reality is what you can
put over on others, so any means, no matter
how dishonest or sleazy, are justified to win.
Sad. But fortunately, in this case, at least,
almost nobody is stupid enough to believe them.
DG

James A. Donald

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Jan 19, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/19/98
to

dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> "the VC" (by which, as I previously explained, they
> really mean the NLF, a very decentralized umbrella
> group of all sorts of different political parties
> and other associations, even whose guerilla wing was
> not mainly made up of dogmatic Marxists) was really
> some kind of tightly organized terrorist network
> engaged in a systematic campaign of murder and
> massacre against innocent peasants

I know Vietnamese who had immediate members of their family threatened
with death by this organization, people who were compelled to watch a
rather large number of public executions by this organization in a
rather small village. Doubtless you would categorize these people as
bourgeoisie, landlords, and exploiters of the poor, but it seems that
a startlingly large proportion of villagers qualified as bourgeoisie,
landlords, and exploiters of the poor

Most South Vietnamese refugees are urbanites, but many of them became
urbanites because they fled the countryside. Ask them why they fled
the countryside.

David Rolfe Graeber

unread,
Jan 19, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/19/98
to

James A. Donald (jam...@echeque.com) wrote:
> dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> > "the VC" (by which, as I previously explained, they
> > really mean the NLF, a very decentralized umbrella
> > group of all sorts of different political parties
> > and other associations, even whose guerilla wing was
> > not mainly made up of dogmatic Marxists) was really
> > some kind of tightly organized terrorist network
> > engaged in a systematic campaign of murder and
> > massacre against innocent peasants
>
> I know Vietnamese who had immediate members of their family threatened
> with death by this organization, people who were compelled to watch a
> rather large number of public executions by this organization in a
> rather small village. Doubtless you would categorize these people as
> bourgeoisie, landlords, and exploiters of the poor, but it seems that
> a startlingly large proportion of villagers qualified as bourgeoisie,
> landlords, and exploiters of the poor

Well I'd never say everyone in the NLF were saints;
part of the problem if you want to know was that (very
much unlike the Northern forces) the organization was
extremely decentralized, and in a civil war situation,
nasty people on every side take advantage. But if
you're going to start citing people you know, I got
a trump card because it happens my fiance is Vietnamese.
(This is one reason I happen to know something about
all this.)
Her grandfather was the overseer of a tea
plantation near Pleiku, and when the VC came through
rounding up the "bourgeois exploiters of the poor"
types you were referring to, they did indeed kidnap him
along with several others and held a trial in the
jungle, where they asked several of the plantation workers
whether he had abused them, beat them, etc etc. The
majority testified he was basically a decent guy, so
they let him go. However, when the local S. Vietnamese
troops found out he'd been in the jungle with VC
they immediately locked him up and were, in fact,
about to put a bullet in his head (the RVN guys
didn't bother with trials), when his son, who was
an officer in S. Vietnamese army flew in and managed
to talk them out of it. He still ended up rotting in
jail for several years before they'd release him.
If all his sons hadn't been in the RVN he would
certainly have been killed.
Actually, my fiancee is of the opinion
that this is fairly representative of the difference
between the two sides. The RVN didn't even pretend
to have principles: rape, torture and summary
execution were their stock in trade. Which, in
turn, probably explains why the rural population
so overwhelmingly supported the NLF: the main
point which you, once again, cannot address
and thus ignore.

>
> Most South Vietnamese refugees are urbanites, but many of them became
> urbanites because they fled the countryside. Ask them why they fled
> the countryside.

Can you say napalm? Agent orange? Strategic
hamlets? I mean for Christ's sake, James! The amazing
thing was so many stayed.
DG

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 19, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/19/98
to

--

> > I know Vietnamese who had immediate members of their
> > family threatened with death by this organization, people
> > who were compelled to watch a rather large number of
> > public executions by this organization in a rather small
> > village. Doubtless you would categorize these people as
> > bourgeoisie, landlords, and exploiters of the poor, but
> > it seems that a startlingly large proportion of villagers
> > qualified as bourgeoisie, landlords, and exploiters of
> > the poor

dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> But if you're going to start citing people you know, I got
> a trump card because it happens my fiance is Vietnamese.
> (This is one reason I happen to know something about all
> this.)

I have a bigger trump card because my wife is Vietnamese.
(You can check with David Friedmann, a netizen who has met
her face to face) Her father was an opponent of the Saigon
regime. He was imprisoned by the VC, threatened with
death, and repeatedly exhibited as an enemy of the people at
public meetings carried out by night. At each of these
meetings, some of the enemies of the people would be
beheaded.

He escaped during a bombing raid and fled to Saigon. My
wife, then a child, and her mother, followed considerably
later.

My wife subsequently came to Australia under a Colombo plan
scholarship, where I met her. I was at that time a radical
leftist.

Her father, my father in-law, was a teacher, and was
presumably an enemy of the people for taking excessive
interest in politics, rather than for being
landlord/oppressor-of-the-poor.

You describe the VC as pluralist, but in fact they terrorized
anyone who failed to toe the official communist line in
minute detail, which is of course classic, indeed
stereotypical, conduct for communists.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

lF+Sj8Zhx6xkJDzfOt8qhpvOllNqkkbOhMbzVKEo
4YZRn28TC2Bjhnh374DX/JXAm2q9Rud8lls5/QgAt

Tim Starr

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Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:

>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>
>>No one was assassinated for their political views in Phoenix as far as I'm
>>aware. That certainly wasn't the intent. The intent was to destroy the VC's
>>ability to terrorize the peasantry by killing the administrators of terror.
>
>
> I am beginning to get the hang of people like
>Tim Starr and James Donald. They are basically cowards.

What am I supposed to be afraid of?

>They systematically avoid the strongest arguments
>made by their interlocutors, hoping no one will
>notice them.

What are those arguments?

>For example, this thread, where they cite insanely biased sources...

The only source I've cited thus far is Nobel Peace Prize nominee R.J. Rummel.
What's "insanely biased" about him? I have other sources, but I haven't cited
them yet.

>to claim that "the VC" (by which, as I previously explained, they really


>mean the NLF, a very decentralized umbrella group of all sorts of different
>political parties and other associations, even whose guerilla wing was
>not mainly made up of dogmatic Marxists) was really some kind of tightly
>organized terrorist network engaged in a systematic campaign of murder and

>massacre against innocent peasants - a network so large, apparently, that
>even its unarmed administrators numbered over 40 or 50,000 people (the number
>killed in the Phoenix program - we have to assume they didn't get every
>single one of them.)

Big fat lie of a strawman.

1) Tactical decentralization is a main tenet of Maoist revolutionary doctrine.
It's to be combined with strategic centralization. Goals are set by the
Party, means are left up to local agents & are given a free hand as long as
they don't conflict with the strategic goals. If they do, they're shot.

2) "Umbrella group of all sorts of different political parties and other
associations" is just a euphemism for a Stalinist-style Popular Front group.
The "minimum program" of the VC/NLF/NVA was designed to have the greatest
widespread appeal to all those opposed to first the French colonial regime,
then the Diem regime in South Vietnam & its US backers. The purpose of this
was to enlist non-communists in the same cause as the communists, while the
communists could take as much of a position of influence as possible in the
NLF. Failure to allow the communists to take leadership positions in the NLF
would lead to withdrawal of backing from North Vietnam & the outside powers
(The USSR & Red China) that supported Ho Chi Minh's regime in Hanoi. Mao
used the exact same approach in the Chinese Civil War, as did the Communists
in the Spanish Civil War.

3) As for the NLF's organization & purpose:

"... The NLF originally saw itself as an agency of social control, not as a
military force. It shought to channel rural Vietnamese activities in certain
directions and in line with its own purposes. Its control instruments were
individuals, especially the natural leaders in villages, the so-called
influentials; institutionalized organizations, the various liberation
associations and special-interest groups; and social pressure, that is, its
own social norms and mores. Its social indugements included superiority in
the form of praise, flattery, and prestige; and deterrents were in the form
of punishments, coercion, social ostracism, humiliation, physical injury, or
death. The process of social control was suggestion and example, argument,
persuasion and exhortation, inducement, deterrence, encouragement, and
discouragement. These were the social bases for its efforts. In its
revolutionary guerilla warfare a three-pronged attack was employed: the
political, use of the united front; the social, fomenting and instigating
class strife; and the violence program, use of paramilitary and military war,
assasinations, and various other acts of violence. The instrument throughout
was the organization."
- Douglas Pike, quoted in David Asprey, WAR IN THE SHADOWS: THE
GUERILLA IN HISTORY, (c) 1975, Doubleday & Company, p. 1073

4) At any given time, the NLF was estimated to have about 60,000 guerillas in
South Vietnam, with another 60,000 NVA regulars available to back them up if
necessary. They had extremely high casualty rates, & had to be replaced very
frequently. Even if all 40-50K of the alleged casualties of Phoenix really
were NLF, not including any collateral damage, the NLF had more than enough
personnel to absorb that loss. The USA never had more than about 150K combat
troops in Vietnam, & we still lost about 50K, & the USA lost a whole lot less
casualties than the VC did even discounting for exagerrated estimates of the
enemy bodycount.

However, I still haven't gotten any answer to my question about how much of
the casualties of victim were collateral damage, & how much were primary
targets.

>Actually, of course, people actually involved in guerilla operations of any
>kind were considered targets from the beginning, long before the Phoenix
>program.

Yes, they were considered targets, but not effectively targeted.

>The Phoenix program was more aimed at wiping out the NLF social network, by
>which it provided the effective government for most villages in South
>Vietnam: this included murdering anyone from tax collectors to people running
>peasant coops and women's unions...

Yes, I'm sure the NLF did murder anyone from tax collectors to people running
peasant coops and women's unions. BTW, is a peasant coop anything like a
chicken coop?

At worst, Phoenix was simply using the NLF's methods against them.

> The main point cowards like Starr and Donald cannot deal with though
>is this: the entire war was fought because the CIA concluded that, if they
>because the CIA concluded that, if they allowed an honest election as they
>had promised, the NLF would win.

So what? How is that relevant to the nature of Phoenix, or the NLF?

>Instead, they represent the NLF as a maniacal band of vicious terrorists,


>murdering peasants with impunity. But if this were true, of course, why on
>earth were the overwhelming majority of peasants prepared to vote for them?

Duh, because they'd get killed if they didn't?

>Why did even CIA estimates admit that they continued to have roughly 70%
>support throughout the war?

Because everyone capable of offering any opposition was murdered?

>Were Vietnamese peasants masochists who liked being slaughtered with
>impunity?

Nope. They just lacked any effective means of resistance of their own. The
government of South Vietnam & its US backers couldn't protect them from the
VC even if it wanted to, & they didn't have any weapons or organization of
their own to defend themselves with against the NLF.

> Anyway, I take the fact that Starr and Donald did not respond to this

>argument...

What argument am I supposed to be not responding to?

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>
>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
>>of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
>>terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
>>indiscriminately at will.
>>
>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
>>killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
>>targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>
> Well, I guess there are people willing
>to defend _anything_ on the internet.

Yep. Even commie terrorists.

> A few points to add to Roddy's excellent reply:

Roddy's reply was crap that I shredded easily, like any of his claims I've
ever come across in any area I knew anything about.

> First of all, about this "terrorizing
>the VN peasantry from at least 1945 on..." I mean,
>good god! Reality is that the entire war was
>fought because the US refused to honor its
>agreement to allow a popular election on
>reunification because it concluded that even
>in the South, the VC would win.

Which war? The one against the French? Or the Japanese?

>So reality is: these guys were so popular we knew they'd win any election so
>we didn't allow an election and had a war.

The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought most
likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.

> Second, as I mentioned on an earlier post to this thread which
>apparently didn't reach most newsgroups: if you feel targetting enemy
>officials in wartime is legit, how would you have felt if the VC had tried
>this strategy over here? You know, mow down congress, take out thirty or

>forty or fifty thousand government ofificals around America...

I'd feel about the same way as I did when I watched the White House blow up
in the movie INDEPENDENCE DAY: I'd jump up & down, cheering. That'd be a
whole lot of government parasites we wouldn't have to support anymore. The
only bad part about it is that they'd all get turned into martyrs to the
welfare-warfare-police state, just like the victims of the Oklahoma City
bombing.

> Anyway, the thing which I really
>wonder is: you don't find many leftists
>coming up with excuses for Stalin's purges

>and the like...

Not anymore, no. But you still do find apologists for such things as the
terrorist campaign waged by the NLF against the peasantry in Vietnam.

>You'd think there must be some gung-ho capitalist types who could conclude
>"if Vietnamese peasants wanted to elect a communist government, we should
>have let them, hell, communism doesn't really work so they'd come around
>soon enough anyway."

Just like there must be some gung-ho commie types who could conclude "If the
German people wanted to elect a Nazi government to exterminate the Jews, we
should have let them, hell, Nazism doesn't really work so they'd come around
soon enough anyway."

Besides, I've never said the US ought to have supported South Vietnam,
anyways. I've never tried to justify the Vietnam War, merely tried to
clarify the nature of it.

>But no, instead they have to justify killing two and a half MILLION
>Vietnamese to save them from their own party preferences!

How many Germans were killed to save them from their preference for the
NSDAP?

>But of course, right-wingers never _really_ believed Communism was doomed
>to collapse until it actually did...

Maybe, but since I'm not a right-winger then that's irrelevant. I did
believe it was doomed to collapse.

David Rolfe Graeber

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

> <6a07rl$j1k$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com: >
Distribution:

James A. Donald (jam...@echeque.com) wrote:

> --


> dr...@is4.nyu.edu (David Rolfe Graeber) wrote:
> > But if you're going to start citing people you know, I got
> > a trump card because it happens my fiance is Vietnamese.
> > (This is one reason I happen to know something about all
> > this.)
>
> I have a bigger trump card because my wife is Vietnamese.

> (You can check with David Friedmann (sic), a netizen who has met
> her face to face)

I once had a chance to have lunch with him
in Chicago but never called back. No matter: I have
no doubt your wife actually is Vietnamese.

> Her father was an opponent of the Saigon
> regime. He was imprisoned by the VC, threatened with
> death, and repeatedly exhibited as an enemy of the people at
> public meetings carried out by night. At each of these
> meetings, some of the enemies of the people would be
> beheaded.

No, James, this does not trump my story
because, you see, it does not contradict what I
actually said. I said the VC were no saints and
some of them did commit atrocities. The fact that
they executed people in such trials is something
that was already evident from my story - my
points were:
1) that they at least had some ideals
and principles, and were thus infinitely more
decent than the South Vietnamese government
which was utterly corrupt, brutal, and
barbarous.
2) that this was probably part of
the reason that the majority of villagers
preferred them, and that the NLF would have
won a fair election, and that the US knew
that and for this reason blocked the
election they had promised to hold, and
that's why there was a war. That is the main
point and for a fourth time you refuse to
address it.
So it's hard to see this as much
of a trump.

> He escaped during a bombing raid and fled to Saigon. My
> wife, then a child, and her mother, followed considerably
> later.
>
> My wife subsequently came to Australia under a Colombo plan
> scholarship, where I met her. I was at that time a radical
> leftist.
>
> Her father, my father in-law, was a teacher, and was
> presumably an enemy of the people for taking excessive
> interest in politics, rather than for being
> landlord/oppressor-of-the-poor.
>
> You describe the VC as pluralist, but in fact they terrorized
> anyone who failed to toe the official communist line in
> minute detail, which is of course classic, indeed
> stereotypical, conduct for communists.

This grows tiresome. First of all, I made
a distinction between the NLF, an umbrella of parties
and other groups, and the VC itself, its military
wing - which you yet again ignore. In fact, the
NLF itself often took positions contrary to the
VC leaders which shows how real your "official
communist line" actually was. Though it is certainly true
that after the war the North, which was already
organized on basically Stalinist lines, put an
end to all that, and in fact dislodged most of the
NLF people from positions of authority - a job made
much easier of course because Phoenix program
you have been trying to defend had already assassinated
50,000 of them.

But since we've opened this up let
me try something. On a more personal note...

You mention having been a radical leftist
once - actually, anyone reading your posts would
strongly suspect it, because they have all the air
of having been written by a convert. Or...
actually, that's putting it gently. They have the
air of being written by a fanatic. Never once in
a single post I've read have I seen the slightest
trace of nuance, of a realization that the world
can be seen in anything but black and white. Many
posts evoke the image of someone cackling at the
keyboards as they write; they approach the Hasan
B. Mutlu/Serdar Argic school of net journalism.
The amazing thing is that you do not seem to
recognize that
(a) this utterly uncompromising, absolutist,
often histrionic style makes you an incredibly
ineffective spokesman for your cause. Honestly,
how could you imagine that anyone reading your
posts would ever come to the conclusion that you
are a basically reasonable person whose judgements
can be trusted? The utter unwillingness to
actually admit to _anything_ good about any
leftist or _anything_ bad about either the
free market or anyone engaged in killing leftists
gives more the impression of a Stalinist (or
anyway someone of that basic mindset) who's
changed clothes, who is utterly biased and
hence not to be believed
(b) the constant invocations of the
thousands killed by socialist regimes would
sound a lot more convincing if it were coming
from someone who gave off the impression he
would not be capable of engaging in mass
killings himself. I hate to break it to you,
but you do not give off that impression. Because
in reality, it's not left-wing or right-wing
ideology that makes one slaughter innocents;
it is precisely this sort of black and white
absolutism, this complete inability to see
complexity and nuance, this utter assurance
that one is absolutely right in everything...
that's what leads to atrocities. (Well, that or
complete cynicism but you don't seem to be
that type.) You strike me as a man who has
confronted his inner demons and - commendably -
tried to run as far away as possible, but who
has not yet realized he ran in completely the
wrong direction and now might as well be in
the exact same place he was in before.
DG

cl...@columbia-center.org

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

> >For example, this thread, where they cite insanely biased sources...

> The only source I've cited thus far is Nobel Peace Prize nominee R.J. Rummel.
> What's "insanely biased" about him? I have other sources, but I haven't cited
> them yet.

I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is most
definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the Vietnam War, calls
the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by Government_ "dreadfully
inaccurate". I asked Moise to elaborate, and he outlined a number of the
errors for me. He is too busy to get involved in a flamewar, but
representative mistakes include taking estimates for *total deaths* in
the land reform campaigns as estimates for one small part or another, and
multiplying his quota figure of five landlords per village executed
(apparently this quota is a pure propaganda invention) and multiplying by
15,000 villages instead of the correct number, which is less than 4,000.
In this way his numbers get inflated very fast. And yes, Tim, I did
confront Professor Rummel with these little problems, and he really did
not have any response, except that his work is accurate enough for his
own purposes (which is fair enough, I suppose).

cl...@columbia-center.org

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

> >>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted
or
> >>killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
> >>targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.

The program offered a bounty of $5,500 for anyone who brought in a dead
"Viet Cong Infrastructure". Criminals began taking advantage of this
generous offer and lived quite handsomely off the proceeds.

Michael Uhl reported that his Military Intelligence team, which was part
of the Phoenix Program, "measured its success ... not only by its 'body
count' and 'kill ratio' but by the number of CD's [civilian detainees] it
had captured ... All CD's, because of this command pressure ... were
listed as VCI. To my knowledge, not one of these people ever freely
admitted being a cadre member. And again, contrary to Colby's statement,
most of our CD's were women and children."

When quotas were set for the killing one US adviser noted that "they will
meet every quota that's established for them."

Etc.

> >So reality is: these guys were so popular we knew they'd win any election so
> >we didn't allow an election and had a war.

> The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
> or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
> not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought most
> likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
> of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.

Okay, I've seen this claim a few times now: the people were prepared to
vote for the NLF because the NLF would kill them if they didn't. Where is
the evidence for this claim? -- The Geneva agreements specified that
there was to be an election with "secret ballots" and that this would be
ensured by an international group (Canada, India, and Poland). How
exactly would the NLF know who voted for them and who didn't?

In case you're wondering, the agreements are quoted here:
http://grunt.space.swri.edu/jeffviet.htm

---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:

David Rolfe Graeber

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

> The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
> or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
> not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought most
> likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
> of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.

I see, they were spineless cowards with no
morality or convictions whatsoever. Except, of course,
for a million or two of them who were so incredibly
brave and idealistic that they were willing to take on
the entire US army, live underground in tunnels for
years on end, face B52s, napalm strikes, and so on...
Boy, that's about the most pathetic excuse for an
argument I've ever heard. It manages to be incoherent,
racist, patronizing and stupid all at the same time.
Bravo, man! Bravo!

> > Second, as I mentioned on an earlier post to this thread which
> >apparently didn't reach most newsgroups: if you feel targetting enemy
> >officials in wartime is legit, how would you have felt if the VC had tried
> >this strategy over here? You know, mow down congress, take out thirty or
> >forty or fifty thousand government ofificals around America...
>
> I'd feel about the same way as I did when I watched the White House blow up
> in the movie INDEPENDENCE DAY: I'd jump up & down, cheering. That'd be a
> whole lot of government parasites we wouldn't have to support anymore. The
> only bad part about it is that they'd all get turned into martyrs to the
> welfare-warfare-police state, just like the victims of the Oklahoma City
> bombing.

Fine, go back to your fertilizer bombs. Why am I even
arguing with this person? Bye.

Ron A. Zajac

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

Tim Starr wrote:
>
> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> <SNIP>

>
> >Instead, they represent the NLF as a maniacal band of vicious
> >terrorists, murdering peasants with impunity. But if this were
> >true, of course, why on earth were the overwhelming majority of
> >peasants prepared to vote for them?
>
> Duh, because they'd get killed if they didn't? <SNIP>

This _really_ isn't cricket: It's a plain fact of history that all
parties involved (NLF, Diem gov't, U.S. mil. "intelligence") were well
aware that Hanoi would have won a vote, if permitted, and that Saigon
was the intransigent party (refused the vote). The Hanoi gov't sent a
note to the Saigon gov't, wishing to set up a meeting to discuss
agreeable methods/terms for an election--with U.N. monitors. The Saigon
gov't didn't dignify that opportunity with a reply; to their moral
detriment. Let me empasize that; Saigon didn't refuse to accept any
defined election program; they refused to sit at the table to attmept to
hammer out a mutually-agreeable arrangement. Not civilized behavior;
certainly divisive and not in the interests of the people of Viet Nam.

The fact that Hanoi would have won a vote was particulary noteworthy in
light of the U.S.-run anti-NLF disinformation campaign waged during the
2-year cooling-off period. Not satisfied to kill people to achieve
political goals, our military also seeks to kill history (via
disinformation). A sad observation, no?

--
Ron A. Zajac / NORTEL / 972-684-4887 esn444 / za...@Snortel.com
These notions are mine, not NORTEL's!

It is endlessly amazing that so many people that distrust the
government trust it with capital punishment.
-- Bruce Tennant

Dennis Eijs

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe?
did the american army not invade their territory?
did they not take up arms to defend their home and property which
was brutaly bombed by american paranoia about communism?
So you actually agree with vietcong that defended their property that
was taken over by american companies and western interests.So they
defended their countrie nd you defended your property in their region.
is that not what it was?if you disagree post:o)

>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because >
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this >
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. > >
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
jam...@echeque.com >

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis Eijs

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Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

> "In 1957, the communists began to supplement the domestic death toll with an
> active campaign of murder in the South. This campaign was highly selective,
> being directed against those individuals who were capable of mobilizing
> opposition to the communists.

hey did they use the same tactics as the CIA etc uses and did they not
pay copyrights on that?that is a faul crime they did what the secret
agencys do all over and they did not pay the copyrights .
again my brain says ;what was that again about a pot calling a kettel?
hmmm anation that allows the nazi party and attacks a communists party
what have i to expect from that country?can you answer that?

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Phil Ronzone

unread,
Jan 20, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/20/98
to

In article <34C4BF6B.MD...@casema.net> "Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> writes:
>didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe? did
>the american army not invade their territory? did they not
>take up arms to defend their home and property which was
>brutaly bombed by american paranoia about communism? So you
>actually agree with vietcong that defended their property
>that was taken over by american companies and western
>interests.So they defended their countrie nd you defended
>your property in their region. is that not what it was?if you
>disagree post:o)

America was invited in by South Vietnam. We never had troops in North
Vietnam. The Viet Cong cadres were North Korean subversive agents, seeking
coercive political power.

Bombing is alwqys brutal.

Communism makes NAZIism look peaceful. What is paranoid about fearing a system
that has deliberately, overtly, and coldy kill 100,000,000+ of its own
innocent people?

The Viet Cong were NOT defending their country -- the were invaders seeking
to overthrow another country.

And remember, South Vietnam never had 50,000+ boat people fleeing ...


--
"I didn't do it, nobody saw me, and you can't prove it!" - B. Simpson

These opinions are MINE, and you can't have 'em! (But I'll rent 'em cheap ...)

Mark Roddy

unread,
Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:

>In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,


>David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:

>>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>
>>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
that would be murdering civilians, a war crime

>>>of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
>>>terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
>>>indiscriminately at will.
>>>

>>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted or
>>>killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon intended
>>>targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>>

>> Well, I guess there are people willing
>>to defend _anything_ on the internet.
>
>Yep. Even commie terrorists.
>
>> A few points to add to Roddy's excellent reply:
>
>Roddy's reply was crap that I shredded easily, like any of his claims I've
>ever come across in any area I knew anything about.
>

Well then that's settled, eh? Its ok to kill lefties, and all that
'collateral damage' is no problem, and George Colby telling the Church
Committee that 'well actually yes we did target civilians, like
22,000' in direct contravention of Nuremburg, Geneva Conventions, etc.
etc. that's no problem. Oh yes, shredded again by that noble defender
of liberty Tim Starr. Your hypocrisy Tim is matched only by the
capacity of your ego to cloud your thinking.

Toss another prisoner out of a helicopter, shoot another suspect in
the head, napalm another village, hey just another day 'neutralizing'
the problem.

But this thread simply confirms the obvious. Our right wing
"libertarians" are blind to the historical record of right wing
regimes. Like all zealots they see the world through rose colored
glasses, and can not bring themselves to admit to even the most
obvious agregious acts when the perpetrators are their ideological
kindred.

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is most
> definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the Vietnam War, calls
> the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by Government_ "dreadfully
> inaccurate".

There are no respectable academics on the Vietnam war. In all areas
of academia, academics that desire respectability and a quite life s
tend to steer clear of areas that involves high levels of controversy.

It is impossible to claim that his chapter on Vietnam is "dreadfully
inaccurate", since the Vietnamese government did not give guided tours
of the slave labor camps.

Very likely it is dreadfuly inaccurate, since, after all, it is
largely guesses and estimates based on a few fragments of evidence,
but Rummel's guesses and estimates are consistent with what little we
do know.

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

--

"Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:
> didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe?
> did the american army not invade their territory? did they
> not take up arms to defend their home and property which
> was brutaly bombed by american paranoia about communism?

Recollect that when the Saigon government was obviously about
to fall, the South Vietnamese population acted as if the
communists were flesh eating zombies, and when the communists
actually took over, their desire to flee merely increased.

They sure did not act as if they viewed the communists as
coming to liberate them from American oppression.


--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

X+0hla6O4Klb4741xDupdSEBUvhp2MdDNbMaldQA
4bCQj7QX+uwx0aQgjBb4hvuExvdl2r/oyLvMpZMFq

Dennis Eijs

unread,
Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

indeed
> stereotypical, conduct for communists.
well atleast we know now why you are biased.
yep i'm gonna judge christianity by the inquisitian etc etc etc.
let's see the communists who fought against the nazi regime where
ofcourse the same stereotypical communists .
I can understand personal grudges against communism on the basis of
experience,but i'm not interested in it,I could hear the same stories
about the americans who killed in vietnam,but those
would be called stereotypical american capitalists.

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


James A. Donald

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Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

--

> > You describe the VC as pluralist, but in fact they
> > terrorized anyone who failed to toe the official
> > communist line in minute detail, which is of course
> > classic, indeed stereotypical, conduct for communists.

"Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:
> well atleast we know now why you are biased. yep i'm gonna
> judge christianity by the inquisitian etc etc etc.

Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, murdered about
two thousand.

Stalin murdered about fifty million.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

MkgX5iBeP7z6zLt9UFBK4Q7NdnEUZ2twXUnEkkMb
4AdIAyvP7fsRziHzLzICEl84ZNdZLsGqQN4gljOI2

Ron A. Zajac

unread,
Jan 21, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/21/98
to

Phil Ronzone wrote:
>
> In article <34C4BF6B.MD...@casema.net> "Dennis Eijs"
> <de...@casema.net> writes:
> >didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe? did
> >the american army not invade their territory? <SNIP>

>
> America was invited in by South Vietnam.

Right. Just like the USSR was "invited in" by Kabul (they were, you
know!).

> We never had troops in North
> Vietnam. The Viet Cong cadres were North Korean subversive agents,
> seeking coercive political power.

The whole question of the necessity of coersion might have been moot, if
the South that agreed to site at the table to discuss arrangements for
U.N.-monitored elections. The North did make those overtures, and the
South shunned that option, knowing, as everyone did, that they wouldn't
survive a vote. That's a historical fact!

> Bombing is always brutal.

What a stunning piece of moral circumspection!

> Communism makes NAZIism look peaceful. What is paranoid about
> fearing a system that has deliberately, overtly, and coldy

> kill[ed] 100,000,000+ of its own innocent people?

Once again, it would have been interesting to see how Vietnam might have
done, if it had been aforded the [apparent] luxury of working out its
own affairs. "In war, Truth is the first casualty".

> The Viet Cong were NOT defending their country -- the were
> invaders seeking to overthrow another country.

...and _that's_ going a bit far. At this point, I advise you to check
up on some history (sounds like you got yr Vietnamese history lesson
from Reagan!), and discuss this with a Vietnamese expatriot. Tho you'll
certainly find them to be poorly disposed toward Communism, they're
surprisingly honest about fundamental historical issues. For example,
they probably won't agree with this previous statement; they know that
Vietnam was always one country, and would've remained one country, but
for the meddling of colonial, then neo-colonial, powers.

> And remember, South Vietnam never had 50,000+ boat people fleeing.

Not quite sure I get this statement....

Remove cap 'S' to defang antiSPAM.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

In article <885299886....@dejanews.com>,
<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,

> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>> >For example, this thread, where they cite insanely biased sources...
>
>> The only source I've cited thus far is Nobel Peace Prize nominee R.J. Rummel.
>> What's "insanely biased" about him? I have other sources, but I haven't cited
>> them yet.
>
>I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is most
>definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the Vietnam War, calls
>the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by Government_ "dreadfully
>inaccurate". I asked Moise to elaborate, and he outlined a number of the
>errors for me. He is too busy to get involved in a flamewar, but
>representative mistakes include taking estimates for *total deaths* in
>the land reform campaigns as estimates for one small part or another, and
>multiplying his quota figure of five landlords per village executed
>(apparently this quota is a pure propaganda invention) and multiplying by
>15,000 villages instead of the correct number, which is less than 4,000.
>In this way his numbers get inflated very fast. And yes, Tim, I did
>confront Professor Rummel with these little problems, and he really did
>not have any response, except that his work is accurate enough for his
>own purposes (which is fair enough, I suppose).

Then you won't mind if I forward this to him so he can confirm or deny your
representation of his response.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

In article <885300779....@dejanews.com>,
<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

>> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>>>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted
>>>>or killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon
>>>>intended targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>
>The program offered a bounty of $5,500 for anyone who brought in a dead
>"Viet Cong Infrastructure". Criminals began taking advantage of this
>generous offer and lived quite handsomely off the proceeds.

So, what you're saying is that privatized delivery of military force was
profitable. So what? That does nothing to answer the question of whether
primary targets ever included anyone outside the NLF.

>Michael Uhl...

Who's he? What're his credentials & biases, if any?

>reported that his Military Intelligence team, which was part
>of the Phoenix Program, "measured its success ... not only by its 'body
>count' and 'kill ratio' but by the number of CD's [civilian detainees] it
>had captured ...

Oh, so not all of Phoenix's targets were killed?

>All CD's, because of this command pressure ... were listed as VCI. To my
>knowledge, not one of these people ever freely admitted being a cadre
>member.

Of course not. If they admitted it, they'd be punished by either Phoenix
operators or by the NLF.

>And again, contrary to Colby's statement, most of our CD's were women and
>children."

So most of the ones that weren't killed were women and kids? So what?

>When quotas were set for the killing one US adviser noted that "they will
>meet every quota that's established for them."

I can make up all sorts of quotes from anonymous sources.

>>>So reality is: these guys were so popular we knew they'd win any election so
>>>we didn't allow an election and had a war.
>

>>The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
>>or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
>>not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought most
>>likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
>>of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.
>

>Okay, I've seen this claim a few times now: the people were prepared to
>vote for the NLF because the NLF would kill them if they didn't. Where is
>the evidence for this claim?

Secret personal communication between ex-NLF cadre & myself. :-)

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

In article <34c55ccf....@news.mv.com>,

Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>
>>In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>>David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>that would be murdering civilians, a war crime

By what definition of "civilians"?

>>>>of the Viet Cong by assasinating key VC personnel - the same personnel that
>>>>terrorized the Vietnamese peasantry from at least 1945 on, murdering them
>>>>indiscriminately at will.
>>>>

>>>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted
>>>>or killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon
>>>>intended targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>>>

>>> Well, I guess there are people willing
>>>to defend _anything_ on the internet.
>>
>>Yep. Even commie terrorists.
>>
>>> A few points to add to Roddy's excellent reply:
>>
>>Roddy's reply was crap that I shredded easily, like any of his claims I've
>>ever come across in any area I knew anything about.
>>
>

>Well then that's settled, eh? Its ok to kill lefties...

Never said that.

>and all that 'collateral damage' is no problem...

Never said that, either.

>and George Colby telling the Church Committee that "well actually yes we did

>target civilians, like 22,000'...

Exact quote & reference, please.

Schol-R-LEA

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

Ron A. Zajac wrote:
>
> Phil Ronzone wrote:
> >
> > In article <34C4BF6B.MD...@casema.net> "Dennis Eijs"
> > <de...@casema.net> writes:
> > >didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe? did
> > >the american army not invade their territory? <SNIP>
> >
> > America was invited in by South Vietnam.
>
> Right. Just like the USSR was "invited in" by Kabul (they were, you
> know!).
>
> > We never had troops in North
> > Vietnam. The Viet Cong cadres were North Korean subversive agents,
> > seeking coercive political power.

<boggle> I'm sorry? I must have read different history books than you.
My understanding is that the Viet Cong weren't connected to the North
Koreans, or the North Vietnamese for that matter. They were a
*separatist* group of Annamese communists; their main enemy, before,
during and after the US intervention, was the North Vietnamese Army,
which they saw as the instrument of Tonkinese aggression. It can be
noted that while the NVA got supplies from the USSR, the VC got theirs
from the PRC; this was because the Hanoi government feared attack from
the PRC, while the Soviets refused to support the 'deviationist' VC. Or
at least, that is what I understand.

Oddly, many of the attacks on US troops in the Central Highlands weren't
by communists at all, but by the 'montangards', the native
'hillybillies' who were attacking *all* of the invading parties and
refused to acknoledge *any* of the claimant governments. This explains
why the 'VC' often used BARs and M1 rifles left over from WWII, or
occasionally even older weapons. Again, this is my understanding of the
situation; I may be completely off base.

--
#define KINSEY rand() % 7 ______ Schol-R-LEA;2 LCF ELF JAM BiWM
BigTimeHardLineBadLuckFistFuck \ bi / "Like marmalade on burnt toast"
Want some catsup for your menu? \/ Now on Slip '.' Net as 'scholr'
Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the scholar among his books

Norman G. Owen

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

James A. Donald wrote:

>
> cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> > I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is most
> > definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the Vietnam War, calls
> > the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by Government_ "dreadfully
> > inaccurate".
>
> There are no respectable academics on the Vietnam war. In all areas
> of academia, academics that desire respectability and a quite life s
> tend to steer clear of areas that involves high levels of controversy.
>
> It is impossible to claim that his chapter on Vietnam is "dreadfully
> inaccurate", since the Vietnamese government did not give guided tours
> of the slave labor camps.
>
> Very likely it is dreadfuly inaccurate, since, after all, it is
> largely guesses and estimates based on a few fragments of evidence,
> but Rummel's guesses and estimates are consistent with what little we
> do know.
>
In fact Ed Moise has done the original research (in Vietnamese and
Chinese) that makes him the leading authority on certain aspects of
Communism in VN, particularly the abortive "land reform" of the late
1950s. He knows far more about it than Rummel (or you or I or almost
anyone else).
If I can paraphrase, Moise says (you can track down his original
comments in soc.history.war.vietnam) that the "land reform" was quite
bad enough for any critic of communism to delight in, but that Rummel
has, very simply, got the facts and the numbers wrong. Dreadfully.
Ultimately we may all be ignorant, but not all ignorance is equal. And
contempt for the evidence assures the invincibility of some people's
ignorance.
Norman Owen
ngo...@hku.hk

Mr. Logical

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:

> --
>> > You describe the VC as pluralist, but in fact they
>> > terrorized anyone who failed to toe the official
>> > communist line in minute detail, which is of course
>> > classic, indeed stereotypical, conduct for communists.

>"Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:
>> well atleast we know now why you are biased. yep i'm gonna
>> judge christianity by the inquisitian etc etc etc.

>Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, murdered about
>two thousand.

>Stalin murdered about fifty million.

Fifty million? Where'd you get that figure? That's about 2 or 3 times the
number of Russians killed by Hitler, or , I believe, about half the
country's population at the time.

Be nice, or I'll sic Mr. Sarcasm on you


Mark Roddy

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:

>In article <34c55ccf....@news.mv.com>,
>Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>>>David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
>>
>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>that would be murdering civilians, a war crime
>
>By what definition of "civilians"?
>

Non-military. But this is tiresome. Do you or do you not condemn the
actions of the US government known as Operation Phoenix?

Mark Roddy

cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> In article <885300779....@dejanews.com>,
> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> >In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> >> In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> >> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

> >>>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted
> >>>>or killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon
> >>>>intended targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.

> >The program offered a bounty of $5,500 for anyone who brought in a dead


> >"Viet Cong Infrastructure". Criminals began taking advantage of this
> >generous offer and lived quite handsomely off the proceeds.

> So, what you're saying is that privatized delivery of military force was
> profitable. So what? That does nothing to answer the question of whether
> primary targets ever included anyone outside the NLF.

If you simply assume that anyone killed at random whose corpse was
brought in as a VCI really was one, then your conclusions are quite
accurate. I have my doubts about that, however.

> >Michael Uhl...

> Who's he? What're his credentials & biases, if any?

As I said in the next part of that sentence, he was with a Military
Intelligence team that worked in the Phoenix Program. Extrapolate his
biases from there. The quote is from his Congressional testimony.

> >reported that his Military Intelligence team, which was part
> >of the Phoenix Program, "measured its success ... not only by its 'body
> >count' and 'kill ratio' but by the number of CD's [civilian detainees] it
> >had captured ...

> Oh, so not all of Phoenix's targets were killed?

No. I haven't found any solid statistics, but from what I've seen the
behavior ranged from area to area, with some actually releasing people
when convinced they were innocent, to others that would simply execute
everyone brought in, on the grounds that after being tortured so badly,
they were likely to join the NLF (sorry I don't have the reference
handy).

> >All CD's, because of this command pressure ... were listed as VCI. To my
> >knowledge, not one of these people ever freely admitted being a cadre
> >member.

> Of course not. If they admitted it, they'd be punished by either Phoenix
> operators or by the NLF.

> >And again, contrary to Colby's statement, most of our CD's were women and
> >children."

> So most of the ones that weren't killed were women and kids? So what?

Just exactly where do you get this idea from? Are you assuming that none
of the CDs were killed? -- Very many of them were, and most of them were
tortured.

> >When quotas were set for the killing one US adviser noted that "they will
> >meet every quota that's established for them."

> I can make up all sorts of quotes from anonymous sources.

Yes, and someone needs to take up the slack for poor James Donald. In
case you care, the reference for that quote is the New York Times, August
13, 1972.

> >>>So reality is: these guys were so popular we knew they'd win any election
so
> >>>we didn't allow an election and had a war.

> >>The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
> >>or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
> >>not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought
most
> >>likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
> >>of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.

> >Okay, I've seen this claim a few times now: the people were prepared to
> >vote for the NLF because the NLF would kill them if they didn't. Where is
> >the evidence for this claim?

> Secret personal communication between ex-NLF cadre & myself. :-)

Nice snip job, almost as good as some of James Donald's.

My question is quite serious, however. You two keep saying that the NLF
would kill everyone who didn't vote for them. The ballot was to be
secret, and this was to be ensured by an international committee. So
exactly how were they going to know who to kill?

cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> In article <885299886....@dejanews.com>,
> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> >In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,

> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> >> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> >> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

[of my comments my e-mail conversation with Rudy Rummel]


> Then you won't mind if I forward this to him so he can confirm or deny your
> representation of his response.

Not in particular, no. I just looked over our correspondence, and that
summary seems fair. He of course may view it otherwise, but such is the
way things are.

cl...@columbia-center.org

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

Now this one is very good. James A. Donald, master of the creative snip:

In article <6a5fcp$5p9$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,


jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:

> cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:

> > I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is most
> > definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the Vietnam War, calls
> > the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by Government_ "dreadfully
> > inaccurate".

> There are no respectable academics on the Vietnam war. In all areas
> of academia, academics that desire respectability and a quite life s
> tend to steer clear of areas that involves high levels of controversy.

> It is impossible to claim that his chapter on Vietnam is "dreadfully
> inaccurate", since the Vietnamese government did not give guided tours
> of the slave labor camps.

> Very likely it is dreadfuly inaccurate, since, after all, it is
> largely guesses and estimates based on a few fragments of evidence,
> but Rummel's guesses and estimates are consistent with what little we
> do know.

Very convincing, isn't at all? (Well, probably not, but anyway....) It's
not nearly so convincing when you consider the sort of error that Moise
points out -- my paragraph originally continued with these examples:

> I asked Moise to elaborate, and he outlined a number of the
> errors for me. He is too busy to get involved in a flamewar, but
> representative mistakes include taking estimates for *total deaths* in
> the land reform campaigns as estimates for one small part or another, and
> multiplying his quota figure of five landlords per village executed
> (apparently this quota is a pure propaganda invention) and multiplying by
> 15,000 villages instead of the correct number, which is less than 4,000.
> In this way his numbers get inflated very fast.

In short, *none* of the inaccuracies that Professor Moise points to are
affected by Donald's strictures; indeed, it seems nothing short of
bizarre to claim that "what little we do know" is consistent with
misreadings of Rummel's source texts; or with multiplying the number of
"villages" by three or four, etc.

(James's predictable response is to claim that the post he was responding
to really didn't include the above quotation, and call me a liar for just
inventing it all. Let's see if he keeps in character....)

Mark Roddy

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:


>


>>and George Colby telling the Church Committee that "well actually yes we did
>>target civilians, like 22,000'...
>
>Exact quote & reference, please.
>

Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
never."

Counterspy 12/78 6.

For more references on OP see
http://www.shss.montclair.edu/english/furr/phoenixmcg.html

And your assertions that OP never killed civilians is documented
where, Tim?

Mark Roddy

James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

--

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
>I would not say that Rummel is "insanely" biased, but he is
>most definitely biased. Edwin Moise, a specialist on the
>Vietnam War, calls the Vietnam chapter of his _Murder by
>Government_ "dreadfully inaccurate"

And on what evidence does he rely for this?

He relies primarily on official statements by the North
Vietnamese governemnt, and by Mao, and contemptuously
dismisses well documented crimes as mere propaganda, without
providing any concrete evidence or explanation for these
allegations.

According to Rummel:
in his work Moise shows poor scholarship and, more
important, defends mass murder. He has no more
credibility to me than does a purported scholar who
defends the Nazis and minimizes the Holocaust. For these
reasons his comments carry little weight with me.

Dan Clore writes:
> I asked Moise to elaborate, and he outlined a number of the
> errors for me. He is too busy to get involved in a
> flamewar, but representative mistakes include taking
> estimates for *total deaths* in the land reform campaigns
> as estimates for one small part or another, and multiplying
> his quota figure of five landlords per village executed
> (apparently this quota is a pure propaganda invention)

Rummel points out that Moire writes off any bad news as mere
propaganda invention without providing any explantation,
justification, or evidence, while treating official
statements by North Vietnam and Chairman Mao with reverence.

> and multiplying by 15,000 villages instead of the correct
> number, which is less than 4,000.

Rudy Rummel does not address this dispute concerning mass
murder in Vietnam, but does address the identical dispute
concerning mass murder in China, and briefly addresses the
dispute concerning Vietnam:

Rummel writes of Moire:

[Moire] comes up with a figure of around 800,000 (p.
142), "before and after the founding of the PRC,
executed in the areas that underwent land reform
between 1950 and 1953." Then generalizing to the rest
of the country and including campaigns leading up to
land reform and the bandit eradication campaign he
concludes that 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 were executed.
(For 1949-53 for just land reform I get 4,500,000,
with a high of 11,375,000 and a low of 800,000-the
low the same as Moise's figure).

The only source for his figure on land reform is Mao;
he mentions or alludes to no other sources, and from
Mao's figure for land reform he simply reasons his
way to an overall toll. I can understand that
estimating this is not the aim of his work, but for
obvious reasons Mao is a very thin reed upon
which to rest such a weighty estimate.
Moreover, he only includes executions, but
does not consider those otherwise killed, as
of the ostracized from starvation, exposure,
and disease; or those that died in
Stalin-modelled labor camps.

For Vietnam's land reform he estimates executions as
between 3,000 and 15,000. Here the same problem
exists as for China-he limits his estimate to
executions alone; but many died from torture,
ostracism, suicide, and in the prisons. Moreover, he
also severely limits his sources. He bases his
estimate on his reading of Northern newspapers
(mainly one), interpretations of some statements by
Northern officials, and
the comments of cadre to a colleague. He does
mention the estimates of Nixon, Fall, and
Porter (which he argues made errors in his
figures such that they are too low-p. 217),
only to say they are wrong.

Now he mentions Chi's work (which even after reading
Moise, I think is a must study), but only to imply
without proof or analysis that it and apparently
other Western estimates are based on SV
disinformation; and he does take a relatively
unimportant translation of Chi and shows that it was
mistaken (p. 217-for additional evidence he says that
Chi in two news conferences after leaving the North
did not have much bad to say about it). As to the
disinformation accusation, this is not documented or
is any
specific connection of such disinformation to
Chi or the other estimate shown. A problem in
such an (implied general) accusation about
disinformation s that this way of discounting
other's work can be turned around on Moise.
Since we know that NV published much
isinformation, using Moise's approach we
might then ignore is own work, based almost
wholly on NV material as it is.

[...]
But especially, he appears to cavalierly estimate the
killed, a figure so important for evaluating land
reform. Specifically, he should have dealt
forthrightly with Chi and Fall's work, among others,
and if he could document that one or more were
propaganda, he should have done so. Otherwise he
should give them the same respect he gave Mao and NV
sources. Surprisingly, however, he not only treated
NV sources seriously, as he should have, but with
deference.


Finally, for both China and Vietnam, he not only
ignores the vast work by other scholars on land
reform (it is as though he was doing the first work
in this field), he ignores the work on communist
refugees or by former communist officials; or these
people themselves. As a serious scholar writing a
book on land reform, could he not interview some of
those who lived in the North under land reform or
were communist officials during this period? I don't
understand why not, or why at least he didn't refer
to their writing. Even those scholars who had been
very friendly to the Cambodian revolution have since
used refugees and former officials to carried out or
document their analysis of what happened (see
especially Michael Vickery).

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

5ODprffhvqM2CapdcNd2fi8ffWbm+YyNykpGPZSg
4CdYlp6FDUyylIg8SC/4gdXAxtVEOY73R2Y8Rtjv8

---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com


Dennis Eijs

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

> Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, murdered about
> two thousand.

at all of christianities wars then it was just an example but that
concept seems foreign to you
there where also a lot less people then.
You are still acting like I defend communists,I do not nor do I defend
the others,like i said there is blood on their hands on all of them


> Stalin murdered about fifty million. >

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis Eijs

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

> America was invited in by South Vietnam. We never had troops in North

> Vietnam. The Viet Cong cadres were North Korean subversive agents, seeking
> coercive political power.
and america wasn't ,man get real,I we all know the "we where
invited"story haven't we?,like the same line was used in afghanistan
war by the sovjets,so they where there rightfully?

> Bombing is alwqys brutal.

ever heard of overkill?

> Communism makes NAZIism look peaceful. What is paranoid about fearing a system

> that has deliberately, overtly, and coldy kill 100,000,000+ of its own
> innocent people?

Hmmm how may indians where killed by the states?how many slaves?
how many people are being killed right this minute by unemployment in
the states?How many homeless get ignored to dead(and in new york by
the police kicked and moved for property values?)Yeah nazisme was more
honest then what you call domocracy,for they admitted killing while
you say it has nothing to do with you.
wir haben es nicht gewust,yeah right and we still don't know?
the jews of today are the ones with no jobs,and capitalism rears its
ugly head still.

> The Viet Cong were NOT defending their country -- the were invaders seeking
> to overthrow another country.

well maybe they where invited by the people and the poor.



> And remember, South Vietnam never had 50,000+ boat people fleeing

well if you don't give s korea thosed 34 billion IMF help they might
be on your shores quite soon


> > > --
> "I didn't do it, nobody saw me, and you can't prove
> it!" - B. Simpson
>
> These opinions are MINE, and you can't have
> 'em! (But I'll rent 'em cheap ...)

truth is in the eye of the beholder
except for the beholder of the eye
for it may see through any lie

--
=freeŠankhorŽO+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis Eijs

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

> --
> "Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:
> > didn't the vietnamese did not do what you below describe?
> > did the american army not invade their territory? did they
> > not take up arms to defend their home and property which
> > was brutaly bombed by american paranoia about communism?
>
> Recollect that when the Saigon government was obviously about
> to fall, the South Vietnamese population acted as if the
> communists were flesh eating zombies, and when the communists
> actually took over, their desire to flee merely increased.
I saw no farmers kissing and hugging american soldiers
when they burned down their villages and homes.
and yes they where fleeing,because the war was getting
closer and they where fleeing the warfare.


> They sure did not act as if they viewed the communists as
> coming to liberate them from American oppression.
actually i hope to free myself one day from capitalist oppression
and that is surely american,for me the american dream is begetting a
nightmare of commercial thinking where people are no more then cash
transactions and when you loose money you loose the status of man.
kein geld kein mensch.
I do not think that america has freed us they freed is from nazism
(well when i hear people at work that is also questionable)but they
gave us something i do not like also.
But I'm not here to defend communists ,I'm not a communict but a
anarcho socialist,but i hate to see one group calling the other names
when they both have blood dripping from there hands.


--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


James A. Donald

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
to

--
"Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:
> > > well atleast we know now why you are biased. yep i'm
> > > gonna judge christianity by the inquisitian etc etc
> > > etc.

James A. Donald.


> > Torquemada, leader of the Spanish Inquisition, murdered
> > about two thousand.
> >

> > Stalin murdered about fifty million.

s...@wkpowerlink.com (Mr. Logical) wrote:
>Fifty million? Where'd you get that figure?

Death by government. Could be a lot higher, could be a lot
lower, but is still several tens of millions.

> That's about 2 or 3 times the number of Russians killed by
> Hitler,

It is hardly credible that the number of Russians killed by
Hitler was in the same ballpark as the number of Russians
killed by Stalin, for Stalin was killing unarmed men, women,
and children, which is far easier.

Communist democides have usually been vastly more destructive
than any war.

Rummel states that the absolute minimum estimate for Soviet
murders in the period 1917 to 1987, obtained by summing most
conservative, lowest estimates, totals 24 million.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

KjtSWW6rcAuI1/xRpxpFlCLQWnV2JhNjKlm97CPc
42qmyJRQwYJ3qIavQeqG4R7CuGomN+vTgdZ4/Dlft

James A. Donald

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
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--

"Norman G. Owen" <ngo...@hkucc.hku.hk> wrote:
> In fact Ed Moise has done the original research (in
> Vietnamese and
> Chinese) that makes him the leading authority on certain
> aspects of Communism in VN, particularly the abortive "land
> reform"

Bunkum: Moise ignores, and fails to cite, all the major
scholars who previously did work in this area, which is more
characteristic of your lone communist loon than respectable
academic authority.

He dismisses inconvenient facts as CIA propaganda, without
providing evidence or argument for this claims.

He treats statments by Mao and by North Vietnam with
reverence, and his estimates for the death rate during the
chinese land reform is entirely based on, and consistent
with, Mao's statements.

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

ySm77Zdq9DK6065QIBDxa49hNeb5o29LRqnf9ziM
4OwjewbtsRoTax/jA2OYw1/21PZ1ppf/SxEUfpsTe

James A. Donald

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Jan 22, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/22/98
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--

Schol-R-LEA <scholr@i_sue_spammers.org> wrote:
> <boggle> I'm sorry? I must have read different history
> books than you. My understanding is that the Viet Cong
> weren't connected to the North Koreans, or the North
> Vietnamese for that matter.

The Vietcong were originally organized and recruited by the
North Vietnamese government, in North Vietnam, from among
people who had fled North from South Vietnam when Vietnam was
partitioned, and from amongst the people of central Vietnam.
They were originally trained and armed in North Vietnam, then
sent South. (Northerners and Southerners have substantially
different accents, and allegedly a faintly different physical
appearance)

The Tet offensive was the last gasp of the Vietcong.
Thereafter the war was exclusively a war between regular
North Vietnamese army troops on the one hand, and regular
South Vietnamese and US allied troops on the other.

It is unclear whether the Vietcong ever had any autonomy from
the North Vietnamese government. Very possibly they did, but
regardless of whether they had autonomy or not, they were
casually dismissed, and in many cases killed, once the North
Vietnamese won a miltary victory over South Vietnam.


--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

AYDROiutUBdZSKsnz3fMQbQR3ksmghwqTE4AQk6k
42mN2ZNpAAcHCwKifwccCCZshx4PgvTq2P2HvteAw

James A. Donald

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

Schol-R-LEA <scholr@i_sue_spammers.org> wrote:
> I'm sorry? I must have read different history books than you.
> My understanding is that the Viet Cong weren't connected to the North
> Koreans, or the North Vietnamese for that matter. They were a
> *separatist* group of Annamese communists; their main enemy, before,
> during and after the US intervention, was the North Vietnamese Army,

Perhaps.

Yet events, as they unfolded, unfolded just as they would have if the
"NLF" had no independent existence outside the fertile imaginations of
North Vietnamese propagandists.]

True, some NLF people appear to have died shortly after the North
Vietnamese victory, but this is hardly evidence of independence.
Stalin wiped out most of the Bolsheviks, replaced them, wiped out the
replacees, replaced them, and there was never the slightest hint of
independence from the Bolsheviks.

> Oddly, many of the attacks on US troops in the Central Highlands weren't
> by communists at all, but by the 'montangards', the native
> 'hillybillies' who were attacking *all* of the invading parties and
> refused to acknoledge *any* of the claimant governments.

The Montagnards were generally perceived as US allies, though they
were quite hostile to the South Vietnamese government. (Regarding all
Vietnamese as imperialists)

Tim Starr

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

In article <885487004...@dejanews.com>,

<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> In article <885299886....@dejanews.com>,
>> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> >In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,
>> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> >> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>> >> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>> >> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>[of my comments my e-mail conversation with Rudy Rummel]
>> Then you won't mind if I forward this to him so he can confirm or deny your
>> representation of his response.
>
>Not in particular, no. I just looked over our correspondence...

So did I. It was considerably less sinister than you made it out to be.

Tim Starr

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

In article <34C4C5...@Snortel.com>, Ron A. Zajac <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:

>Tim Starr wrote:
>>
>> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
>> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>> <SNIP>
>>
>> >Instead, they represent the NLF as a maniacal band of vicious
>> >terrorists, murdering peasants with impunity. But if this were
>> >true, of course, why on earth were the overwhelming majority of
>> >peasants prepared to vote for them?
>>
>> Duh, because they'd get killed if they didn't? <SNIP>
>
>This _really_ isn't cricket: It's a plain fact of history that all
>parties involved (NLF, Diem gov't, U.S. mil. "intelligence") were well
>aware that Hanoi would have won a vote, if permitted, and that Saigon
>was the intransigent party (refused the vote). The Hanoi gov't sent a
>note to the Saigon gov't, wishing to set up a meeting to discuss
>agreeable methods/terms for an election--with U.N. monitors. The Saigon
>gov't didn't dignify that opportunity with a reply; to their moral
>detriment. Let me empasize that; Saigon didn't refuse to accept any
>defined election program; they refused to sit at the table to attmept to
>hammer out a mutually-agreeable arrangement. Not civilized behavior;
>certainly divisive and not in the interests of the people of Viet Nam.

I've never denied this fact, I just attach considerably less significance
to it than you do. I view it in roughly the same light as if Hindenburg
had realized that the Nazis were gonna win the elections in 1932 & had
suspended elections rather than let Hitler take power. He did in fact
resist appointing Hitler to form a government as long as he could without
breaking the law, & I see nothing wrong with that. Do you?

Tim Starr

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

In article <34C4C085.MD...@casema.net>,
Dennis Eijs <de...@casema.net> wrote:
>
>> "In 1957, the communists began to supplement the domestic death toll with an
>> active campaign of murder in the South. This campaign was highly selective,
>> being directed against those individuals who were capable of mobilizing
>> opposition to the communists.
>
>hey did they use the same tactics as the CIA etc uses and did they not
>pay copyrights on that?that is a faul crime they did what the secret
>agencys do all over and they did not pay the copyrights .

Cart before horse. The CIA's Operation Phoenix was a more narrowly-focused
version of the VC's own assasination campaign.

>again my brain says ;what was that again about a pot calling a kettel?
>hmmm anation that allows the nazi party and attacks a communists party
>what have i to expect from that country?can you answer that?

Yes, I can, but I'd rather wait until you can make some sense & write
legible & grammatical English prose.

Tim Starr

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

Never made any such assertion. Have been trying to get breakdown of primary
targets vs. collateral damage all along, to no avail.

James A. Donald

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> In short, *none* of the inaccuracies that Professor Moise points to are
> affected by Donald's strictures;

You have presented no evidence that the "inaccuracies" are in fact
inaccurate.

And, according to professor Rummel, neither has professor Moise. All
he have is mere assertion by professor Moise.

cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> In article <885487004...@dejanews.com>,
> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> >In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> >> In article <885299886....@dejanews.com>,
> >> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> >> >In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,
> >> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> >> >> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> >> >> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >> >> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:

> >[of my comments my e-mail conversation with Rudy Rummel]
> >> Then you won't mind if I forward this to him so he can confirm or deny your
> >> representation of his response.

> >Not in particular, no. I just looked over our correspondence...

> So did I. It was considerably less sinister than you made it out to be.

Hmm. I didn't think I made it out to be "sinister" at all. But it does
remain a fact that he had no answer to the specific charges of factual
error that Moise made, etc. If that is "sinister", oh well.

---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:

Mark Roddy

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

On 22 Jan 98 21:55:24 -0100, "Dennis Eijs" <de...@casema.net> wrote:


>
>> The Viet Cong were NOT defending their country -- the were invaders seeking
>> to overthrow another country.
>
>well maybe they where invited by the people and the poor.
>

The NLF were most certainly not invaders. The whole point of Operation
Phoenix was to destroy the LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE of the insurgency
through assassination.

Mark Roddy

Mark Roddy

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

On Fri, 23 Jan 1998 04:32:50 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:

>In article <34C4C085.MD...@casema.net>,


>Dennis Eijs <de...@casema.net> wrote:
>>
>>> "In 1957, the communists began to supplement the domestic death toll with an
>>> active campaign of murder in the South. This campaign was highly selective,
>>> being directed against those individuals who were capable of mobilizing
>>> opposition to the communists.
>>
>>hey did they use the same tactics as the CIA etc uses and did they not
>>pay copyrights on that?that is a faul crime they did what the secret
>>agencys do all over and they did not pay the copyrights .
>
>Cart before horse. The CIA's Operation Phoenix was a more narrowly-focused
>version of the VC's own assasination campaign.
>

Your proof for this assertion is?


Mark Roddy

cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

In article <6a9itt$22e$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:

> > In short, *none* of the inaccuracies that Professor Moise points to are
> > affected by Donald's strictures;

> You have presented no evidence that the "inaccuracies" are in fact
> inaccurate.

Sheeze. Now you're not even trying. You don't have squat as evidence for
your claims, so you go into your "Well, then, prove it *isn't* true!"
mode. Well, why don't you prove that there were really 15,000 villages
instead of less than 4,000 and all the rest of the things you say you
believe. Come on, let's see you do it.

And the fact remains, none of the inaccuracies are even touched by your
strictures. Your argument was a complete non sequitur, which you tried
(incompetently) to hide through creative snipping. Sheeze.

---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore

The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:

James A. Donald

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Jan 23, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/23/98
to

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> Very convincing, isn't at all? (Well, probably not, but anyway....) It's
> not nearly so convincing when you consider the sort of error that Moise
> points out -- my paragraph originally continued with these examples:

The only example for which you have provided anything that could
plausibly be called concrete evidence that the fans of totalitarianism
and terror are right, and Rummel is wrong, is on the issue of doctors
in Cambodia.

Was it generaly Khmer Rouge policy to kill or torture to death all, or
almost all, doctors, as Rummel claims?

You cited some apologist as providing proof that it was not Khmer
Rouge policy.

This "Proof" was in fact a refugee who reported that all the doctors
that he used to know wound up dead, mostly in unpleasant ways, but
your apologist put a very strange spin on the refugee's story by
pointing out that the doctors were not killed at once, and they were
killed in widely varying places and times, and he cites this as
evidence that it was not Khmer Rouge policy to eradicate doctors, that
they must have been killed, or died, for reasons unrelated to the fact
that they were doctors

Yeah, right, and the fact that Jews is Nazi germany were killed in
widely varying places and times in widely varying ways is proof it was
not Nazi policy to exterminate jews.

The fact that you are clinging to such absurd straws exposes you as a
lying apologist for mass murder. If someone tells such tales
concerning Nazis and jews, one would conclude that he planned to kill
all jews, that he did not honestly believe that the nazis refrained
from killing jews, but rather believed that it was a necessary and
desirable step for the social order he intended to kill all jews, and
similarly the tales that you tell about the Khmer Rouge show that you
intend to kill everyone like me.

Dennis <O> <O>

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Jan 24, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/24/98
to

> Yes, I can, but I'd rather wait until you can make some sense & write
> legible & grammatical English prose.
well then I will wait to you make sense and start writing my native
language perfectly.could be a long wait I guess and your way of
thinking also makes no sense to me ,so "pot and kettle story" again
:o)
well this ended this thread allright ,no more follow until he
becomes a lefty or I become a righty .or we both end up in the middle
:o)
have a nice day ,en als je dit begrijpt en foutloos kan schrijven
stuur me dan even een mailtje :o)

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis <O> <O>

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Jan 24, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/24/98
to

How many where killed by capitalism?
well hard to count for they died of starvation etc for they
don't pull the trigger they just starve them to dead.
So they can say that it's not their fault .

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


cl...@columbia-center.org

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Jan 24, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/24/98
to Rum...@hawaii.edu

Since James Donald is utterly unable to deal with any of the facts raised
against his lies, he is once again attempting to change the subject (I'll
let him), this time by firing off more lies. In this case, they are about
my e-mail correspondence with Rudy Rummel, who apparently forwarded this
material to him. To see the story, read through James's fairy tale and
then the actual relevant material that I paste in from my files. Only
deliberate dishonesty can possibly account for the vast difference
between the two. (Also note his typical tactics: someone who explicitly
*opposed* the Khmer Rouge is deliberately and deceptively labeled an
"apologist", which again can only be accounted for by dishonesty. The
only reasoning here is that he dislikes his *facts* and cannot deal with
them. Hence the need to lie to discredit him. Again, the attempt to
polarize the debate, as if there are no other options than "all doctors
were always targeted everywhere for execution for being doctors" and "no
doctor was ever killed anywhere at any time for being a doctor". In fact,
as I say below, most likely they were at some time and in some places,
but we know that this was not a "uniform" condition, since in some places
there were doctors whose identity was publically known who were never in
danger. And then there's the 200 corpses who later turned up alive in
France....)

In article <6ab042$grf$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,


jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:

> cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:

> > Very convincing, isn't at all? (Well, probably not, but anyway....) It's
> > not nearly so convincing when you consider the sort of error that Moise
> > points out -- my paragraph originally continued with these examples:

[and instead of dealing with any of them, James changes the subject as
follows]

> The only example for which you have provided anything that could
> plausibly be called concrete evidence that the fans of totalitarianism
> and terror are right, and Rummel is wrong, is on the issue of doctors
> in Cambodia.

> Was it generaly Khmer Rouge policy to kill or torture to death all, or
> almost all, doctors, as Rummel claims?

> You cited some apologist as providing proof that it was not Khmer
> Rouge policy.

> This "Proof" was in fact a refugee who reported that all the doctors
> that he used to know wound up dead, mostly in unpleasant ways, but
> your apologist put a very strange spin on the refugee's story by
> pointing out that the doctors were not killed at once, and they were
> killed in widely varying places and times, and he cites this as
> evidence that it was not Khmer Rouge policy to eradicate doctors, that
> they must have been killed, or died, for reasons unrelated to the fact
> that they were doctors

I snip the rest of his idiotic invective to cut to the chase: the proof
that he is lying once again.

[first I made this point]
There are other problems in addition to your numbers. You ask us to:
""Consider what suffering and social costs underlay the following: of
450 doctors practicing in Cambodia before 1975, the Vietnamese-installed
Samrin regime claims that there were only 50 left in the country in
1979." This sounds like the Khmer Rouge killed 400 of these doctors
during the period of their rule, and your fans have cited you as proof
that they did so in UseNet debates. But most of these doctors left in
the period 1970-75, before the Khmer Rouge took power; as many as 350 of
them were alive in France alone in 1979 (according to John Pilger; cited
in Vickery, one of your references).

[Rummel's response and my answer to it]
> If this be so, then I stand corrected and regret that readers were
misled.
> However, it is also true that doctors with a Western training were
> especially targeted. For a "new peasant" to admit he was a doctor was
most
> likely a death sentence. Clearly, then, of the doctors in Cambodia during
> the Khmer Rouge reign, a number were executed; some others who kept their
> background secret must have died from malnutrition, hunger, disease, and
> mistreatment while they worked among other "new peasants". The only
> question I see is what the total number of doctors thus killed was, and
not
> whether such killing took place.

Certainly some doctors were executed by the Khmer Rouge. But it is very
much in question whether they were specifically targeted for execution.
Vickery reviews this subject in his book. Most likely they were
targeted, but only in some areas and at some times. It is not correct to
generalize from this to "uniform conditions" for the Khmer Rouge.
Vickery cites refugee testimony mentioning that doctors whose identity
was perfectly well known survived without any apparent problem due to
the fact. He also notes that Tuol Sleng records contain some doctors,
but that they were killed for supposedly being CIA or Vietnamese spies,
not for being doctors.

> But now let me deal with your figures. If there were 450 doctors before
the
> KR took over and 350 in France in 1979, then given those who died a
natural
> death and those who immigrated elsewhere than France, it must be
> statistically that virtually no doctors were killed by the KR. This
simply
> does not compute, given what we know of the KR treatment of doctors from
> refugees and survivors.

The 350 figure is by no means certain. What is definitely known is that
the Heng Samrin regime, in 1980, conducted a search for Cambodian
doctors abroad. They had found about 200 within a few months (all of
this referenced in Vickery).

[and again]
> My sources mention the targeting explicitly. I know that one source is
the
> biographies written by those Cambodians who lived through this period,
such
> as Yathay (I remember, I hope not imperfectly).

You do mention Ngor's autobiography on this point, I see. The real
question I suppose is how common this was. From the information in
Vickery it would seem that it was not terribly common, most likely, and
certainly not a "uniform condition".

[and there you have it -- no further response forthcoming from Rummel]

James A. Donald

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Jan 24, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/24/98
to

--
cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:

> Since James Donald is utterly unable to deal with any of the
> facts raised against his lies,

The "facts" you raise are trivial and irrelevant.

For example you argued that the order by the North Vietnamese
government to execute 5% of the population or 5 people in
each rural village referred to administrative zones, not
natural villages.

If true, big deal!

Furthermore, it seems likely that you are simply wrong, since
the order implies that villages are around a hundred people,
which would imply natural villages, not administrative zones.
Administrative zones are substantially larger than one
hundred people.

Your arguments resemble that infamous holocaust apologist
argument that there were no blue stains on the gas chamber
walls, therefore such and such a particular story is false,
therefore so and so is lying, therefore there was no
holocaust"

What happens is you find a multitude of trivial debatable
points, and pronounce that because some of the details are in
disputable or in error, or simply complicated and carelessly
described, this whole business about mass murder by
communists is a big lie.

But when you argue these trivial details, the details prove
the basic fact that the North Vietnamese government committed
mass murder on a vast scale and terrorized the population.

The "evidence" you provide that I am "lying" is itself
evidence that the basic substance of my story is the truth.
You fuss over trivial details that do not affect the basic
substance of the story.

>. In fact,
> as I say below, most likely they were at some time and in
> some places, but we know that this was not a "uniform"
> condition, since in some places there were doctors whose
> identity was publically known who were never in danger.

Yet strange to report, almost no doctors survived in
Cambodia, and a large proportion of those whose fate is known
were tortured to death.

> And then there's the 200 corpses who later turned up alive
> in France....)

A little earlier you claimed four hundred supposedly dead
cambodian doctors turned up in France. Suddenly this claim
mysteriously turns into two hundred.

This reminds me of that famous Maxwell Smart joke:

Maxwell Smart, to enemy holding a gun on him
There are four hundred heavily armed agents surrounding
this building.

Enemy:
I find that hard to believe.

Maxwell Smart
Would you believe two hundred?

--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG

cDv/uB0RTSCLCD/QLW//rMZT8Ky1/JgtTDQD/jPd
40HwGJQST0SiMjE/OdzpaeV4b0jRgR5nOKg1qr/4b

Tim Starr

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Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

Already quoted in this thread. Learn how to use DejaNews, Roddy.

Tim Starr

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Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <34C943AE.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
> > Yes, I can, but I'd rather wait until you can make some sense & write
>> legible & grammatical English prose.
>well then I will wait to you make sense and start writing my native
>language perfectly.could be a long wait I guess and your way of
>thinking also makes no sense to me ,so "pot and kettle story" again
>:o)

What language do you speak that has no capital letters in its written form,
no paragraph indentations or line breaks of any kind, etc.?

Tim Starr

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Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <885485966...@dejanews.com>,>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>In article <885300779....@dejanews.com>,>>> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>>> In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

>>>> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>>>>>>I'm not aware of any evidence that anyone outside the VC was ever targeted
>>>>>>or killed in Phoenix, except as collateral damage from attacks upon
>>>>>>intended targets. If you've got some, Roddy, cough it up.
>
>>>The program offered a bounty of $5,500 for anyone who brought in a dead
>>>"Viet Cong Infrastructure". Criminals began taking advantage of this
>>>generous offer and lived quite handsomely off the proceeds.
>
>>So, what you're saying is that privatized delivery of military force was
>>profitable. So what? That does nothing to answer the question of whether
>>primary targets ever included anyone outside the NLF.
>
>If you simply assume that anyone killed at random whose corpse was
>brought in as a VCI really was one, then your conclusions are quite
>accurate. I have my doubts about that, however.

I'm asking for evidence that Phoenix ever made non-VC primary targets. You
still haven't come up with any. At most, you've come up with evidence that
some of its operators had incentive to falsely present non-VC as if they were
VC. You still haven't even come up with evidence that this actually ever
happened.

>>>Michael Uhl...
>
>>Who's he? What're his credentials & biases, if any?
>
>As I said in the next part of that sentence, he was with a Military
>Intelligence team that worked in the Phoenix Program. Extrapolate his
>biases from there. The quote is from his Congressional testimony.

WHICH military? Which branch? What exactly did he do in Phoenix?

[snip]

>>>And again, contrary to Colby's statement, most of our CD's were women and
>>>children."
>
>>So most of the ones that weren't killed were women and kids? So what?
>
>Just exactly where do you get this idea from? Are you assuming that none
>of the CDs were killed? -- Very many of them were, and most of them were
>tortured.

How many of the CDs were tortured & killed? How were the CD's selected?

How does that compare to how the VC selected those it was going to torture &
kill?

>>>When quotas were set for the killing one US adviser noted that "they will
>>>meet every quota that's established for them."
>
>>I can make up all sorts of quotes from anonymous sources.
>
>Yes, and someone needs to take up the slack for poor James Donald. In
>case you care, the reference for that quote is the New York Times, August
>13, 1972.

So what? Does the adviser have a name in the NYT?

[snip]

>My question is quite serious, however. You two keep saying that the NLF
>would kill everyone who didn't vote for them.

No, I merely presented that as another possible explanation for the facts
claimed by another one of my opponents. He claimed that the VC would've won
the elections if they'd been held, then acted as if the only possible way this
could be explained is if there was massive popular support for communism
amongst the Vietnamese peasantry. I merely pointed out the alternative that
they could've all been inimidated into supporting the VC by the terrorist
campaign that had been inflicted upon them since 1945.

>The ballot was to be secret, and this was to be ensured by an international
>committee. So exactly how were they going to know who to kill?

They had spies in many of the villages, for one thing. They could also simply
threaten to annihilate entire villages if they didn't win the vote there.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <6a2fpe$uqg$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>>The average Vietnamese peasant probably didn't care all that much whether he
>>or she was ruled by the South or the North. They probably cared most about
>>not getting killed, & were most likely to vote for whomever they thought most
>>likely to kill them if they didn't. That was the NLF, because the Republic
>>of Vietnam couldn't defend them even if it had wanted to.
>
> I see, they were spineless cowards with no
>morality or convictions whatsoever.

Never said that. They were helpless to defend themselves against either the
NLF or ARVN.

>Except, of course, for a million or two of them who were so incredibly
>brave and idealistic...

Not to mention misguided & brainwashed.

>that they were willing to take on the entire US army...

Not even close. Maximum number of US troops in Vietnam was 500,000. Maximum
number of troops in the US military was about 2.2 million.

>live underground in tunnels for years on end, face B52s, napalm strikes, and
>so on...

Yah, "face B52s" & napalm by hiding in the tunnels. Some courage.

>Boy, that's about the most pathetic excuse for an
>argument I've ever heard. It manages to be incoherent,
>racist, patronizing and stupid all at the same time.
>Bravo, man! Bravo!

Applaud youself, you're the one who made up the strawman, not me.

>>> Second, as I mentioned on an earlier post to this thread which
>>>apparently didn't reach most newsgroups: if you feel targetting enemy
>>>officials in wartime is legit, how would you have felt if the VC had tried
>>>this strategy over here? You know, mow down congress, take out thirty or
>>>forty or fifty thousand government ofificals around America...
>>
>>I'd feel about the same way as I did when I watched the White House blow up
>>in the movie INDEPENDENCE DAY: I'd jump up & down, cheering. That'd be a
>>whole lot of government parasites we wouldn't have to support anymore. The
>>only bad part about it is that they'd all get turned into martyrs to the
>>welfare-warfare-police state, just like the victims of the Oklahoma City
>>bombing.
>
>Fine, go back to your fertilizer bombs.

Don't even know how to make one. Not interested in making myself into a
martyr for any cause.

>Why am I even arguing with this person?

Because it's easier than trying to understand what I'm trying to say?

>Bye.

Good riddance.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <34c74...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <34c55ccf....@news.mv.com>,

>>Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <69o7l9$j79$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

>>>>David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>>>Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Operation Phoenix was designed to neutralize the bureaucratic infrastructure
>>>
>>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>that would be murdering civilians, a war crime
>>
>>By what definition of "civilians"?
>>
>Non-military.

Define "military." Were the porters carrying supplies along the Ho Chi Minh
trail "civilians" or "military"?

>But this is tiresome. Do you or do you not condemn the
>actions of the US government known as Operation Phoenix?

Not the point, which is the nature of Phoenix. I haven't taken any position
on it, pro or con, in this discussion, nor do I intend to until its nature
has been clarified to my satisfaction.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <34c78...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>wrote:
>
>
>>
>>>and George Colby telling the Church Committee that "well actually yes we did
>>>target civilians, like 22,000'...
>>
>>Exact quote & reference, please.
>>
>
>Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
>subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
>citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
>Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
>the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
>Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
>never."

Still doesn't answer question of whether they were primary targets or
collateral damage.

>Counterspy 12/78 6.
>
>For more references on OP see
>http://www.shss.montclair.edu/english/furr/phoenixmcg.html

Commie web site.

>And your assertions that OP never killed civilians is documented
>where, Tim?

Nowhere. Never made any such assertions.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

That's make sense, if Phoenix hadn't come after Tet, which finished off the
indigenous element of the insurgency pretty much all by itself. The VC were
sacrificed by the North in Tet both to score a psychological victory over the
USA & to neutralize those most capable of resisting the NVA once it occupied
South Vietnam.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <34C93FC9.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
>How many where killed by capitalism?

When? Where? How?

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

In article <885549337....@dejanews.com>,> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> In article <885487004...@dejanews.com>,>> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> >> In article <885299886....@dejanews.com>,
>> >> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> >> >In article <timstarr...@netcom.com>,
>> >> > tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>> >> >> In article <69r9nd$vl7$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

>> >> >> David Rolfe Graeber <dr...@is4.nyu.edu> wrote:
>> >> >> >Tim Starr (tims...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>> >[of my comments my e-mail conversation with Rudy Rummel]
>> >> Then you won't mind if I forward this to him so he can confirm or deny your
>> >> representation of his response.
>
>> >Not in particular, no. I just looked over our correspondence...
>
>> So did I. It was considerably less sinister than you made it out to be.
>
>Hmm. I didn't think I made it out to be "sinister" at all.

You implied that he misrepresented the facts - specifically, that he
systemtically understimated the democide of "right-wing" regimes while
simultaneously overestimating that of "left-wing" regimes - for dishonest
purposes.

>But it does
>remain a fact that he had no answer to the specific charges of factual
>error that Moise made, etc. If that is "sinister", oh well.

Which charge, at best, makes for a difference of several tens of thousand
dead, for a regime with a democide total in the several hundreds of thousands
at the least & millions at the most. Big Fucking Deal.

If someone overestimates the number of Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen,
does that mean the Holocaust didn't happen?

cl...@columbia-center.org

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

James responded to this one, but since there is very literally nothing of
any substance whatsoever in his reply -- except of course the usual
attempt to polarize debate between the two extremes, as I point out below
-- I will simply repost the same thing, in case he wants another crack at
it. In this case, the two extremes are: 1) The alleged atrocities
happened at the most extreme levels claimed by propagandists, including
known and admitted fabrications and falsifications; 2) There were no
atrocities at all, at all.

If someone takes a more reasonable position, that atrocities occurred and
at a level more than sufficient to condemn the perpetrators, but that
they were then seized on and exaggerated by propagandists who often added
additional atrocities to them (and who simultaneously ignored, denied,
and apologized for similar atrocities by regimes they favor -- as we
frequently see James doing), then James claims that they are taking
position 2. That is an obvious lie. Possibly a paranoid schizophrenic
could believe it in the midst of delusions, but a rational person would
toss it out right away.

[and here's the first reply again, with the proof that James was simply
lying] Since James Donald is utterly unable to deal with any of the facts

Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

> In article <34C93FC9.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
> >How many where killed by capitalism?
>
> When? Where? How?
yep ,look into that first,before you point.
all the time
everywhere
in all ways possible.(period)

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

> In article <34C943AE.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
> > > Yes, I can, but I'd rather wait until you can make some sense & write
> >> legible & grammatical English prose.
> >well then I will wait to you make sense and start writing my native
> >language perfectly.could be a long wait I guess and your way of
> >thinking also makes no sense to me ,so "pot and kettle story" again
> >:o)
>
> What language do you speak that has no capital letters in its written form,
> no paragraph indentations or line breaks of any kind, etc.?
HMMMMMM ignore file I guess,(I never use the phrase "killfile")
What do I care about a language fetishist
try alt.fetish.language.english :o) ROTFL :o)

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 25, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/25/98
to

> Yah, "face B52s" & napalm by hiding in the tunnels. Some courage.
euh how many nuclear where being build in america?Even when there
where no bombings?This has to tell you something doesn't it?
--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


James A. Donald

unread,
Jan 26, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/26/98
to

cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
>> And then there's the 200 corpses who later turned up alive
>> in France....)

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> A little earlier you claimed four hundred supposedly dead
> cambodian doctors turned up in France. Suddenly this claim
> mysteriously turns into two hundred.

I wrote "four hundred" from memory.

On looking up the article, I find that Clore's claim was that 350
cambodian doctors fled Khmer Rouge Cambodia to France. (Close enough
to four hundred) and therefore were not executed by the Khmer Rouge

Rummel pointed out to Clore that this claim was absurd, because there
were only 457 doctors total when the country fell, and the Khmer Rouge
used extreme measures to discourage escape, and France did not lay
down the welcome mat to cambodia refugees.

If 350 doctors made it to France, this would imply that doctors were
free to leave, and that almost no doctors were killed, which is
absurd, for no one was free to leave and we have ample records of
particular identified doctors executed or tortured to death.

And in response, this alleged factoid of 350 doctors in france has
somehow turned into an alleged factoid of two hundred doctors in
France.

In actual fact it was quite difficult for those categorized as "new
people" to escape, and very few did, and so we may conclude that since
only a tiny handful of doctors remained after the Khmer Rouge were
overthrown, the Khmer Rouge killed almost every doctor they could get
their hands on, as Rummel reported, and as Clore denied.

Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 26, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/26/98
to

> > Yah, "face B52s" & napalm by hiding in the tunnels. Some courage.
> euh how many nuclear shelters
where being build in america?Even
when there > where no bombings?This has to tell you something doesn't
it? > -- > =free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's= >

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/28/98
to

In article <34CB6960.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
>> In article <34C93FC9.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
>> >How many where killed by capitalism?
>>
>> When? Where? How?
>yep ,look into that first,before you point.
>all the time
>everywhere
>in all ways possible.(period)

I already know the answer, I was just checking to see if you had a clue what
you were talking about. Guess not.

Tim Starr

unread,
Jan 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/28/98
to

In article <34CB6B08.MD-0.196.deijs@*REMOVE*casema.net>, Dennis <O> wrote:
>> Yah, "face B52s" & napalm by hiding in the tunnels. Some courage.
>euh how many nuclear where being build in america?Even when there

>where no bombings?This has to tell you something doesn't it?

US nukes were made for the purpose of striking at the USSR, not Vietnam. The
only one of any prominence amongst the US political leadership who ever
proposed nuking Vietnam was Barry Goldwater, & that lost him the election in
1964.

Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/28/98
to

> I already know the answer, I was just checking to see if you had a clue what
> you were talking about. Guess not.

Hmmm paranormal too,very good,keep guessing you might
guess correctly,but i doubt you will.
PS still keep your eye on the dollar.
one clue less person :o)
nice reply though,keep it up.
trientalis europaea
--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/28/98
to


> US nukes were made for the purpose of striking at the USSR, not Vietnam. The
> only one of any prominence amongst the US political leadership who ever
> proposed nuking Vietnam was Barry Goldwater, & that lost him the election in
> 1964.
well my mistake I pressed <shift><delete>and the word shelter was
erased for it should have read nuclear shelter.sorry for that.
but on the subject,didn't they threaten iraq just a bit ago with
nukes?yep they did,didn't they.not a very adviseable move .


--
=freeŠankhorŽO+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Dennis <O> <O>

unread,
Jan 30, 1998, 3:00:00 AM1/30/98
to

> David
Yep I wanted to "discuss" or learn more about anarchy
but was drawn into a discussion about my english
and my grammar.(which isn't my first language)
If they don't know what to answer, they start thing slike that.
But, I do reply, because other people also read and they can read
the reply's and see that there are other point of view,and even
when it doesn't reach Tim Starr it might make others think.
I have to say that a lot of newsgroups have people like these in
them ,and they are sometimes even interesting.
I also read something about labour day and it's origin,very
interesting stuff it was too.
ankhor ankhORION

--
=free奄nkhor奚+-3~.xs2all.I's=


Mark Roddy

unread,
Feb 2, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/2/98
to

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:

>In article <34c78...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>and George Colby telling the Church Committee that "well actually yes we did
>>>>target civilians, like 22,000'...
>>>
>>>Exact quote & reference, please.
>>>
>>
>>Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
>>subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
>>citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
>>Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
>>the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
>>Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
>>never."
>
>Still doesn't answer question of whether they were primary targets or
>collateral damage.
>

Now let's see: did OP perpetrate the premeditated killing of
civilians? Yes according to Bill Colby, but what does he know, after
all he was just the friggin director of the CIA. He should of course
defer to your sophistry and hair splitting.

So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix? Or is
it just left-wing crimes that you are opposed to?

Tim Starr

unread,
Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
to

In article <34d62068...@news.mv.com>,

Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>
>>In article <34c78...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>>>On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:53:32 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>and George Colby telling the Church Committee that "well actually yes we did
>>>>>target civilians, like 22,000'...
>>>>
>>>>Exact quote & reference, please.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
>>>subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
>>>citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
>>>Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
>>>the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
>>>Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
>>>never."
>>
>>Still doesn't answer question of whether they were primary targets or
>>collateral damage.
>
>Now let's see: did OP perpetrate the premeditated killing of
>civilians? Yes according to Bill Colby...

So did Bomber Command in WWII. So does any attack on a military target in
which it's known ahead of time that there will be civilian casualties as
collateral damage.

>but what does he know, after all he was just the friggin director of the
>CIA.

I've never questioned his authority, nor have I challenged the factual basis
of this claim. I question its interpretation. Not all homicides are equal.

>He should of course defer to your sophistry and hair splitting.

The distinction I'm making is a standard one in Western military law, similar
to the distinction between deliberately shooting an innocent person & doing
so accidentally while trying to shoot a criminal attacker in self-defense.

>So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
>50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
>the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?

I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
have been convicted of murder for it.

Mark Roddy

unread,
Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
to

On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:18:01 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:


>>>>


>>>>Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
>>>>subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
>>>>citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
>>>>Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
>>>>the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
>>>>Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
>>>>never."
>>>
>>>Still doesn't answer question of whether they were primary targets or
>>>collateral damage.
>>
>>Now let's see: did OP perpetrate the premeditated killing of
>>civilians? Yes according to Bill Colby...
>
>So did Bomber Command in WWII. So does any attack on a military target in
>which it's known ahead of time that there will be civilian casualties as
>collateral damage.
>

Gee Tim, strategic bombing and individual assassinations are quite
different things. However there certainly were bombing missions that,
had we not been the victors, or had the germans or japanese done them,
would have been added to the list of WWII war crimes. The fire-bombing
of Dresden, for example.

>>but what does he know, after all he was just the friggin director of the
>>CIA.
>
>I've never questioned his authority, nor have I challenged the factual basis
>of this claim. I question its interpretation. Not all homicides are equal.
>
>>He should of course defer to your sophistry and hair splitting.
>
>The distinction I'm making is a standard one in Western military law, similar
>to the distinction between deliberately shooting an innocent person & doing
>so accidentally while trying to shoot a criminal attacker in self-defense.
>
>>So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
>>50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
>>the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?
>
>I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
>Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
>have been convicted of murder for it.
>

So your shift in position is now one where you appear to be claiming
that it is ok to deliberately assassinate 'non-innocent' civilians.

You are aware of course that the decision making process for
operations like OP are more akin to a 'star chamber' process than some
sort of due process legal mechanism. A bunch of your dreaded gummint
workers sat around a table looking at dossiers and decided to kill
this one, jail that one, let that one go for now.

You know, for such a strong opponent of government in general, and for
a person who has said he would cheer if someone shot 50,000 US
government officials, you sure are taking a stretch here defending a
government program. But as I suspected at the outset of this
sub-thread, you right-wing libertarians just can't bring yourselves
around to comdemning any atrocities committed by right wing
governments.
Mark Roddy

Ron A. Zajac

unread,
Feb 5, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/5/98
to


Tim Starr wrote:

> In article <34d62068...@news.mv.com>,
> Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:

> [snip]


>
> >So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
> >50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
> >the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?
>
> I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
> Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
> have been convicted of murder for it.

(Pardon my jumping in).

The key word here is "innocent". Americans (at home, anyway) claim to establish
innocence or guilt only within a context of due process.

Please define the crime these people were guilty (not innocent) of. Also explain why
either you have no respect for the concept of "due process", or that you fully
respect "due process", but that your definition of same encompasses a military
sniping operation in a land half-way 'round the planet.

I can understand that military operations are different from civil ones, but that
doesn't change the fact that, when the rubber meets the road, you express a profound
anti-libertarian sentiment. Just like any totalitarian, "in the interests of state"
appears to suit you just fine.

Am I missing something?


Tim Starr

unread,
Feb 6, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/6/98
to

In article <34d9b...@news.osr.com>, Mark Roddy <ma...@osr.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:18:01 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>wrote:
>
>
>>>>>
>>>>>Vietnam, 71 William E. Colby on july 19, 1971, before Senate
>>>>>subcommittee testified CIA op Phoenix had killed 21,587 Vietnamese
>>>>>citizens between 1/68 and 5/71. In response to a question from mr.
>>>>>Reid "do you state categorically that Phoenix has never perpetrated
>>>>>the premeditated killing of a civilian in a non-combat situation?"
>>>>>Colby replied: "No, I could not say that...I certainly would not say
>>>>>never."
>>>>
>>>>Still doesn't answer question of whether they were primary targets or
>>>>collateral damage.
>>>
>>>Now let's see: did OP perpetrate the premeditated killing of
>>>civilians? Yes according to Bill Colby...
>>
>>So did Bomber Command in WWII. So does any attack on a military target in
>>which it's known ahead of time that there will be civilian casualties as
>>collateral damage.
>>
>
>Gee Tim, strategic bombing and individual assassinations are quite
>different things.

What moral difference do you see between them?

>However there certainly were bombing missions that,
>had we not been the victors, or had the germans or japanese done them,
>would have been added to the list of WWII war crimes. The fire-bombing
>of Dresden, for example.

True, because Dresden wasn't a military target. What's illegal under the
international laws of war is to make non-combatants primary targets. Killing
them as collateral damage from attacks upon military targets isn't banned.

[snip]

>>>So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
>>>50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
>>>the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?
>>
>>I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
>>Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
>>have been convicted of murder for it.
>

>So your shift in position...

My position hasn't changed.

>...is now one where you appear to be claiming that it is ok to deliberately
>assassinate 'non-innocent' civilians.

I've already asked you to explain how you tell the difference between who is &
isn't a civilian in a guerilla war. You've refused.

I'll go out on a limb here & say that yes, it is OK to deliberately assasinate
some people as legitimate enemy targets, even though they've never been part
of any formal military force, never worn a uniform, held any rank, etc. I'd
offer some of the Israeli hits on terrorist leaders as examples.

If you see something morally wrong with, say, the assasination of Yehida Abed
al-Latif Satti Ayyash, known as "The Engineer" to his fellows in Hamas for
masterminding the terrorist attacks in which more than a hundred Israeli
citizens were killed over the past decade, then please explain it to us.

>You are aware of course that the decision making process for operations like
>OP are more akin to a 'star chamber' process than some sort of due process
>legal mechanism.

Did Stauffenberg put Hitler on trial before trying to assasinate him? I
don't know, nor do I care. He made himself a legitimate target.

>You know, for such a strong opponent of government in general, and for
>a person who has said he would cheer if someone shot 50,000 US
>government officials, you sure are taking a stretch here defending a
>government program.

I've never defended it. I've merely tried to establish the truth about it.

>But as I suspected at the outset of this
>sub-thread, you right-wing libertarians just can't bring yourselves
>around to comdemning any atrocities committed by right wing
>governments.

Sure I can. I hereby condemn all the atrocities committed by the right-wing
dictatorship of Berisha in Albania, which was overthrown by popular armed
revolt last year.

Tim Starr

unread,
Feb 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/11/98
to

In article <34D9F29A...@Snortel.com>,

Ron A. Zajac <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
>
>
>Tim Starr wrote:
>
>> In article <34d62068...@news.mv.com>,
>> Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>>So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
>>>50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
>>>the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?
>>
>>I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
>>Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
>>have been convicted of murder for it.
>
>(Pardon my jumping in).
>
>The key word here is "innocent". Americans (at home, anyway) claim to
>establish innocence or guilt only within a context of due process.
>
>Please define the crime these people were guilty (not innocent) of.

The intended targets of Phoenix were the personnel who ran the terrorist
organizations that kept the Vietnamese peasantry in line - the commie party
line, that is. Isn't that criminal in your view?

>Also explain why either you have no respect for the concept of "due process",
>or that you fully respect "due process", but that your definition of same
>encompasses a military sniping operation in a land half-way 'round the planet.

Due process is a luxury that's observed in order to convince innocent third
parties that one is acting legitimately so they don't accidentally mistake you
for an aggressor & intervene on behalf of your target.

>I can understand that military operations are different from civil ones...

So you're not demanding that each & every enemy soldier be arrested & given a
fair trial before being shot at? How 'bout enemy spies?

>but that doesn't change the fact that, when the rubber meets the road, you
>express a profound anti-libertarian sentiment.

What "profound anti-libertarian sentiment" do you imagine I've expressed?

>Just like any totalitarian, "in the interests of state" appears to suit you
>just fine.
>
>Am I missing something?

Yah, the part where I said anything of the kind.

Mark Roddy

unread,
Feb 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/11/98
to

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:30:18 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
wrote:

>In article <34D9F29A...@Snortel.com>,


>Ron A. Zajac <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Tim Starr wrote:
>>
>>> In article <34d62068...@news.mv.com>,
>>> Mark Roddy <mro...@wattanuck.mv.com> wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>>So, Tim, we know you would stand up and applaud were someone to kill
>>>>50,000 civilian US government officials, but are you for or against
>>>>the deliberate assassination of civilians by operation phoenix?
>>>
>>>I'm not yet convinced that innocent civilians were ever primary targets of
>>>Phoenix. If they ever were, then that was wrong, & those responsible should
>>>have been convicted of murder for it.
>>
>>(Pardon my jumping in).
>>
>>The key word here is "innocent". Americans (at home, anyway) claim to
>>establish innocence or guilt only within a context of due process.
>>
>>Please define the crime these people were guilty (not innocent) of.
>
>The intended targets of Phoenix were the personnel who ran the terrorist
>organizations that kept the Vietnamese peasantry in line - the commie party
>line, that is. Isn't that criminal in your view?
>

Or in other words, civilians who were identified as being members of
opposition political parties. O.P. assassinated civilians and Starr
can't bring himself to admit that this was wrong. His problem is
apparently admiring that a humanoid with a left wing political
position is a 'person'.


>
>What "profound anti-libertarian sentiment" do you imagine I've expressed?
>
>>Just like any totalitarian, "in the interests of state" appears to suit you
>>just fine.
>>
>>Am I missing something?
>
>Yah, the part where I said anything of the kind.
>

See above. Its ok for the state to assassinate people as long as Tim
can declare them 'commies'.
Mark Roddy

Mark Roddy

unread,
Feb 11, 1998, 3:00:00 AM2/11/98
to

On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 13:27:39 GMT, ma...@osr.com (Mark Roddy) wrote:

>On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:30:18 GMT, tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <34D9F29A...@Snortel.com>,
>>Ron A. Zajac <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>Tim Starr wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <34d62068...@news.mv.com>,

>Or in other words, civilians who were identified as being members of


>opposition political parties. O.P. assassinated civilians and Starr
>can't bring himself to admit that this was wrong. His problem is
>apparently admiring that a humanoid with a left wing political
>position is a 'person'.
>

My problem on the other hand is a spell checker that converted
admitting to admiring. Oh well..

Mark Roddy

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