APPEAL 70 THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN VIETNAM
[While visiting north Vietnam in the latter part of February, Ralph Schoenman, secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, was invited to speak over: Radio Hanoi:..He took advantage of the opportunity to address his remarks to the American soldiers who might be listening. in. The following is. the : bext of: Schoenman ' Ss speech as released: in. London: i we vos 7
o a ae
I speak to you today from Hanoi as one American to another. Like you I love ny country and like you I believe. in. Justic e and human freedom. tie
Brothers, you know what kind of war we are fighting against the people of Vietnam. It is barbaric. It is an aggressive war of conquest that all of us hate and few of us understand.
When we fought for our own independence and freedom, no one had to tell us what it was about or draft us to make us fight. And we didn't have to go 10,000 miles. We fought in our revolutionary war. against foreign troops, mercenaries and Benedict Arnold. We had only pitchforks and muskets ; and we hid in forests and fields. We were ragtag and the occupiers were the strongest army of that day. We were hungry and, poor. We fought them house by house and farm by farm. That war was our war of liberation.
They said we were terrorists. We, Americans, in oun “own vil-
lages and towns! And they, the colonial occupier, they were the ones
calling us rebels and rabble.
What did Nathan Hale say when he was caught trying to ambush | the British? "My only regret is that I have but one life to give my country. we
And Patrick Henry: "Is-life so sweet or peace so dear that we would remain slaves to have them? I know not what other men may say, but as for me: Give me liberty or give me death."
Those words still ring in our hearts after two hundred years. We still repeat them.
Who then is the Nathan Hale and the Patrick Henry in Vietnam? It isn't the U.S. army, not us. And we know it. Who came thousands of miles over the sea to kill and destroy? The British did it to us and we are doing it to the Vietnamese. Who shows that heroism, that love of country, that deep belief in freedom and justice which is more powerful than any weapon ever made? We did in 1776; the people of Vietnam do today. We are fighting the same war against them that the Nazis fought against the people and for the same reasons. Let me quote from the New York Times of February 12, 1950:
"Indo-China is a prize worth a large gamble. In the North are exportable tin, tungsten, manganese, coal, lumber-and rice; rubber, tea, pepper and hides. Even before World War II Indo-China yielded dividends estimated at 300 million dollars per year.
Our own State: ‘Department told us what this war is about as clearly as anyone. could wish only one year later:
"We have ‘only partially exploited Southeast Asia's resources. Nevertheless Southeast Asia supplied 90% of the world's crude rubber, 60% of its tin and 80% of its copra and coconut oil. It has sizable quantities of sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, sisal, fruits, spices, natural resins and gums, petroleum, iron ore and bauxite."
And Eisenhower said it in 195%: "Now let us assume we lost Indo-China. If Indo-China goes, the tin and tungsten we so greatly value would cease coming. We are after the cheapest way to prevent the occurrence of something terrible -- the loss of our ability to get what we want from the riches of the Indo-Chinese - ‘territory and from Southeast Asia.
So we are the cannon fodder. We are the ones they deceive into killing Vietnamese, attacking, occupying, using gas and chemi-cals, bombing their schools and hospitals -- all this horror to pro-~ tect the empire of our rich men. ,
Yes, our rich’men. They own sixty per cent of the world! Ss. resources. That's the real and only reason we pour out #$60,000,000,000 on arms. That's why we occupy countries everywhere and keep over 3,000 bases on other peoples' soil and invade every country which tries to free itself as we did in 1776.
-3]-
We invade Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, the Congo and set up our stooges everywhere. The men who sit in the Pentagon and push the buttons -- they're the ones who sit-on the boards of directors and sign those military contracts ~- for themselves. They send us. out here as: company cops to protect their stolen property.. .
And what about our country? What about our cities with. ‘our slums taking up one-third of New York and Chicago and Los “Angeles? And what about. freedom in Watts and Harlem, in Georgia? ~-= where those who really fight for freedom, the kind that means ‘something, they seb shot down in our streets by our cops.
i “The people of Vietnam: ‘have fought for twenty-five, years. against the Japanese, the French (we paid for the French war) .and— now us. We're doing the same job Tojo did and for the same reason and the same financial interests.
I've ‘traveled all through. north Vietnam while the bombs were | falling. Let me. tell you this: We're bombing hospitals and sanatori- . ums, schools, -churches. I've seen the people who were strafed running out of the hospitals, the old-age homes , on crutches. Red Cross..flags were.: flying on the buildings. We're using "lazy dogs" which slice up. kids in villages from one end of the country to the other. We're using poisons. We're using gas and that gas is poison and we know it. It kills our own soldiers even when they wear gas masks. And we're using chemicals which kill people as well as destroy their food.
“And. those tin-pot Hitlers in Saigon have put millions. of. people in concentration gamps under our orders. They torture and mutilate every patriot they can get their hands on. Washington is making us war criminals. Like the SS. The difference between the Gestapo and us is not noticeable to the people of Vietnam. In our hearts we know that they see us as the occupation army we are.
Phe brass hats and the money boys at home have made us their victims. These new Hitlers use us to carry out every war crime in the book. That's the truth. But the Vietnamese fight to the last man, woman and child just as we would if it were our country.
Brothers: If our people were invaded and occupied for twentyfive years; if sixty per cent of our people were in concentration camps; if our cities were burned to the ground with jelly gasoline, if our farms and crops and water and children were poisoned with chemicals and gassed in their homes, what would we say to demands from the criminals, who had done all this, that we talk peace while their army stayed and the traitors who served them were called our government? Brothers, we'd fight!
We carry or our conscience these crimes against the Vietnamese. That is what our American protest movement is about. That is the real struggle for democracy, for American democracy. That is the real battle front for freedom -- the fight against our rulers who exploit us and degrade us in the name of our own country.
We have as much right to our country as those in Washington
who have stolen it and who make our name stink in-the nostrils of decent people all over the world. Let Johnson and McNamara ‘come here in their underwear and fight their own battle if they want to. The::: people of Vietnam will deal with them. : But we must ‘go home. We must : stop murdering these heroic people. Our battle is in Washington: against the men who sent us to kill and torment the Vietnamese. If we resist we can redeem our country.
It- is not the evil which is new nor is it the crisis | which has changed. It is simply that we stand today where the Germans stood in the nineteen thirties, because the tyranny and cruelty is done by our government in our name. And so in the name of all we value, let us refuse to fight this unjust war. Resistance begins with the ques— tion: When, if not now; and who, if not I?
Remember that you are not alone. Thousands: of: Americans are marching in every city. Every university rings with the sound of our American resistance. We are rising together with the most articulate of our fellow Americans: our poets, our playwrights, our professors, our students -- with the very heart of the American nation. No force can stop us. No prison can hold us and-no weapon call: kill our spirit. There is no power capable of bringing us to our knees. We are struggling for an America free of Murderous production and free of war) criminals.
You American soldiers have seen with your own eyes the pitiless horror of our war against the people of Vietnam. Help us free our country from the shame and burden of such wars. We were born free men. The choice and responsibility is ours. ae