Today's class covered the last part of the Vietnam War and a little exam review...
About the exam, professor Bernard said, "You won't have to defend a major thesis, I don't want to saddle you with those kinds of topics." How nice of him.
During the lecture, a student asked: "Would it be right to say that the [Johnson administration] deliberately lied to get executive powers in Vietnam?" And professor Bernard replied, "Yes. Sure. They usually do that."
I love understatements like this one: "American behaviour at Hue, that city being shelled to dust, and My Lai, where several hundred civilians were slaughtered, did not endear the Americans to the South Vietnamese population that they were purportedly saving from Communism."
On War Crimes and Crimes against humanity, Bernard says that Great Powers are never held accountable for their crimes, the United Nations International Tribunal always goes after the small powers. For example, Chechnya had four million people, now there are only two million people. Were there war crimes committed there? Of course, but you will never see Putin dragged to the International Tribunal. Instead they will go after some black military dictator in a small African country.
About the US imposing its will on South Vietnam, "This is the way Great Powers behave."
Also: "Politics are very dirty and politicians too."
"I've heard we are in Afghanistan to help little girls go to school. I'm glad if that's what we do, but I doubt it."
"Thanks to a massive inflow of US money, arms, and weapons, South Vietnam expanded its forces to 1.1 Million soldiers. At the beginning of the 1970s almost the whole artificial economy of South Vietnam rested on war and American financial assistance. Saigon's population swelled from 300 000 to 3 or 4 million. Saigon became a brothel city, a prostitution city, and a drug city. The drug trade was very, very important in Saigon." (Statistics report that well over 70% of American soldiers fighting in Vietnam became addicted to Heroin. American Mafias began importing Heroin in the coffins of slain American soldiers.)
"After his re-election in 1972, Nixon launched the Christmas bombing campaign, which made Hanoi the most-bombed city in all of history. North Vietnam has been more bombed than Nazi Germany. Hanoi is not Berlin. It is small. Little bigger than Thunder Bay, I think."
"After My Lai, the American army was looking like a gang of disgusting thugs."
he sounds awesome. i love him :).
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