Aspects Of Bombing Concern U.S.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 15

Aspects Of Bombing Concern U.S.

(From FRANK OLIVER, special N.Z PA correspondent f WASHINGTON, August 31. One cannot escape the conviction that Americans generally have been even more upset by recent reports of civilian Vietnamese casualties than by American casualties caused by American action, such as the strafing of a Coast Guard vessel and the dropping of napalm on American ground forces. It is disclosed that most pre-planned air strikes are requested or approved by Vietnamese officials, the United States forces serving as a responsive instrument to such Vietnamese wishes. The “New York Times” quotes an unnamed American as saying: “There is a

tendency to shoot first and ask questions later on the part of many South Vietnamese officials.” It is also reported that some Vietnamese officials do not hesitate to use the American Air Forces as a luxury, calling for an air strike against a given area rather than going out with rifles and machine-guns to find and drive out suspected Viet Cong. Some air strikes, says the “New York Times,” are planned on less than solid intelligence, on reports about the Viet Cong by paid informers. While some of these reports may be sound, the situation may have changed entirely in the time—perhaps 24 hours—it took the informer to go by bicycle or on foot to make his report. The Viet Cong may well have moved, but the innocent peasant is still there when the planes fly over and the napalm falls. There are no really reliable estimates of the number of Civilians who suffer death and

injury in air raids, and when they are caught in the crossfire of friend and enemy on the ground, but reports indicate that the figures are very high, running into many thousands. Since January this year nearly 7000 claims for compensation have been filed by the injured and by the relatives of the killed, and noone suggests this covers the total. Many casualties among civilians occur from unavoidable accident, but there is a growing number of people in the United States who think many of the casualties could and should be avoided. It has recently been stated that the bomb tonnage now being dropped on Vietnam each week is larger than the tonnage dropped on Germany at the peak of the World War II attacks. The “New York Times” is one of the newspapers that thinks General Westmoreland’s ordered review to improve control procedures in air and other attacks is insufficient

Mistakes that kill friendly troops and civilians are inevitable when bombing becomes widespread, it says, but larger questions are involved in the bombing of South Vietnamese villages. “When one million South Vietnamese have been turned into refugees—more by American and South Vietnamese firepower than by Viet Cong depredations—it seems evident the real trouble goes beyond ‘procedures.’ “The question that needs to be asked is whether the massive use of air power and artillery unrelated to largescale ground combat is either moral or wise—militarily and politically.” In an earlier attack on the same subject the same paper remarked that the social structure of the countryside was being smashed. “The Communists may be the ultimate beneficiaries f the wreckage, however the conflict ends,” the journal said. In conversation with American civilians of all kinds and classes*'l find that the thing

which they find most worrying is the use of napalm. This seems to be reaching the point where it has similar connotations to the term poison gas. • Banners about napalm were much in evidence this last week-end when a gathering of 400 mothers on Boston’s famous and historic common staged an anti-war rally and among other things carried banners that asked: “Would napalm convert you to democracy?” The “Nev York Times” calls for a major investigation of the whole American bombing policy and its effect on South Vietnam, saying: “To besmirch the goocLname of the United States in a programme that challenges all moral principles—and may even be defeating its asserted purposes—is to compound horror with folly.” It asks that a high-level panel headed by distinguished civilians sift the evidence and “provide recommendations worthy of American traditions.” *