Withdrawal, from Vietnam

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32561, 22 March 1971, Page 14

Withdrawal, from Vietnam

Sir,—“Democracy,” with his spate of emotional terms —“malignant cells, denial of religion, cancer,” etc. —reveals more of himself than of his subject His threadbare device of trying to equate capitalism with democracy will not wash. It was capitalism rather than democracy that was “in sad strategic dilemma” in SouthEast Asia. The war really got

going only after, American capitalism intervened and prevented the holding of democratic elections throughout Vietnam. “The Springbok’s” hero, !‘the great American Senator, Barry Goldwater,” was defeated for

the Presidency simply because enough people had the sense to realise that his policies would, by now, have turned the world into a radioactive cinder. Neither critic recognises that capitalism is in decline and due fo> replacement.. In spite of having been sabotaged and smeared for a generation, socialism, which avoids the extremes of both communism and fascism, merits consideration. At least it is compatible with genuine democracy.—Yours, etc., E. R. HUDSON. March 21, 1971.

Sir,—l write to support your editorial recommendation that New Zealand should give aid to Vietnam at least equal to the amount our Government has spent on warfare there. This is the very least New Zealand can do in reparation for support of a policy that has left 1,000,000 South Vietnamese civilians dead, nearly 3,000,000 maimed and injured, 20 per cent of the cultivable land of South Vietnam poisoned, and 50 per cent of the rural people of South Vietnam compulsorily urbanised in refugee camps through the deliberate, policy of destroying their villages. A most important proviso to your recommendation is that New Zealand aid should not be given to the Saigon Government, nor in any way be interpreted as moral support for that Government, whose corruption is well documented, but arranged through a reputable agency of proven integrity for the use of the whole people of Vietnam.—Yours, etc., (MRS) BARBARA MOUNTIER. March 20, 1971. Sir, Anti - Communist crusades have an unrelieved history of failure; the most spectacular of • recent times being that of the Axis Powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, which combined their zealous fevvour with an insatiable greed for other people’s territories. It is no coincidence that the United States, having donned their mantle, uses it to cloak

an equally insatiable territorial greed. United States failure to force the peoples of France’s old Indo-Chinese colonial empire to accept its domination is running true to anti-communism’s ignominious historical tradition. Our Government’s decision to aid United States imperialist ambitions, militarily, was the most shameful foreign policy act in our history. While agreeing wholeheartedly with H. C. Evison’s letter, let us

hot qUibble about the motives or reasons for our Withdrawal; let us be grateful to be quitting the whole fifthy mess.—Yours, etc., M.C.H. March 29, 1971.

Sir,—ln 1967 E. R. Hudson advocated our complete withdrawal and the diverting of the expenditure to civilian aid. Now, four years later, and after the slaughter Of a million people’ (mostly noib combatants), the prolonged agony of millions more, the waste of untold billions of dollars, the shattering of America’s interna] solidarity, the demoralisation of its army, and without any reliable indication that military intervention has succeeded, you iq your leading article of Saturday at last support the same view. How slow, how painfully slow, the conservative mind.—Yours, etc., ENLIGHTENED AT T ACT March 21, 1971.