Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1972. január-június (26. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1972-05-18 / 20. szám
Thursday, May, 18. 1972 21 MILLIÓ BOMBATÖLCS13R Nemrégen David Brinkley, az NBC TV politikai kommentátora mondta: “Ha az amerikai nép tudná, mit müveit az amerikai légi armada Vietnámban, elsöpörné tisztségükből mindazokat, akik ezért felelősek. Arthur H. Westing, a Windham College és E.W. Pfeiffer a Montana Egyetem professzorai vietnámi tanulmányújukról visszatérve részletes jelentést tettek közzé az ott tapasztaltakról. 1. / 1965 és 1971 között az amerikai repülőkről 26 MILLIARD font bombát dobtak Indó-Kina területére. Ez kétszer annyi, mint amennyit az amerikaiak a más >dik világháború egész tartama alatt bárhol Kihasználtak. 2. / A 26 milliárd fontból 21 milliárdot Dél-Viet- núm területére dobtak. Ez azt jelenti, hogy az ország minden hektárjára 496 font, vagyis minden lakosra 1.215 font esett. 3. / A bombák 21 millió bombatölcsért okoztak, 1.75 milliárd köbjárd földet vetettek fel és a bombaszilánkok 26 millió hektárnyi területet borítottak el. E bombázás okozta tragédiát csak azok érzékelhetik, akik saját szemükkel látták a nagy bombatölcséreket. Ahol azelőtt életet adó rizs termett, ott vízzel telt kráterek vannak, ahol magasra nő a gaz. Az értékes erdőket oly erővel bombázták, hogy a még álló fákat is bombaszilánkok fedik, úgyhogy amikor a fát vágni akarják, a fűrész fogai sokszor beletörnek a szilánkokba. A professzorok jelentése nem túlozza el az amerikai bombázás által okozott károkat. Ellenkezőleg, az 1972-es bombázásokról egy szót sem szólnak, noha ez évben azok intenzivebbek voltak, mint bármikor ezelőtt. A jelentést azzal zárják, hogy rámutatnak Vietnám környezetének leromlására, miként váltak nagy területek használhatatlanná, miként szivárgott a tenger sós vize az édes vízbe és hogyan szaporodtak el a betegségeket terjesztő szúnyogok. A Dél-Vietnámra ledobott bombák robbanó ereje egyenlő 363 olyan atombombával, amilyet Hirosimára ledobtak a második világháborúban. Tehát a “felperzselt föld” politikáját alkalmaztuk Vietnámban. A különbség csak abban van, hogy nem a saját földünket, hanem mások földjét pusztítottuk. Ez a rettenetes pusztítás késztette Anthony Lewist, a NY Times egyik kiváló politikai kommen« tátorát, hogy a következőket irja: “Vietnám bombázása bizonyítja: az Egyesült Államok az összes nagyhatalmak között a legveszélyesebb és legpusztítóbb. ” “Voltak olvasók, akik felháborodással tiltakoztak e meghatározás ellen. A professzorok jelentése az én igazamat bizonyítja” — irja továbbá Anthony Lewis. Országoknak és egyéneknek nehéz az igazsággal szembenézni. Az Egyesült Államok részére azonban nincs más út, ha vissza akarja nyerni önbizalmát, vagy jó hírnevét, mint szembenézni az igazsággal és ráeszmélni, mit tettünk Vietnámban. Az amerikaiak dél-vietnámi ténykedése nem az ország erejét, hanem gyengeségét bizonyítja. A tömegmészárlás és tömegrombolás elidegeníti barátainkat és önmagunkat sérti. Azok, akik ezt a politikát tovább óhajtják folytatni, igazán okszerűtlenek. URGENT TASKS BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE President Nixon’s ordering the mining and blockading of the harbors of North Vietnam constitutes a most desperate gamble with the safety and life of the American people, indeed of the people of the whole world. It constitutes not merely the shredding of the last scrap of his original solemn pledge to the American people concerning his intention to “wind down” the undeclared war in Vietnam; it is not merely a flouting of the explicit: advice of the Congress of the United States, it is not merely a brazen contempt for the almost unanimous peacé desire of the American people, it is also a flouting of international law and in essence it constitutes an abdication of statesmanship and replacing it with brinkmanship. Such desperate gamble with the life of a nation could have been justified only in the case of clear and immediate danger to the very existence of the nation. Not by the farthest stretchof imagination, of political and military conjectures can it be claimed that the threat to the political future of President Thieu, inherent in the outcome of the fighting in Vietnam, constitutes such a danger. Those who advised the president and steered him into the present fateful confrontation with both the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China constructed, in the course of years, an elaborate mistique of justification and rationalization as to the real reasons underlying our involvement in Vietnam all aimed at hiding the truth from the American people and making them asquiesce in or support the fateful policy first of the Johnson and now the Nixon administration. It is to everlasting credit of the American people that in spite of the almost unlimited publicity that the Presidency and its agencies can marshall in propagandizing its policies, the majority of the American people regarded the criminal war from its beginning with deep reserve and with ever increasing open distrust,, while the youth, the intellectuals and other segments of the nation have conducted ceaseless demonstrations against it. Even a cursory review of the rationalizations must fill any American who approaches the issue with an open mind, with shame and embarrassment. The rationalizations ranged from the “defense of a little democracy” to “honoring our commitments”. In the “little democracy” of So. Vietnam they had an ■ election last year where all the opponents of Thieu were jailed and he was the only candidate. Right now even the last facade of pretensions have been swept aside and Thieu rules by executive fiat. The corruption permeating the whole system from top to bottom is common knowledge to all who read the newspapers. At one time it was alleged that we have to fight in Vietnam if we want to avoid fighting on the shores of California or Hawaü. Lately the emphasis shifted to stressing the point that we are fighting to make the world “respect” us. So our president subjected this tiny land to a bombardment that dwarfed the colossal bombardment that we subjected Germany and Japan , in World War ll.Still later the irationale was that we have to continue fighting to save the 60,000 Americans there. If Nixon wanted to save them he could have shipped them out of there long ago. Another lying excuse was that we are defending the South Vietnamese people from a “blood bath” which allegedly would threaten them if the Liberation Front became victorious. So to save them from such “blood bath” Nixon and his predecessor has caused the killing, wounding, maiming of more than a million Vietnamese. We are now bombing all their population centers, we destroyed one seventh of their agricultural land,we are pouring napalm on their villages, antipersonnel bombs in their populated areas many of them disguised as toys so that children should pick them up and expose themselves to their lethal effects. The criminal policies of both the Johnson and Nixon administrations now culminating in an unprecedented peril to the life of the American nation confronts the American people and its elected representatives in Congress with the need of urgent decisions of the most profound and gravest nature. The first of these decisions, of course, must be directed to restrain the president from the further usurpation of his war-making power, to reverse if it is still possible, the trend of affairs, to call off the blockade , evacuate the American troops and resume the peace negotiation in Paris concerning the formation of a coalition government in Sóuth Vietnam without the participation of Thieu ( who is half way out anyway having sent his family to Switzerland). To avoid the recurrence of such usurpations of power as have taken place both during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, the people of the United States, jointly with their elected representatives, will have to subject the entire political process of our democracy to a thorough scrutiny and analysis with a view of bridgingthe tremendous gap now existing between the people and its government, the gap whichis the underlying factor of most if not all, the ills and evils of our national life, such as the alienation of the youth, the rightful wrath of the millions of underprivileged, of the black, Puerto Rican, Chicanos and other minorities, our distorted national priorities. The basic premise of our democratic system was that the government governs with the consent of the governed, by, for and in the interest of the people. While the trappings of democratic procedures, elections remained, justice, and compassion which was the very soul of the political mechanism has long ago disappeared from it. The political machinery has become the exclusive property of the moneyed interest. The American people will have to insist that an end be made to this usurpation, and the government, in its entirety be returned to its rightful owner and master: the people. The events of the last few years, and particularly those of the last few days conclusively prove that unless the people take the power, that rightfully belongs to them in their own hands, this nation, even if assuming that it will surmount the present grave crisis, will lurch from crisis to crisis, amidst constantly deepening domestic upheavals to a final catastrophe. Zoltán Deák AMERIKA! MAOVAR SZ6 -- HUNGARIAN! WORD $
