Re: [Marxism] McCain Was Not Tortured Claims Former Vietnamese Prison Guard

[Aaron Aarons <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:35:35 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>The Republican US presidential candidate John McCain
>was not tortured during his captivity in North Vietnam,
>the chief prison guard of the jail in which he  was held has claimed.
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/14/uselections2008-ohnmccain
>--------------------------------------------------------
>AARON AARON, a voice of strident militancy, writes:
>"They should have executed him as a war criminal
>and saved the medicines for deserving Vietnamese."
> - Aaron
>===================================================
>
>This shows that Aaron truly understands NOTHING about
>revolutionary warfare. Revolutionaries don't have the
>material advantages, so they have to rely on their
>moral advantages: that they DO NOT mistreat prisoners,
>as do the reactionary forces. Revolutionaries endeavor
>to defeat the forces of reaction both POLITICALLY and
>MORALLY, to sap them of the material advantages which
>the reactionary forces will always have. Fidel Castro
>has explained this any number of times, but recently
>in MY LIFE, he explained that if they had shot their
>prisoners, every other soldier would have fought til
>the end.

Walter Lippman understands NOTHING, apparently, about the difference between a 
soldier on the ground who can choose whether to avoid combat, surrender or 
fight to the death, and a pilot dropping bombs on civilian targets from a plane.

When I wrote, "They should have executed him as a war criminal and saved the 
medicines for deserving Vietnamese.", I was making the point that McCain was a 
war criminal who the Vietnamese could have executed legitimately. The "should" 
was a rhetorical device to emphasize the point. It was not meant as a criticism 
of the Vietnamese.

In general, I would not have advocated executing U.S. ground troops, except for 
those -- especially officers -- caught in the act of killing unarmed civilians 
or executing their own prisoners.

>By contrast, revolutionaries with their approach of NOT
>mistreating their captives, they accomplished a
>powerful objective: reducing the fighting capacity of
>the enemy army. Aaron understands nothing at all here.

Not all captives are equal. But Walter, who always jumps in response to any 
real or imagined criticism of the Vietnamese, or the Chinese, or (especially) 
the Cubans, is incapable of noticing such subtleties.

>Fidel took up this nonsense about McCain having been
>tortured in the series of reflections that he wrote
>about the Republican nominee. Read it:
>http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-mccain-2008.html
>
>It's also worth taking a moment to recall McCain
>played a certain role in obtaining normalization
>of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. Some
>"revolooooshunary" voices would probably prefer
>that normalization had never taken place, though
>as we all know, it's much easier to be a Monday-
>morning quarterback of other people's struggles.

I'm one of those '"revolooooshunary" voices' who opposes ANY country's having 
'normal' relations with the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa. If Walter ever starts 
referring to me or my voice as "revolutionary", then I'll have to figure out 
what I'm doing wrong!

>All of this, of course, proves in a rather clear
>way the cruel absurdity of Washington's keeping
>a blockade against Cuba while it has normal ties
>with Vietnam and China.

Those normal ties of the U.S. with Vietnam and China haven't helped the working 
classes of those countries. They have, especially in the case of China, helped 
the U.S. finance its genocide in Iraq and its other interventions around the 
world, and provided it with cheap commodities to keep its own working class 
privileged and quiet.

Opposing the U.S. blocade/embargo against Cuba, which is cruel and 
counter-revolutionary but not absurd, doesn't mean advocating "normal" 
relations between Cuba and the U.S.. It does mean opposing any kind of 
sanctions by the U.S. government against U.S. or foreign entities doing 
business with Cuba.

>From this WSJ article it
>also seems the Vietnamese have a sense of irony...

Which is more than Walter has ...

>Walter Lippmann
>Los Angeles, California


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