Vietnam, 1970

 According to the Geneva Convention of 1954, there should have been an election for president of Vietnam.  The free South Vietnamese did not want a communistic man to run the country, as Ho Chi Minh would have done, since he would have won the election.  Now, because South Vietnam was going to be taken over by Communism, the United States, under the direction of President Eisenhower, stepped in.  First we said we were going to give economic aid to South Vietnam.  Seeing that the problem had gotten worse, we sent military advisors to South Vietnam to advise the armies how to fight.  President Johnson ordered more men to fight and now we have close to 400,000 to 500,000 men in Vietnam.  In other words, the United States is an imperialistic nation.  We stepped in, and we are fighting somebody else's war.  This war is technically a civil war, that is a war between two sections of one country.  Vietnam IS one country.  The division, made by the Geneva Convention of 1954, was supposed to be temporary, and end after the national election.  The Hanoi government does not regard the division, since they had an election.  The Saigon government recognizes the line as a division between two countries, thus violating the Geneva Convention of 1954.  If Vietnam were to go Communist, that does not mean all of Southeast Asia would go under, too.  We can never win this war.  We have spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives in this war.  The war has been partially responsible for inflation and our industries are primarily concerned with putting out war machines.  When our country of 200,000,000 people and 3,615,211 square miles is put up against North Vietnam with 15,903,000 people and 61,293 square miles, it makes our country look pretty bad.  The only reason we got into Vietnam was, because we made a bargain with the South Vietnamese, that if they got into trouble, we would help them out.  I quote from Barry Goldwater, Republican Senator from Arizona, talking about the United States foreign policy, "We have 17 treaties with other countries that state that we will go to war if any country declares war on them, and we have 47 other treaties stating or implying something about war in them."  This is what we went to Vietnam about and we should get out now before more money, lives, and prices go up.  Some people may call me Communist for my attitudes, but I am a realist.  There is nothing wrong with true Communism, but there is no such thing in our world today.