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Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

Book by Noam Chomsky · 3 quotes · Chomsky, Jfk, Vietnam War

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Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire Quotes

“By the time John F. Kennedy became involved in 1961, the situation was out of control. So Kennedy simply invaded the country. In 1962, he sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam, using planes with South Vietnamese markings. Kennedy authorized the use of napalm, chemical warfare, to destroy the ground cover and crops. He started the process of driving the rural population into what were called 'strategic hamlets,' essentially concentration camps, where people were surrounded by barbed wire, supposedly to protect them from the guerillas who the U.S. government knew perfectly well they supported. This 'pacification' ultimately drove millions of people out of the countryside while destroying large parts of it. Kennedy also began operations against North Vietnam on a small scale. That was 1961.”

Vietnam WarJfkPower Systems
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“By the time John F. Kennedy became involved in 1961, the situation was out of control. So Kennedy simply invaded the country. In 1962, he sent the U.S. Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam, using planes with South Vietnamese markings. Kennedy authorized the use of napalm, chemical warfare, to destroy the ground cover and crops. He started the process of driving the rural population into what were called 'strategic hamlets,' essentially concentration camps, where people were surrounded by barbed wire, supposedly to protect them from the guerillas who the U.S. government knew perfectly well they supported. This 'pacification' ultimately drove millions of people out of the countryside while destroying large parts of it. Kennedy also began operations against North Vietnam on a small scale. That was 1962.”

Vietnam WarJfk
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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“In 1963, the Kennedy administration got wind of the fact that the government of Ngo Dinh Diem it had installed in South Vietnam was trying to arrange peace negotiations with the North. Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were trying to negotiate a peace settlement. So the Kennedy liberals determined that they had to be thrown out. The Kennedy administration organized a coup in which the two brothers were killed and they put in their own guy, meanwhile escalating the war. Then came the assassination of President Kennedy. Contrary to a lot of mythology, Kennedy was one of the hawks in the administration to the very last minute. He did agree to proposals for withdrawal from Vietnam, because he knew the war was very unpopular there, but always with the condition of withdrawal after victory.”

Vietnam WarJfk
Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
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