THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

IRAQ AND VIETNAM: A MAN WITH A MEMORY TAKES A LOOK | 2004-04-10

"With Washington's tacit approval, on November 1, 1963, Diem (the President of South Vietnam) and his brother were captured and later killed. Three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas."

by Professor Robert K. Brigham, Vassar College

http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/history/

There is no such thing as "tacit approval" of cold-blooded murder. This is especially true of the Chief Executive of the United States, whose job is to enforce the laws. If you know a murder is about to be committed and you condone it, you are a murderer.

So President Kennedy ordered the assassination of the Chief Executive of South Vietnam exactly three weeks before he himself was assassinated.

This sounds like some kind of expose of a conspiracy. It's not. It is a matter of public record.

The reason this sounds like the exposure of a conspiracy is because history that liberals and respectable conservatives agree to forget is usually wildly outrageous. That's why they agree to forget it.

Diem, not to mince words, was dictator of South Vietnam. In 1963 he was defeating the Communists with relatively little American help. But a bunch of Buddhists didn't like him and they burned themselves alive in the streets in protest. This upset the New York Times, which had front page pictures of the burning monks.

To a Man With A Memory, the situation in Iraq is a replay of Vietnam in 1963. Diem was successfully resisting the Communists, but liberals didn't approve of him.

In 1963, as in Iraq today, it was just a matter of time before we could pull out of the South Vietnam ruled by Diem.

Then the liberals decided Diem was a bad man and we killed him. You know the rest.