○  名人演讲： a time to break silence  ○

creasing numbers of united states troops who came to help quell the insurgency that diem's methods had aroused. when diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

the only change came from america, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. all the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow vietnamese, the real enemy. they move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. they know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

so they go, primarily women and children and the aged. they watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. they must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. they wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from american firepower for one vietcong-inflicted injury. so far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. they wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. they see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. they see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

what do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? what do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of europe? where are the roots of the independent vietnam we claim to be building? is it among the

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