The best way to honor US citizens who fought in Vietnam would be to openly state, as a matter of public record, the following: the decision to send US troops was as immoral, and as genocidal, as any act of war since 1945. Present and future soldiers serving in the US armed forces should be spared the misery of fighting in a misguided war not to "defend our freedom," but to end the freedom of others, and to oppress entire nations for the sake of (perceived) US strategic goals.

Currently, the organizers of the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles have decided to "honor" US veterans by inviting such figures as Congressman Bob Kerrey to speak about the sacrifices of the veterans. But what sacrifices were made by them? Tremendous sacrifices which go unmentioned. Countless Americans sacrificed their lives and their health to fight an unwinnable and immoral war, which even its main architect (McNamara) now admits was completely ill conceived. The vast majority of Americans who served in the Vietnam war accepted on good faith the lies their government told them. They served in Vietnam believing that the Vietnamese attacked our ship(s) in the Gulf of Tonquin, that South Vietnam was a "democracy" which had to be defended, and that it was Ho Chi Min who had violated international laws and norms.

Now virtually all historians admit these assumptions were lies, propagated by the government and a compliant media to fool American soldiers of good will. The Gulf of Tonquin resolution, which launched US involvement in the war, is now known to have been based on a deliberate fraud. No Vietnamese attack occurred, such as the one alleged in the resolution. The fraud was perpetrated to justify US escalation.

Nor was South Vietnam a "democracy" which deserved our support. It was a propped up military dictatorship, which never had the support of the vast majority of the people of South Vietnam.

Nor was it Ho Chi Min who violated international law, but the US which abrogated the accords signed in Geneva, which guaranteed nation wide elections in the whole of Vietnam. Eisenhowers memoirs record the observation that the agreement had to be breached, because the survey data revealed that it Ho Chi Min ran for election , he would be voted President of unified republic of vietnam by a margin of over 80 per cent. The US could not accept such an outcome (not because Ho was a communist, but because he refused to favor US corporate interests, and act as a puppet of the US government).

The Democratic Convention in Los Angeles applauds certain veterans for the sake of lauding war itself, and in order to prepare America for increased military budgets and future wars. Veterans for Peace, for example are not praised , or featured in the Convention, because they refuse to call US interventions--- in Vietnam, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo--- struggles on the "behalf of democracy around the world." Veterans for Peace, numerous peace groups, and anti-war activists are excluded from the convention. We hear over and over about the longest period of "peace time economic expansion", while we are actually at war, dropping bombs on Iraq on an almost daily basis.

Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam Veteran, attempts to honor our soldiers by telling them they fought heroicly to "defend our freedom". They fought heroicly to be sure. But they fought a war for big business interests, arms manufacturers, trans-national corporations, and greedy politicians, like LBJ and Nixon, who cared nothing for the men they sent to their deaths, and even less for the Vietnamese peasants, numbering well over a million, who died in what they believed to be a just war in defense of their homeland.

US Vets have died by the thousands (as have thousands of Vietnamese soldiers) from the effects of Agent Orange, used as a defoliant in Southeast Asia, despite overwhelming evidence of its toxic effects on human beings. Those speaking at the Democratic Convention to "honor" US Vets say nothing about Agent Orange, or about the US soldiers who are suffering from the effects of Gulf War Syndrome. Nor do they say anything about the well over one million who have died in Iraq as a result of the US led NATO bombing of that country, the use of depleted uranium, the destruction of the countries basic infrastructure (water systems, hospitals, medical supplies, and electrical plants, needed to sustain life and health).

Activists present in Los Angeles fight for many causes. Among these are the rectification of past wrongs, wrongs committed against our own people, forced to fight in needless wars, and wrongs against innocent people in countries who have been victimized by the agression unleashed by the military industrial complex. But the most important cause may be the prevention of future wars, wars around the corner, which the new President (whether Al Gore, or George W. Buch) will, in all likelihood, be all to willling to wage. The people must make it known: most Americans do not want the US to go to war, unless we are directly attacked. Opinion polls continuously confirm the fact that this is a majority view. Yet our political system is not controlled by the people. It is time to take control.