American Ingenuity
[Daisy Cutters were] so named because they were designed to explode just above the ground so the main force of the explosion was horizontal in order to cause the maximum destruction at ground level. The…
Category: The War-making State
McNamara and Co./2
I’d chain all of the politicians to that haunting Vietnam memorial and have them read—slowly—every name aloud. Then the war would end for me. Take all of them, all of them who gave us the…
McNamara and Co./1
In his 1995 book, In Retrospect Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara [translation: former Secretary of Aggression) Made an apology to the American public For the harms brought to the country Because of his unwillingness…
What Some Americans Say (1970)
The Vietnamese and we have indelibly stamped each other with our marks. We have destroyed beyond hope of remaking parts of their ancient culture; they have destroyed our innocence and belief in our own goodness….
Let’s Not Wait Till We’re Dead
Over poetry, you didn’t gush. You read it. You read it with the tongue. You lived it. You felt how it moved you, changed you. How it contributed to giving your own life a form,…
What More Is There To Be Said?
“My eight-year-old daughter was killed. My three-year-old son. Nixon, murderer of civilians. What have I done to Nixon that he should come here to bomb my country? My daughter died right here. She was feeding…
War Isn’t Over
Dear Laura Last night I was reading Frances Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam This afternoon I listened to a playlist I made Of songs from the Vietnam War…
Who We Were, Who We Are
“I don’t know that any reasonable, sensible person thinks the Vietnam War was a good and righteous undertaking, but it is crucial that we come to understand the war as an event and expression of…
The Real Crime of Cuba
The following comes from a 1990 discussion among U.S. and Canadian activists with Noam Chomsky. It may provide food for thought given the current focus on Cuba after the death of Fidel Castro. Look, the…
Over
Dear Bella US troops left South Vietnam in 1973 The war ended in 1975 The war was over But this is what I’ve learned from students The stories they’ve told me After class usually In…