“With the possible exception of the Civil War, no event in U.S. history has demanded more soul-searching than the war in Vietnam. The false pre-texts used to justify our intervention, the indiscriminate brutality of our warfare, the stubborn refusal of elected leaders to withdraw despite public opposition, and the stunning failure to achieve our stated objectives – these harrowing realities provoked a profound national identity crisis, an American reckoning.” – Christian Appy [1]
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A conflict with its roots in efforts to assist France in reclaiming a former colony, U.S. Forces had been providing financial and military assistance to South Vietnam in the temporarily partitioned country since the early ‘50s. [2]
The war saw a major turning point however when in the summer of 1964, news spread of an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats against two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The incident, now known to have never happened, was used to justify the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which authorized a major escalation of the war. [3]
That escalation included the dispatching of 3500 U.S. Marines to South Vietnam on March 8, 1965. The Global Research News Hour marks the anniversary of this start to America’s ground war in Vietnam with four informative interviews.
In the first half hour, analyst Peter Dale Scott introduces the motivations of the U.S. Security State and the U.S. Deep State in promoting the war, the connections between the escalation and President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, and the motivation on the part of his successor Lyndon Johnson in launching the land assault. Later we hear from Abayomi Azikiwe about the solidarity between Black liberation and Vietnamese resistance groups and its importance in fostering U.S. opposition to the war.
Barrie Zwicker discusses the media establishment’s treatment of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the war generally. Finally Professor Michel Chossudovsky elaborates on the theme of a 1995 article he wrote which explains the impoverishment of Vietanam and it integration of Vietnam into the capitalist cheap labour economy in recent decades in spite of the anti-U.S. resistance emerging victorious in 1975.
Professor Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a poet, writer, and researcher. He is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War, and The American Deep State: Big Money, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy. His website is www.peterdalescott.net.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire, and has made guest appearances on Press TV, RT, Al Jazeera, China Global Television Network, BBC, NPR, and Radio Netherlands among others. He is also a frequent contributor to globalresearch.
Barrie Zwicker is a journalist and media critic whose work spans 7 decades, including a seven year stint as staff writer for the Globe and Mail during the 1960s. He also wrote for the Toronto Star, Vancouver Province, Sudbury Star, Detroit News, and Lansing State Journal. He taught the Media and Society course at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto as a part-time professor for seven years, and worked as a media critic for the national broadcaster VisionTV from 1998 to 2003. He is the author of the 2006 book, Towers of deception: The Media Coverup of 9/11.
Professor Michel Chossudovsky is Professor(emeritus) of Economics at the University of Ottawa. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research On Globalization, and Editor of Global Research. He has authored numerous scholarly articles and eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), and The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).
(Global Research News Hour Episode 251)
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.
The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)
Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:
CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT
Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.
Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1 Thursdays at 1pm ET
Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.
It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.
Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.
CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ 89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.
Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca
RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/
Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.
Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time.
Notes:
- Christian Appy (2015), American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity (p. x), published by Viking Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
- https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-timeline
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Gulf-of-Tonkin-Resolution
