Reflections on Vietnam and its Iconic Napalm Girl 40 Years Later

Americans: We love the smell of napalm in the morning. We love defense contractor profits. We love killing for profit. We pledge allegiance to the military industrial complex and all the evil it represents.

The above photo is suddenly a red hot story this week because Napalm Girl, Kim Phuc, was interviewed 40 years after the famous photo was taken, a photo that managed to go viral at the time the event occurred.  Then, as now, the US media continues to be the propaganda arm of the government.

Thirty percent of Phuc’s tiny body was scorched raw by third-degree burns, though her face somehow remained untouched.

After multiple skin grafts and surgeries, Phuc was finally allowed to leave. For a while, life did go somewhat back to normal. She was accepted into medical school.

But all that ended once the new communist leaders realized the propaganda value of the “napalm girl” in the photo.

Read the rest here

New York Post 

Why is it 'enemy' propaganda for the America people to see the true face of the human agony caused by U.S. foreign policy?

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial lists the names of the 58,261 members of the armed forces who died in that war. During JFK’s presidency, Vietnam combat deaths were 182 (16 in 1961, 53 in 1962 and 118 through 11/22/63). On 10/11/63, JFK issued National Security Action Memorandum 263 making it official that the US would withdraw from Vietnam. On November 21, 1963, JFK was given a list of the recent Vietnam casualties and he told his Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff “After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change. Vietnam is not worth another American life”. The next day, JFK was dead.

After JFK was murdered by the CIA and military industrial complex for the crime of promoting peace and opposing murderous genocide, the low level, low death Vietnam conflict massively escalated.  LBJ became the obliging Murderer in Chief and drafted young men to march off and die in senseless wars.  Peak Vietnam years for US combat deaths are:

1965   1,863
1966   6,144
1967 11,153
1968 16,589
1969 11,614
1970   6,083
1971   2,357

There were millions of US soldiers who returned home with lifelong debilitating combat injuries (not including Senator John Kerry who was scratched in the ass and demanded medals for his few short weeks of combat duty).

Millions of Asians from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were slaughtered. We bombed these nations into oblivion and doused them with poisonous Agent Orange. None of these poor third world nations posed any threat whatsoever to America.

Why did we do it? We march off to war for one reason and one reason only: defense contractor profits. The military industrial complex rules America, defense contractors own nearly 100% of Congress and the American Sheeple People are notorious for turning a blind eye to the crimes of the government they elect.  They'd rather be waving American flags on Memorial Day and July 4th while wallowing in the delusion that America is a great and free nation that spreads good cheer upon the planet.

Vietnam was a very expensive war.  The Congressional Research Service puts the cost at $686 billion, here.  Other estimates of the cost of the Vietnam War range from $700 to $900 billion.

If suffering Americans are wondering why the American economy lies in ruins, they only need to look at the gargantuan cost of our never ending wars.  In fact, most of our $15 trillion plus mountain of debt is war related.