Hello Ladies,
Its time for the US to get out of Iraq
Please read and substitute Viet nam for Iraq
Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Casualties of the War in Vietnam
25 February 1967
Los Angeles, Calif.
I need not pause to say how happy I am to have the privilege of
being
a participant in this significant symposium. In these days of
emotional tension when the problems of the world are gigantic in
extent and chaotic in detail, there is no greater need than for
sober-thinking, healthy debate, creative dissent and enlightened
discussion. This is why this symposium is so important.
I would like to speak to you candidly and forthrightly this
afternoon
about our present involvement in Viet Nam. I have chosen as a
subject,
"The Casualties of the War In Viet Nam." We are all aware of the
nightmarish physical casualties. We see them in our living rooms in
all of their tragic dimensions on television screens, and we read
about them on our subway and bus rides in daily newspaper accounts.
We
see the rice fields of a small Asian country being trampled at will
and burned at whim: we see grief-stricken mothers with crying babies
clutched in their arms as they watch their little huts burst forth
into flames; we see the fields and valleys of battle being painted
with humankind's blood; we see the broken bodies left prostrate in
countless fields; we see young men being sent home
half-men--physically handicapped and mentally deranged. Most tragic
of
all is the casualty list among children. Some one million Vietnamese
children have been casualties of this brutal war. A war in which
children are incinerated by napalm, in which American soldiers die
in
mounting numbers while other American soldiers, according to press
accounts, in unrestrained hatred shoot the wounded enemy as they lie
on the ground, is a war that mutilates the conscience. These
casualties are enough to cause all men to rise up with righteous
indignation and oppose the very nature of this war.
But the physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam are not alone the
catastrophies. The casualties of principles and values are equally
disastrous and injurious. Indeed, they are ultimately more harmful
because they are self-perpetuating. If the casualties of principle
are
not healed, the physical casualties will continue to mount.
One of the first casualties of the war in Viet Nam was the Charter
of
the United Nations. In taking armed action against the Vietcong and
North Viet Nam, the United States clearly violated the United
Nations
charter which provides, in Chapter I, Article II (4)
All members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political
independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with
the
purposes of the United Nations.
and in Chapter VII, (39)
The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to
the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and shall make
recommendations or shall decide what measures shall be taken... to
maintain or restore international peace and security.
It is very obvious that our government blatantly violated its
obligation under the charter of the United Nations to submit to the
Security Council its charge of aggression against North Viet Nam.
Instead we unilaterally launched an all-out war on Asian soil. In
the
process we have underminded the purpose of the United Nations and
caused its effectiveness to atrophy. We have also placed our nation
in
the position of being morally and politically isolated. Even the
long
standing allies of our nation have adamantly refused to join our
government in this ugly war. As Americans and lovers of Democracy we
should carefully ponder the consequences of our nation's declining
moral status in the world.
The second casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the principle of
self-determination. By entering a war that is little more than a
domestic civil war, America has ended up supporting a new form of
colonialism covered up by certain niceties of complexity. Whether we
realize it or not our participation in the war in Viet Nam is an
ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed, our
paranoid anti-Communism, our failure to feel the ache and anguish of
the have nots. It reveals our willingness to continue particpating
in
neo-colonialist adventures.
A brief look at the background and history of this war reveals with
brutal clarity and ugliness of our policy. The Vietnamese people
proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French
and
Japanese occupation, and before the Communist revolution in China.
They were led by the now well-known Ho Chi Minh. Even though they
quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own
document
of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to
support France in its re-conquest of her former colony.
President Truman felt then that the Vietnamese people were
not "ready"
for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly western
arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so
long.
With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government
seeking self-determination, and a government that had been
established
not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by
clearly indigenous forces that included some Communists.
For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Viet Nam the
right to independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the
French in their abortive effort to re-colonize Viet Nam.
Before the end of the war we were meeting 80% of the French war
costs.
Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to
despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them
with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war
even
after they had lost the will.
During this period United States governmental officials began to
brainwash the American public. John Foster Dulles assiduously sought
to prove that Indo-China was essential to our security against the
Chinese Communist peril. When a negotiated settlement of the war was
reached in 1954, through the Geneva Accord, it was done against our
will. After doing all that we could to sabotage the planning for the
Geneva Accord, we finally refused to sign it.
Soon after this we helped install Ngo Dihn Diem. We supported him in
his betrayal of the Geneva Accord and his refusal to have the
promised
1956 election. We watched with approval as he engaged in ruthless
and
bloddy persecution of all opposition forces. When Diem's infamous
actions finally led to the formation of The National Liberation
Front,
the American public was duped into believing that the civil
rebellion
was being waged by puppets from Hanoi. As Douglas Pike wrote: "In
horror, Americans helplessly watched Diem tear apart the fabric of
Vietnamese society more effectively than the Communists had ever
been
able to do it. It was the most efficient act of his entire career."
Since Diem's death we have actively supported another dozen military
dictatorships all in the name of fighting for freedom. When it
became
evident that these regimes could not defeat the Vietcong, we began
to
steadily increase our forces, calling them "military advisers"
rather
than fighting soldiers.
Today we are fighting an all-out war--undeclared by Congress. We
have
well over 300,000 American servicemen fighting in that benighted and
unhappy country. American planes are bombing the territory of
another
country, and we are committing atrocities equal to any perpetrated
by
the Vietcong. This is the third largest war in American history.
All of this reveals that we are in an untenable position morally and
politically. We are left standing before the world glutted by our
barbarity. We are engaged in a war that seeks to turn the clock of
history back and perpetuate white colonialism. The greatest irony
and
tragedy of all is that our nation which initiated so much of the
revolutionary spirit of the modern world, is not cast in the mold of
being an arch anti-revolutionary.
A third casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the Great Society. This
confused war has played havoc with our domestic destinies.
Despite feeble protestations to the contrary, the promises of the
Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Viet Nam.
The
pursuit of this widened war has narrowed domestic welfare programs,
making the poor, white and Negro, bear the heaviest burdens both at
the front and at home.
While the anti-poverty program is cautiously initiated, zealously
supervised and evaluated for immediate results, billions are
liberally
expended for this ill-considered war. The recently revealed
mis-estimate of the war budget amounts to ten billions of dollars
for
a single year. This error alone is more than five times the amount
committed to anti-poverty programs. The security we profess to seek
in
foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities. The bombs in
Viet Nam explode at home: they destroy the hope s and possibilities
for a decent America.
If we reversed investments and gave the armed forces the antipoverty
budget, the generals could be forgiven if they walked off the
battlefield in disgust.
Poverty, urban problems and social progress generally are ignored
when
the guns of war become a national obsession. When it is not our
security that is at stake, but questionable and vague commitments to
reactionary regimes, values disintegrate into foolish and adolescent
slogans.
It is estimated that we spend $322,000 for each enemy we kill, while
we spend in the so-called war on poverty in America only about
$53.00
for each person classified as "poor. And much of that 53 dollars
goes
for salaries of people who are not poor. We have escalated the war
in
Viet Nam and de-escalated the skirmish against poverty. It
challenges
the imagination to contemplate what lives we could transform if we
were to cease killing.
At this moment in history it is irrefutable that our world prestige
is
pathetically frail. Our war policy excites pronounced contempt and
aversion virtually everywhere. Even when some national government s,
for reasons of economic and diplomatic interest do not condemn us,
their people in surprising measure have made clear they do not share
the official policy.
We are isolated in our false values in a world demanding social and
economic justice. We must undergo a vigorous re-ordering of our
national priorities.
A fourth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the humility of our
nation. Through rugged determination, scientific and technological
progress and dazzling achievements, America has become the richest
and
most powerful nation in the world. We have built machines that think
and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of
interstellar
space. We have built gargantuan bridges to span the seas and
gigantic
buildings to kiss the skies. Through our airplanes and spaceships we
have dwarfed distance and placed time in chains, and through our
submarines we have penetrated oceanic depths. This year our national
gross product will reach the astounding figure of 780 billion
dollars.
All of this is a staggering picture of our great power.
But honesty impells me to admit that our power has often made us
arrogant. We feel that our money can do anything. We arrogantly feel
that we have everything to teach other nations and nothing to learn
from them. We often arrogantly feel that we have some divine,
messianic mission to police the whole world. We are arrogant in not
allowing young nations to go through the same growing pains,
turbulence and revolution that characterized cur history. We are
arrogant in our contention that we have some sacred mission to
protect
people from totalitarian rule, while we make little use of our power
to end the evils of South Africa and Rhodesia, and while we are in
fact supporting dictatorships with guns and money under the guise of
fighting Communism. We are arrogant in professing to be concerned
about the freedom of foreign nations while not setting our own house
in order. Many of our Senators and Congressmen vote joyously to
appropriate billions of dollars for war in Viet Nam, and these same
Senators and Congressmen vote loudly against a Fair Housing Bill to
make it possible for a Negro veteran of Viet Nam to purchase a
decent
home. We arm Negro soldiers to kill on foreign battlefields, but
offer
little protection for their relatives from beatings and killings in
our own south. We are willing to make the Negro 100% of a citizen in
warfare, but reduce him to 50% of a citizen on American soil. Of all
the good things in life the Negro has approximately one half those
of
whites; of the bad he has twice that of whites. Thus, half of all
Negroes live in substandard housing and Negroes have half the income
of whites. When we turn to the negative experiences of life, the
Negro
has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The infant
mortality rate is double that of white. There are twice as many
Negroes in combat in Viet Nam at the beginning of 1967 and twice as
many died in action (20.6%) in proportion to their numbers in the
population as whites.
All of this reveals that our nation has not yet used its vast
resources of power to end the long night of poverty, racism and
man's
inhumanity to man. Enlarged power means enlarged peril if there is
not
concommitant growth of the soul. Genuine power is the right use of
strength. If our nation's strength is not used responsibly and with
restraint, it will be, following Acton's dictum, power that tends to
corrupt and absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Our arrogance
can
be our doom. It can bring the curtains down on our national drama.
Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. We are
challenged
in these turbulent days to use our power to speed up the day when
"every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be
made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough
places
plain."
A fifth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the principle of dissent.
An ugly repressive sentiment to silence peace-seekers depicts
advocates of immediate negotiation under terms of the Geneva
agreement
and persons who call for a cessation of bombings in the north as
quasi-traitors, fools or venal enemies of our soldiers and
institutions. Free speech and the privilege of dessent and
discussion
are rights being shot down by Bombers in Viet Nam. When those who
stand for peace are so villified it is time to consider where we are
going and whether free speech has not become one of the major
casualties of the war.
Curtailment of free speech is rationalized on grounds that a more
compelling American tradition forbids critism of the government when
the nation is at war. More than a century ago when we were in a
declared state of war with Mexico, a first term congressman by the
name of Abraham Lincoln stood in the halls of Congress and
fearlessly
denounced that war. Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois had not
heard of this tradition or he was not inclined to respect it. Nor
had
Thoreau and Emerson and many other philosophers who shaped our
democratic principles. Nothing can be more destructive of our
fundamental democratic traditions than the vicious effort to silence
dissenters.
A sixth casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the prospects of
mankind's
survival. This war has created the climate for greater armament and
further expansion of destructive nuclear power.
One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that
everybody
talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed
sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace,
peace has become practically nobody's business among the
power-wielders. Many men cry peace! peace! but they refuse to do the
things that make for peace.
The large power blocs of the world talk passionately of pursuing
peace
while burgeoning defense budgets that already bulge, enlarging
already
awesome armies, and devising even more devasting weapons. Call the
roll of those who sing the glad tidings of peace and one's ears will
be surprised by the responding sounds. The heads of all of the
nations
issue clarion calls for peace yet these destiny determiners come
accompanied by a band and a brigand of national choristers, each
bearing unsheathed swords rather than olive branches.
The stages of history are replete with the chants and choruses of
the
conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace. Alexander,
Ghenghis Khan, Julius Ceasar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon were akin in
their seeking a peaceful world order, a world fashioned after their
selfish conceptions of an ideal existence. Each sought a world at
peace which would personify their egotistic dreams. Even within the
life-span of most of us, another megalomaniac strode across the
world
stage. He sent his blitzkreig-bent legious blazing across Europe,
bringing havoc and halocaust in his wake. There is grave irony in
the
fact that Hitler could come forth, following the nakedly aggressive
expansionist theories he revealed in Mein Kampf, and do it all in
the
name of peace.
So when I see in this day the leaders of nations similarly talking
pace while preparing for war, I take frightful pause. When I see our
country today intervening in what is basically a civil war,
destroying
hundred of thousands of Vietnamese children with Napalm, leaving
broken bodies in countless fields and sending home half-men,
mutilated, mentally and physically; when I see the recalcitrant
unwillingness s of our government to create the atmosphere for a
negotiated settlement of this awful conflict by halting bombings in
the north and agreeing to talk with the Vietcong--and all this in
the
name of pursuing the goal of peace--I tremble for our world. I do so
not only from dire recall of the nightmares wreaked in the wars of
yesterday, but also from dreadful realization of today's possible
nuclear destructiveness, and tomorrow's even more damnable
prospects.
In the light of all this, I say that we must narrow the gaping chasm
between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which
precipitate and perpetuate war. We are called upon to look up from
the
quagmire of military programs and defense commitments and read
history's signposts and today's trends.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor
chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to
see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a
means
by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends
through
peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games
before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed
of past wars? Why can't we at long last grow up, and take off our
blindfolds, chart new courses, put our hands to the rudder and set
sail for the distant destination, the port city of peace?
President John F. Kennedy said on one occasion, "Mankind must put an
end to war or war will put an end to mankind." Wisdom born of
experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been
a
time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and
growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons
eliminates even the possibility that war may serve as a negative
good.
If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to
survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day when
vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles
carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can
claim
victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than
a
calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and
spiritual
disillusionment. A world war--God forbid!--will leave only
smouldering
ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly led inexorably
to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt
unhesitatingly
with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such
as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.
I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need
to
be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a
fact
that we shall not have the will, the courage and the in sight to
deal
with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a
mental and spiritual re-evaluation, a change of focus which will
enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful
are
indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need
to make a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the
eagerness, to enter into the new world which is now possible.
We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It
is
not enough to say "we must not wage war." It is necessary to love
peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the
negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.
There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in
Greek
literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability
to
sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their
island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks and the men forgot
home,
duty and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced
by
arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be
lured
by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of
his
boat and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and
his
crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the
beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music
of
the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens?
So we must fix our visions not merely on the negative expulsion of
war. But upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that
peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far
superior
to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of
the
world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no
one
can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for
the
purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the
nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a
"peace race." If we have the will and determination to mount such a
peace offensive we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope
and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism.
Let me say finally that I op pose the war in Viet Nam because I love
America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and
sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see
our
beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out
against this war because I am disappointed with America. There can
be
no great disappointment where there is no g -eat love. I am
disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly
with
the triple evils of racism, Extreme materialism and militarism. We
are
presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national
disaster.
Jesus once told a parable of a young man who left home and wandered
into a far country where, in adventure after adventure and sensation
after sensation, he sought life. But he never found it; he found
only
frustration and bewilderment. The farther he moved from his father's
house, the closer he came to the house of despair. The more he did
what he liked, the less he liked what he did. After the boy had
wasted
all, a famine developed in the land, and he ended up seeking food in
a
pig's trough. But the story does not end there. It goes on to say
that
in this state of disillusionment, blinding frustration and
homesickness, the boy "came to himself" and said, "I will arise and
go
to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee. " The prodigal son was not himself when he
left his father's house or when he dreamed that pleasure was the end
of life. Only when he made up his mind to go home and be a son again
did he really come to himself. The parable ends with the boy
returning
home to find a loving father waiting with outstretched arms and
heart
filled with unutterable job.
This is an analogy of what America confronts today. Like all human
analogies, it is imperfect, but it does suggest some parallels worth
considering. America has strayed to the far country of racism and
militarism. The home that all too many Americans left was solidly
structured idealistically. Its pillars were soundly grounded in the
insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage--all men are made in the
image of God; all men are brothers; all men are created equal; every
man is heir to a legacy of dignity and worth; every man has rights
that are neither conferred by nor derived from the state, they are
God-given; out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face
of
the earth. What a marvelous foundation for any home! What a glorious
and healthy place to inhabit! But America strayed away; and this
unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It
has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with
irrationality. It has driven wisdom from her sacred throne. This
long
and callous sojourn in the far country of racism and militarism has
brought a moral and spiritual famine to the nation.
It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to
return
to her true home of brotherhood and peaceful pursuits. We cannot
remain silent as our nation engages in one of history's most cruel
and
senseless wars. America must continue to have, during these days of
human travail, a company of creative dissenters. We need them
because
the thunder of their fearless voices will be the only sound stronger
than the blasts of bombs and the clamour of war hysteria.
Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war
hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war we must spread the
propaganda of peace. We must combine the fervor of the civil rights
movement with the peace movement. We must demonstrate, teach and
preach, until the very foundations of our nation are shaken. We must
work unceasingly to lift this nation that we love to a higher
destiny,
to a new platens of compassion, to a more noble expression of
humane-ness.
I have tried to be honest today. To be honest is to confront the
truth. To be honest is to realize that the ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments of convenience and moments of
comfort, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of
controversy. However unpleasant and inconvenient the truth may be, I
believe we must expose and face it if we are to achieve a better
quality of American life.
Just the other day, the distinguished American historian, Henry
Steele
Commager, told a Senate Committee: "Justice Holmes used to say that
the first lesson a judge had to learn was that he was not God… we do
tend perhaps more than other nations, to transform our wars into
crusades… our current involvement in Viet Nam is cast, increasingly,
into a moral mold… It is my feeling that we do not have the
resources,
material, intellectual or moral, to be at once an American power, a
European power and an Asian power."
I agree with Mr. Commager. And I would suggest that there is,
however,
another kind of power that America can and should be. It is a moral
power, a power harnessed to the service of peace and human beings,
not
an inhumane power unleased against defenseless people. All the world
knows that America is a great military power. We need not be
diligent
in seeking to prove it. We must now show the world our moral power.
There is an element of urgency in our re-directing American powers.
We
are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are
confronted
with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life
and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination
is still the chief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare,
naked
and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of
men"
does not remain at flood: it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for
time
to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and
rushes
on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous
civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late. " There is
an
invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our
neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…" We
still have a choice today: nonviolent co-existence or violent
co-annihilation. History will record the choice we made. It is still
not too late to make the proper choice. If we decide to become a
moral
power we will be able to transform the jangling discords of this
world
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we make the wise
decision
we will be able to transform our pending cosmic elegy into a
creative
psalm of peace. This will be a glorious day. In reaching it we can
fulfill the noblest of American dreams.
