Tony,

A few questions. Have you ever read Chomsky on Vietnam? He provides a
wonderful antidote to the notion that the US was merely acting out of
misguided benevolance in Vietnam. I'm not up to making all those
arguments over again; they've been out there for almost thirty years and
still ring true to me.

Briefly, my personal belief is that it is wrong for the most powerful
country in the world to wage war against impoverished, small agrarian
nations--and when that war persists for years, and involves
indiscriminate bombing (in SOUTH Vietnam--go figure!), chemical warfare,
massacres of civilians by ground troops, assasination, torture, etc. its
particularly odious. You can call it the promotion of liberal democracy
if you like; it looks like  a war crime to me and many others.

This discussion list is an odd forum for your views, to which you are of
course entitled. My point in joining it was to communicate with those
influenced and stimulated by Chomsky, not to have to  rebut the official
line promoted by governments and their apologists.

Regards