- from The Militant
Despite U.S. propaganda claims about military gains in Vietnam, news reports Bion that i U.S. and its Saigon puppet regire are suffering stunning defeats in their efforts to "Pacify" the country. The reports confirm they are unable to crush the guerrillas who continue to attack the occupying forces and who enjoy the support of the local population in doing so. Writing in the Dec.1 New York Times, R.W. Apple Jnr. describes a trip from Saigon to the nearby Tekong Delta ...... a history of the effort to pacify South Vietnam, "At every stream or river crossing, there is a reminder that all past efforts have failed. Each waterway is spanned by a Bailey Bridge or some other expedient, the original bridge having long since fallen to Vietcong explosives." A U.S. major serving as adviser to Saigon forces in the area tells him: "Things are no good. .... They (the guerrillas) hit you with a battalion one night, but next morning you can't find a squad." ...... The major shied away from answering Apple's question 4s to just how secure the area was, but, Apple ohserved, "when he went to the highway for a quick trip to a nearby headquarters, he wore an armored vest, carried a rifle and took a second jeep along for protection," Describing the extreme difficulties confronting U.S. forces in the Delta area, Apple writes that while in the first two months of the drive "bulky GIs waded for hours through rice paddies, wet below the waist from mud and paddy water, wet above the waste from perspiration ~ only 14 guerrillas were killed." .... Four teams of "rural-development workers, who are supposed to win over the local peasants, are assigned to the area, "but none are yet old enough to sleep in the hamlets they are supposed to bring under Saigon's control." The lieutenant colonel in charge of the area told Apple that even if he could accomplish his entire mission in a year — which he considers improbable - he would have dealt with only one of six districts in the Delta's 16 provinces, "In a province like this, a whole battalion - 600 men - can be gobbled up by the rice paddies." Apple's findings confirmed an earlier Saigon report to the Nov, 25 Times by Max Frankel. .... "In Saigon, they worry about the chiefs of villages who understandably but still unfortunately refuse to risk sleeping in their hamlets at night. .... Almost every soldier, from private to colonel, counts the days until his year of duty here expires. .... Yet all believe that there is now no easy way out of the morass. They expect a long guerrilla war. .... So far there is only a doctrine of pacification, no program worth the name, and the experimental teams already in the field still fear to spend the night in their assigned hamlet." A lieutenant colonel told Frankel: "Make them understand that this is just like the Indian wars, except that the helicopter has replaced the horse, And you know how long those wars lasted." The theme is echoed by Marvin L. Stone in a particularly revealing article in the Dec. 5 U.S. News and World Report. He began covering Vietnam in 1954. "After all these years," reports Stone, "the wherewithal of victory does not seem to exist. The political fabric of the country is still shredding, Social progress is held in tight rein. .... The influence of the Saigon government seems not to grow at all in the vast countryside. Some Americans insist there is less effective presence in the villages now than there was three years ago. «eee A third of the countryside is under the permanent day and night control of the Vietcong. .... In the past year, no substantial number of new roads have been opened; no substantial number of people brought under government control, --. The Reds have mobile taxation points on the roads, canals and rivers ... and levy taxes of one form or another in every province in south Vietnam, even in Saigon itself,"