in the following:
Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the
truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for
peace, how the president claimed that none existed when
they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched
as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and
now he has surely heard of the increasing international
rumors of American plans for an invasion of the north. He
knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing
are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only
his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he
hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking
of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor
weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from
its shores.
At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in
these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless
on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who
are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our
troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what
we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply
the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where
armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are
adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know
after a short period there that none of the things we claim to
be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must
know that their government has sent them into a struggle
among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely
realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the
secure while we create hell for the poor.
http://www.drmartinlutherkingjr.com/beyondvietnam.htm