Word: prg
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...much torture, or how much of Thieu's police and prisons in general, is paid for by American money. It's arguable that the government responsible for them exists only by virtue of American support, and that if such support were withdrawn it would be replaced either by the PRG--whose treatment of American prisoners of war, though apparently not so humane as that of North Vietnam, bears no comparison to the stories ex-inmates of Thieu's jails tell--or by a neutralist coalition of some sort...
...Fictions about a ceasefire become increasingly difficult to maintain as the Provisional Revolutionary Government and Saigon Government trade largely accurate accusations of thousands of daily violations. Reputable estimates place the fighting at about the same level as it was last October, including Saigon's division-sized assaults on PRG positions. With 200,000 people made refugees since the ceasefire, we would be hard-pressed to call this peace. The very temporary North Vietnamese threat to delay the second prisoner exchange now completed and the attacks on North Vietnamese truce delegations in Hue and Saigon, parallel the daily truce violations...
...reasonable these claims seem when compared to their nonsensical view of the past. If it appears, as Nixon had the gall to assert in January, that our involvement in the war was "one of the most selfless enterprises in the history of nations," it is because Hanoi and the PRG have kept the U.S. from stablizing an illegitimate rightist regime in the South. America has gained nothing, while the PRG has gained official recognition as a legitimate administration with a right to maintain armed forces on its territory, the Vietnamese have gained the departure of at least America's ground...
...third lesson is that people liberate themselves. If January's peace settlement turns out to be a useful political weapon in North Vietnam's and the PRG's hands, it will be their triumph, not ours, no matter how much we helped. In the same way, we are not going to wake up some morning to find a student-worker alliance has developed overnight. First, we must build our student-student alliances as a beginning. Second, like the Vietnamese, the American poor will liberate themselves--with our help, I hope, but with their leadership, I am sure...
...final reason why the movement should openly support the PRG has to do with simple honesty. In advocating immediate withdrawal, opponents of the war are obviously saying in effect that the Provisional Revolutionary Government (or some coalition dominated by it) should take power in South Vietnam, since the Thieu-Ky government will not be a viable alternative to the PRG once U.S. troops leave. This being the case, it is very important that the anti-war movement make clear to the American people that immediate withdrawal does mean a Communist victory in South Vietnam. Equivocation on this point can only...