VIETNAM WAR TO CONTINUE

"South Vietnam 's President Thieu today criticised the United States for taking the central role in Vietnam peace moves. That role, he said, properly belong to his Government. In a speech prepared for delivery to Vietnamese newspaper editors, President Thieu also rejected suggestions that the Americans unconditionally halt the bombing of North Vietnam as preposterous and absurd. He saw no softening of Hanoi's terms for peace, nor any prospects for constructive negotiations at present, and urged a hard line against the Communists." The Age, Melbourne, January 16.

Ever since the Americans intervened in force in Vietnam early in 1965, we have recorded the mounting criticism by responsible Americans of the inevitable results of what has been aptly described as the "no-win" policy. Like all Communist-directed conflicts, the war in Vietnam is primarily political. Military activities are closely geared to achieving political results. So long as the Americans and their allies fight in Vietnam under the rules dictated by the Communists, they are at a serious disadvantage. In a realistic sense, they are no closer to a genuine victory than they were three years ago. Communist offers of "peace" talks are simply tactics of psychological warfare.
These tactics raise the hopes of the war-weary Americans. They have created division between Washington and Saigon, as witnessed by President Thieu's criticism.

The Washington policy makers have for some time been attempting to pressure the Thieu Government in South Vietnam to modify hard-line opposition to negotiations with the Viet Cong. Just before flying to Australia for the Holt Memorial Service, President Lyndon Johnson suggested that discussions with the Viet Cong should be encouraged, but before he reached Australia President Johnson learned that President Thieu had said in Saigon that his Government would only deal with members of the Viet Cong who were defectors and who pledged loyalty to the Saigon Government. The difference of opinion was clearly not resolved when President Thieu and President Johnson met in Canberra.
It is certain that President Thieu has a much deeper understanding of the nature of the war than has President Johnson.

On possible peace moves President Thieu is insisting that, "The Republic of Vietnam most naturally should have the central role. To overlook or to disregard this is to give leeway to the communist tendentious propaganda, and damage the success of our common cause.
In an obvious criticism of the American policy makers, President Thieu said: "I regret to say that in the past our allies have sometimes not avoided these pitfalls by placing themselves at the centre of peace efforts Vietnam."

There is no doubt that the military war in Vietnam is going to be sustained so long as it is serving Communism's political objectives - particularly in the U.S.A. during an election year.

AMERICAN GENERAL EXPOSES VIET CONG STRATEGY

"We can see clearly the pattern of North Vietnam strategy in the extended battle at Dak To. It is a conventional use of power...the superior numbers and fire-power of the U.S and South Vietnam forces make it impossible for North Vietnam to hold ground in the South. North Vietnam must always withdraw under superior pressure to its sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia.
Despite its superior power, the United States cannot secure South Vietnam against attack. It cannot occupy all the country in sufficient force to deny access to North Vietnam. These conditions dictate the course of battle. The initiative lies with North Vietnam.... The battles are indecisive. Their aim is attrition and demoralization. They are started by the enemy, continued as long as he pleases, and stopped when he decides to stop. We can be certain that he has planned them to his advantage." - Thomas A. Lane, Major-General, U.S.A., Retired, in The Wanderer, U.S.A., November 30.

So long as the American "no-win" policy continues, with no blockading of the main North Vietnamese Port of Haiphong, or the North Vietnamese coastline and no economic pressure applied to the Soviet Union, the main supplier of the Viet Cong's firepower, it is obvious that the Communists are going to continue to dictate how the war is fought. It is almost certain that there will be more extended battles like that of Dak To. The Communists are prepared to suffer enormous casualties so long as in the process they also increase American casualties. This in turn enables their agents and dupes in the U.S.A. to intensify the political war against the American people. And of course, the Australians and New Zealanders.

General Lane joins with other American military leaders in demanding that the rules under which the Americans and their allies are fighting be changed so that a policy of victory can be pursued. The Communists are right when they claim that by forcing the Americans to engage in a war, which has gone on in its present form for three years, they have already achieved a major victory. It has been a major political victory.
Briefly consider the facts:
The American community has been torn and divided internally as never before since the Civil War. The social, political and economic results have been disastrous. To a lesser extent the same thing has happened in Australia and New Zealand. The whole of the non-Communist world has been badly divided on the Vietnam issue, Australia and New Zealand being the only two European nations to stand with the Americans. The longer Vietnam is permitted to drag on, the greater the damage inflicted by the Communist experts in psychological warfare.

Senator Gorton has a tremendous opportunity to bring a fresh approach to Vietnam, supporting a policy of winning quickly. This would assist all those Americans who also support this policy.
Our slogan should be: "Yes, let's end the war in Vietnam - By winning it!"

MORE MASS MEDICATION URGED

"The grave thought of the whole fluoridation question is how a small professional group of people known as dentists can gradually, by continuous propaganda, force State Governments to mass medicate the people with fluoride whether the population requires it or not. Slowly but surely the common rights of man are being nibbled away by the people who say they know better. " - K.M. Smith in a letter to The Age , Melbourne January 15.

The last time we commented on the fluoridation issue, we received several critical letters from newer readers suggesting that we should confine ourselves to political questions, not medical issues. May we stress, as the fluoridation question is NOT primarily a medical issue, but a political question of the most fundamental philosophical significance. A people who cannot grasp this is well on the road to the collectivist tyranny.

We have no medical or scientific qualifications whatever to discuss whether or not fluoride will lessen teeth decay, or whether or not is a health hazard for some people. There are competent experts to deal with these questions. It is a matter of FACT, not opinion, that a very large number of eminent experts in the field of medicine, nutrition and biochemistry are opposed to the fluoridation of public water supplies.

Let us take two Australian examples:
Professor Sir Arthur Amies, former Dean of the Melbourne Dental College, and Professor Sir Stanton Hicks, generally agreed to be a leading world authority on nutrition. Both have exhaustively examined the fluoridation case and have rejected it. These and similar experts may, of course, be wrong.
But the fundamental question is:
Is it not the right of the individual to choose which experts he will follow? If advocates of fluoridation of public water supplies state that the individual does not have this right, then let them say so openly so that the real question is made clear: It is not fluoridation as such, but whether one group of people should have the power to make other people do what they do not want to do; to rob other people of the freedom of choice. Fluoridation has been described as "Communism via the water tap."
It is not without significance that most Communist favour fluoridation of public water supplies.

We support the policy of freedom of choice, with personal responsibility. Fluoridation should be immediately taken out of the field of political controversy, and individuals encouraged to make their own arrangements with their own personal medical and dental advisers.

COMMUNIST AGENTS AMONGST MIGRANT GROUPS

"Specially-trained officers of the Polish security police were trying to penetrate Polish community organisations in Australia, a writer said yesterday. He is Mr. Jerzy Jan Dzialak, a 46 year-old Polish writer, journalist and former diplomat. Mr. Dzialak is in Australia to cover the Citizenship Convention in Canberra for West European and Polish migrant papers at the invitation of the Immigration Department." - The Australian, January 16.

Mr. Dzialak has drawn attention to a Communist activity, which is worldwide. Migrant groups from Communist-dominated countries are a special target for Communists. Mr. Dzialak made the interesting point that the campaign against Polish groups in Australia was not primarily to seek to subvert, but is "a sustained attempt to neutralise the influence of anti-Communist organisations set up by Australian Poles.

"Neutralisation is a Communist tactic not widely understood, even amongst anti-Communists. It is applied to many groups in the non-Communist-world. Communist activities amongst migrant groups is made easier when the Communist countries from which the migrants come have diplomatic representation in the non-Communist nations. Mr. Dzialak's warning gives added point to the protest by migrants from Jugoslavia who have opposed accepting Tito's diplomatic representatives in Australia.

NO PROSPECTS FOR PEACE IN MIDDLE EAST

"King Hussien and President Nasser managed to raise a smile when they said goodbye yesterday, but their weekend talks forced them to face the fact that a political solution to the Middle East crisis is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible. Both leaders respect the United Nations peace envoy, Dr. Gunnar Jarring...and they will collaborate with him. But they query what he can do in view of Washington's strong moral and military support for Israel.
Western diplomats in Cairo tend to share the Egyptian view that Washington's uncritical attitude towards Israel has enabled the Russians to assume their new role in this strategically important region. " - The Australian, January 16.

The uncritical attitude of the Western nations towards the Socialist State of Israel continues to be the central feature of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. The Soviet Union continues to penetrate the Arab world simply because Western policies create the impression amongst all Arabs that the West is completely against them and pro-Israel.

The eminent -American Jewish expert on the Middle East, Alfred M. Lilienthal, warned back in 1957 of what was threatening in his book, There Goes The Middle East. He said, "So long as one million Arab refugees remain homeless, so long as the Holy City of Jerusalem is severed by barbed wire, and so long as Israel continues to flout existing resolutions of the United Nations, there will be new Suezes and more bloodshed."

Subsequent events have proved Mr. Lilienthal right. But now the position is even worse: the number of refugees has increased, the Holy City of Jerusalem is under the complete domination of the Israelis, and the Arabs are more afraid of the Political Zionists than ever. And so they turn more and more to the Russians for military and economic support.