VIETNAM: DIALOGUE FOR DEFEAT

"Four Australian soldiers were killed and 19 wounded, one seriously, in two Viet Cong attacks on Australian fire support bases in the Bien Hoa Province at the weekend" - The Australian, May 28.

A fortnight previously, nine Australian soldiers were killed in the one action, and over the last few weeks Australian, American and Allied casualties have risen steeply. According to The Age, Melbourne May 24, a U.S. military spokesman said U.S. forces had lost 1111 dead in their worst fortnight of the Vietnam War. In fact since the beginning of the Paris talks the casualty rate for our forces fighting Communism in South Vietnam, has risen sharply; following the same pattern in Korea when casualties during the armistice talks were greater than during the previous period of the war.
There are a number of reasons.

The defensive war we were already fighting becomes even more defensive when our troops are aware that some sorts of terms are being negotiated by the politicians. They know that we are not negotiating from a position of strength, otherwise it would have been the Communists, not ourselves, who initiated the peace talks. The Communists sense that the initiative is theirs, and look upon the "peace" talks as a preliminary stage to final victory, a victory, which will be greater if they can make greater gains in the military field. The resulting increased tempo of fighting, in which our troops are in set defensive positions, results in greater casualties in the field and greater propaganda victories for the Communists.

This truth was rammed home to us by Lieutenant Colonel Tran van Dao, a former high ranking Viet Cong official who defected on April 19, and who said the allies should intensify the war to improve their bargaining position.
"The battlefield should be in support of the talks", Dao tells newsmen. "There will be fighting and talking. The allied forces should be more active. The more successes they obtain the better will be their bargaining position. The Viet Cong are weak and in a bad position for the talks" Review of the News May 29.

It must be a shattering experience for defectors such as Lt. Col. Tran van Dao to discover that we do not take the realistic advice offered.

AMERICAN CRITICISM OF CONTROVERSIAL F-111 PLANE

Reporting from the U.S.A., Mr. Eric Butler says that competent American authorities claim that the F-111 swing-wing bomber is a major disaster, the result of a political scandal in which former American Minister for Defence Robert McNamara played a decisive role. The following information from Mr. Butler comes at a time when the Australian Government is obviously worried about the mounting financial cost and the performance of the F-111, selected in preference to the British alternative, the TSR-2:

A large number of Americans regard Robert McNamara, former Defence Minister and now President of the World Bank, as a conscious conspirator against America's national interests. I am inclined to the view that this judgment is too harsh. But, nevertheless, Mr. McNamara has had what appears to be a long consistent record of major disasters, beginning with the Edsel model of the Ford motor organisation, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the McNamara brainchild.
President Kennedy took McNamara from Ford to make him Minister for Defence.

In the U.S.A. the F-111 is cynically referred to as "the flying Edsel". The following are some of the highlights of this plane's history:
Two organisations submitted bids in January 1962, to build a new type of bomber. Designs and prices were considered by hundreds of top technical Air Force and Navy experts. The result was that the Pentagon Source Selection Board unanimously recommended the Boeing plane as better and cheaper compared with that of General Dynamics. The Boeing plane could take off and land in shorter distances, it had a longer range and greater firepower and the Boeing bid was $415 million lower than the General Dynamics bid. But Robert McNamara over-ruled the Source Selection Board and on November 24, 1962, awarded the biggest defence order in American history to General Dynamics.
American critics of the decision claim that the decision was purely political.

Just prior to the F-111 award General Dynamics was on the verge of bankruptcy. General Dynamics is controlled by Henry Crown of Chicago one of the most influential financial figures in the Illinois Democratic Party. General Dynamics said that it would build the plane in Fort Worth, Texas, which provides 24 electoral votes in the American voting system, and that the Navy version of the plane would be built in New York, which has 45 electoral votes. The Boeing Company is based in Seattle, Washington, which has only 9 electoral votes. If it had received the contract it was proposed to build the plane in Wichita, Kansas, with 8 electoral votes. Political observers here stress that the 1960 election results showed that carrying Texas, Illinois and New York would be essential in 1964 if the Democrats were going to win.

There was a storm of protest following the decision to have General Dynamics build the new bomber. McNamara's attempted defence of the decision was so unsatisfactory that on February 26, 1963, a Senate investigation was started under the chairmanship of Senator John L. McClellan.
I suggest that Australian investigators should study the evidence presented by America's top military and technical experts before this Senate investigation. It makes frightening reading.

McNamara apparently tried to threaten military leaders, while trying to hide a most important memorandum from the McClellan Committee. This memorandum was written by Albert W. Blackburn of the office of Defence Research and Engineering, the best informed man on all the technical aspects of the two competing designs. He said that the Boeing design was superior in every way, stressing that the operational commanders were the strongest in their support for the Boeing plane. Blackburn resigned his position, stating that, "I could no longer, in my conscience, remain associated with the Office of the Secretary of Defence".

After the assassination of President Kennedy the Democrats agreed that they could not continue with the McClellan Committee as this might reflect unfavourably upon the late President, who had backed Robert McNamara. From then on optimistic publicity statements were issued concerning the progress of the General Dynamics plane. But with the crashes of test models, the quick loss of three F-111's in Vietnam and now another crash in the U.S.A., the critics are claiming that events are confirming the views of the experts. They charge that McNamara lied when he stated that in scrapping the 345B-52 bombers they would be replaced by the F-111, (which he called the FB-lll) which "will have twice the speed of those aircraft, approximately, with approximately the same range…It will carry fifty 750-pound high-explosive bombs".

The expert critics claim this is a triple lie: When carrying bombs, which must be hung from its wings, creating serious "drag", the F-111 cannot fly any faster than the B-52; the F-111 has only half the range of the B-52 and the F-111 can carry 48, not 50, only if its wings are fully extended, which then makes super-sonic flight impossible.
American air chief General Curtis Le May has said that, "The FB-l1l is by no stretch of the imagination a strategic bomber…we are taking an awful risk…"

With soaring financial costs and unsatisfactory performance, should the Australian Government take this risk? It may be better to cut losses now rather than saddle the nation with Mr. Robert McNamara's disaster. But I also suggest that there should be some searching questions asked in Australia about how the Australian decision to purchase the F-111 was made. Did the McNamara pressure also extend to the Australian Government?

THE FRENCH CRISIS

"France's worst post-war crisis deepened today, with a Government announcement that it had discovered an extremist plot to unleash new violence. At the same time, thousands of workers flatly rejected an agreement reached by union leaders, employers and the Government which would give them widespread benefits", - The Age, Melbourne May 28.

Judging from press reports, which exclude any suggestion that there may be any group capable of opposing the revolutionary forces of Communism; it appears inevitable, saving some miraculous development that France is now in the final stages of a Communist takeover. The only question, which now appears to remain unanswered, is whether the Communists are ready to take over openly, or whether they will continue to let De Gaulle operate as a plausible front for them.

This was tacitly admitted by Rolend Pullen, correspondent for The Herald, Melbourne, May 27 when he headed his report, "Why De Gaulle may survive. Reds don't want a takeover - yet".
The supposed alternative De Gaulle is offering, a referendum to decide whether workers and students are to have a greater say in the control of their institutions of employment and education, will only be used to formalise the full emergence of the Communist State. Once again it is obvious that the one major factor ensuring the revolutionary base for Communist agitation, is the fraudulent economy imposed upon the French nation. The gradual dissipation of economic stability and the erosion of purchasing power, aggravated by gross waste and injustices suffered under the Common Market economy, have brought French workers and peasants to breaking point.

The Age, as late as May 23 recorded the Common Market countries were in serious financial difficulties with a surplus trade balance of $US 860 million. While reports earlier disclosed that French farmers were unable to dispose of their produce at prices, which were previously acceptable to them, but which now with the rigid control of the Common Market Commission, they were not allowed to put on the market. The situation has been coming to a head for some years.
The Age March 12, 1964 reported "An economic problem common to almost all countries - rich and poor - is the widening gap between the incomes of farmers and urban workers. It is highlighted by barricades strung across main roads by French farmers…"

With both urban workers and peasants in revolt, students who have been fed a diet of scientific materialism for many years, and cut off from any culture rooted in stability or organic growth, the situation is a revolutionary's dream.

BRITAIN ALSO

"France's anarchy could happen in Britain". - Trevor Smith, reporting for The Herald, Melbourne, May 27, 1968.

The Fabian socialists controlling the British Government are undoubtedly promoting a situation to parallel the chaos in Europe. The recent political revolt over the Prices and Incomes Bill indicated the growing turmoil in Britain's Parliament. Wilson is pursuing a policy of increasing economic banditry to destroy completely, the independence of any section of the British people. He is loathed with an intensity hard to comprehend, as is illustrated by the complaint of the firm manufacturing the raincoat worn by Wilson. The sales of this particular coat have plummeted as no one wishes to emulate Wilson in his choice of clothing.
Given any sort of a chance the British people would record a similar vote in their choice of parliamentarians.

Parliament has been reduced to complete impotence as again was illustrated by the defiance of the Speaker by Dame Irene Ward protesting about Parliament having ceased to be democratic. Trevor Smith described the incident as "astonishing and sensational".
He reports, "Back-bench MPs see themselves increasingly as lobby fodder, more and more removed from contact with Ministers, and having less and less say in policy forming and decisions".

If ever there was a time for a mass petitioning of the Queen to have their constitutional rights restored, now is the time for the British people to exercise this ancient right and privilege.

ON TARGET BULLETIN

SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
RESPONSIBILITY

We continue the discussion of the principle of responsibility by a further examination of the moral basis on which all action is based. To be specific the exercise of responsible action is a spiritual question. The Bible in a myriad of forms but with the essential base established in the Ten Commandments teaches us that the spiritual gift of correct responsible action is God given. We are free to exercise 'choice' in all the decisions we make, but we are answerable to God for those decisions.
We may well ask; what was God's purpose?

There is no other basis for peace and harmony than in a society where the members choose freely to abide by commonly held laws which will lead to increasing freedom for all. God wants man to live in harmony and peace with himself and his fellow men through the acceptance of His laws and commandments. As the creator of the universe and man God has made such laws for our benefit, but He has also given us free will to choose whether we will so do. He has given man the responsibility of rejecting His laws - as he does, accepting the responsibility for his actions. The state of the world, or the barometer measuring the fever of the world can be measured by the extent to which man obeys or disobeys God's laws. The fear of the consequences - 'the fear of the Lord' - is a very real factor in understanding responsibility.

God teaches that man is primarily responsible to Him, and then through Him to his fellow man. We can see how man goes astray in the case of such people as Rev. David Pope who declares his first loyalty to man. Man cannot understand what it means to be responsible to his fellow man unless he knows what it means to be responsible to God.
What is known as Christian civilisation is built on this principle, and that it should permeate throughout the whole of society.
If rejected by society then the consequences of chaos and disorder must be accepted.

All members of the League are of course concerned to build this principle of responsibility into their daily lives, into their family life, and in accepting the responsibility for implementing policies, which will ensure the keeping of God's laws in our society. But to be even more specific, we are now endeavouring to restore this vital principle into our parliamentary institutions, which have the responsibility for maintaining freedom in our country.

Our individual rights and our individual freedom to decide our own destiny in conformity with God's laws are dependent upon our parliament upholding such laws. But it depends on whether there are enough Australians who understand those laws, and then with their understanding are sufficiently responsible to do something about it.