Was the Vietnam Anti-War Movement a Fifth Column?

It wasn’t all sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. The Vietnam era counterculture was not all about self-fulfillment, self-actualization, self-realization and self-indulgence.

Student activists believed that the Vietnam War, the one that had been conducted by the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, was profoundly unjust. They believed that American military and militaristic culture was a scourge that had to be stopped. They might have believed that they were all for peace and love. They were really a fifth column, undermining the war effort from within.

They did not quite recognize that fighting against a war while their nation was engaged in it could only help the opposing force. Rarely, if ever has America seen so many of its own citizens militating against her own armed forces. Rarely, if ever have we seen such a rank disregard of patriotism and loyalty.

Now, of course, at a time when we are supposed to believe that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, our current president is leading the charge toward surrender, toward military disengagement and toward diminishing and demeaning the nation.

Be that as it may, a former Viet Cong official has just written a thank-you note to the anti-Vietnam War activists—you know, like Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers—for helping them to defeat America and South Vietnam.

The Daily Caller reports:

In the weeks leading up to Memorial Day and President Barack Obama’s scheduled trip to Vietnam, a prominent Vietcong communist leader privately thanked American anti-war activists for helping defeat the U.S.-allied government in Vietnam in the 1970s, saying protest demonstrations throughout the United States were “extremely important in contributing to Vietnam’s victory.”

For Vietnamese guerrilla leader Madam Nguyen Thi Binh, who sent the private letter from Hanoi dated April 20, “victory” meant the communist takeover of South Vietnam. The letter addressed veteran American anti-war activists who gathered in Washington, D.C., at a May 3 reunion of radical “May Day” anti-war leaders….

In her letter, she extolled the American anti-war movement, saying it was “a key component” that advanced the communist takeover of South Vietnam.

“The Vietnamese people have great appreciation for the peace and antiwar movements in the United States and view those movements’ contribution as important in shortening the war,” she wrote and which was read to an assembled group of “May Day” anti-war activists in Washington, D.C.

As for what happened then, the Daily Caller recounts the history:

The war temporarily ended in 1973 when the Paris Peace Treaty was signed that imposed a ceasefire on all parties.

That ceasefire was abruptly broken in 1975, however, when the North Vietnamese forces launched a surprise “Spring Offensive.”

Leading the offensive were hundreds of T-54 and T-55 heavy Russian tanks that left secret sanctuaries in neighboring Cambodia and flooded into South Vietnam. Regular North Vietnamese troops spearheaded the offensive, along with guerrillas tied to the Vietcong, which also called themselves the National Liberation Front of Vietnam.

By the time the Russian tanks were about to drive into Saigon, a liberal Congress filled with anti-war lawmakers already had hamstrung their South Vietnamese allies. Congress cut military aid to Saigon by 50 percent and handcuffed the South Vietnamese military facing the communist onslaught by barring any U.S. air support or other meaningful military assistance to the government.

The offensive was relatively quick, trapping hundreds of thousands of pro-American Vietnamese troops and millions of civilians who had trusted Washington and openly supported the United States.

And then:

The defeat ultimately triggered an international humanitarian crisis where at least 800,000 Vietnamese “boat people” fled their communist conquerors. Many bravely undertook perilous journeys in small boats across the Gulf of Thailand to escape the new communist warlords. An unknown number of refugees drowned in the exodus.

After the communists defeated the South Vietnamese army, more than 1 million South Vietnamese citizens who had supported the United States were left behind and imprisoned in “re-education camps.” About 100,000 faced summary execution by the communist victors.

Whatever their lofty ideals, students at the time were oblivious to the effect their actions were having on the war effort. Their leaders, however, along with the mainstream media, were colluding with the enemy:

Bill Cowan, who was a Purple Heart Marine platoon leader in Vietnam, told TheDCNF that U.S. troops were demoralized when the U.S. media only highlighted anti-war protesters and not the heroism of many of the Vietnamese who were trying to keep their country free.

“The media fueled the anti-war movement, empowering the protestors, the North Vietnamese, and the Vietcong,” he told The DCNF.

“It was rare to have a ‘good news’ story about what was happening there,” Cowan said.

“I recall a reporter coming to interview me at the village I was living at and apologizing after she was done by saying, ‘You know, this story will probably never see the light of day. My editors will quash it because it has too many good things in here about what you guys are doing.’” Cowan told TheDCNF.