As always, Zinn weaves the threads of imperialism by noting the similarities to the Iraq occupation to Vietnam in this collection published at Asia Times.
When I read the hundreds of pages of the Pentagon Papers entrusted to me by Daniel Ellsberg, what jumped out at me were the secret memos from the National Security Council. Explaining the US interest in Southeast Asia, they spoke bluntly of the country’s motives as a quest for “tin, rubber, oil”.
Neither the desertions of soldiers in the Mexican War, nor the draft riots of the Civil War, not the anti-imperialist groups at the turn of the century, nor the strong opposition to World War I – indeed no anti-war movement in the history of the nation reached the scale of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. At least part of that opposition rested on an understanding that more than Vietnam was at stake, that the brutal war in that tiny country was part of a grander imperial design.
Also read an interview of Zinn about Barack Obama here
