04-03-2003 14:29									#1
	The Quiet American - Spoiler Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

To those of you who have seen the movie that came out this week, The Quiet American, is this historically accurate of just some really filthy anti-American propaganda? If the former, I am really disturbed by the movie. If the latter, I am outraged!

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The quiet American is a CIA agent in 1953-4 Vietnam who sets up and finances a local thug to fight both the French and the Communists. Well, this thug begins to commit atrocities. The CIA agent manipulates the press, including Michael Caine, the protagonist, into blaming the communists.

Is this entirely fiction? Or, did this actually happen?

Communists, we know what your answer is already. I would like to hear from those who know what really happened.

Last edited by Ned on 04-03-2003 at 18:35

	04-03-2003 15:20									#2
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seems like it could have happened...it wouldnt really be outside the bounds of the CIA. you should google it

	04-03-2003 16:14									#3
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I haven't seen it yet, but what you describe is not part of the plot of Graham Greene's novel. If Greene had written it, I'd guess that it might be true; but since Hollywood has tacked it on (as if Greene's work needs their input ), I'd guess it's bull.

	04-03-2003 18:16									#4
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Rufus, Thanks. Now I know it is bull. The people who made this film are really in for some heavy criticism. I am simply amazed at how far anti-Americanism has gone.

	04-03-2003 18:26									#5
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If the movie is as described, it will die a short, nasty death.

	04-03-2003 18:45									#6
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Yes, all movies have to be filthy pro-american propaganda to be worthy of the silver screen.


What happened to the "it's just a movie" line?

	04-03-2003 18:48									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Osweld Yes, all movies have to be filthy pro-american propaganda to be worthy of the silver screen. What happened to the "it's just a movie" line?

ok. "it's just a movie" is that better

	04-03-2003 18:55									#8
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It's only a story and made by an American company. You can't ban anything which can be perceived to portray a country in a bad light, that's ridiculous.

	04-03-2003 19:00									#9
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Rufus, I found this by Greene himself. It seems that he indeed is blaming the bombing on the CIA agent. (BTW, the film was made by an Australian.)

"Graham Greene on The Quiet American:
When my novel was eventually noticed in the New Yorker the reviewer condemned me for accusing my "best friends" (the Americans) of murder since I had attributed to them the responsibility for the great explosion -- far worse than the trivial bicycle bombs -- in the main square of Saigon when many people lost their lives. But what are the facts, of which the reviewer needless to say was ignorant? The Life photographer at the moment of the explosion was so well placed that he was able to take an astonishing and horrifying photograph which showed the body of a trishaw driver still upright after his legs had been blown off. This photograph was reproduced in an American propaganda magazine published in Manila over the title "the work of Ho Chi Minh" although General Thé had promptly and proudly claimed the bomb as his own. Who had supplied the material to a bandit who was fighting French, Caodaists and Communists?

…Perhaps there is more direct rapportage in the The Quiet American than in any other novel I have written. I had determined to employ again the experience I had gained with The End of the Affair in the use of the first person and the time shift, and my choice of a journalist as the "I" seemed to me to justify the use of rapportage. The Press conference is not the only example of direct reporting. I was in the dive bomber (the pilot had broken an order of General de Lattre by taking me) which attacked the Viet Minh post and I was on the patrol of the Foreign Legion paras outside Phat Diem. I still retain the sharp image of the dead child couched in the ditch beside his dead mother. The very neatness of their bullet wounds made their death more disturbing than the indiscriminate massacre in the canals around.

from Ways of Escape, pp.139-140"

	04-03-2003 19:11									#10
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The rationale behind such actions in the cold war was that the communists would do the same or worse if given a chance, and the people had to be "motivated" to see the communists as the enemy they were. Killing and deception were both tools in our covert arsenal, so why not combine the two?

This fits in with the Kissinger view (re Allende, et al) of "why should we let a country go communist just because it's people vote that way?" - Kissinger said something very similar to that, but I don't recall the exact wording.

Greene's quote has a typo in it - "Caodaists" should be Baodaists, after the followers of the token "emperor" Bao Dai, who was just a French lacker. The Cao Dai were pretty much ignored by everyone except for local Viet Minh at that time, due to their remote location and the then-low strategic value of it.

	04-03-2003 19:30									#11
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MTG, What I find hard to accept is that Greene directly implicates the CIA in the bombing, not just in blaming it on the communists.

The bombing apparently took place in 1952. Truman was still president. He was fighting a war with communist NK at the time and he had authorized the use of nuclear weapons twice in the war against Japan and again in the war in Korea, but I can hardly believe he would condone attrocities against civilians for any reason.

It is clear that the NY Times thought Greene was full of it as well.

	04-03-2003 19:32									#12
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Everytime Ned posts a thread ranting about a movie, I don't know whether to laugh or just shake my head...

I enjoyed the movie, mostly because of the atmosphere and its really beautiful depiction of pre-war Vietnam. I didn't care for the love triangle subplot--far too truncated and one-dimensional, IMO. Caine gave a superb performance, but Frasier wasn't too impressive.

I don't know how accurate it was (I certainly didn't take it as an absolutely true story, since it never purported to be such), but I don't thinke Greene is stretching the limits of credibility, as MtG said. There is little doubt we supported The, and he was a murdering *******.

	04-03-2003 19:41									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Ned MTG, What I find hard to accept is that Greene directly implicates the CIA in the bombing, not just in blaming it on the communists.

CIA has killed people. Why is a bombing worse than supporting a coup to remove leaders who are opposed to you sending in massive troops and escalating a half-assed war into a bigger half-assed war? Why is it worse than supporting thugs like Pinochet or the Shah?

quote: The bombing apparently took place in 1952. Truman was still president. He was fighting a war with communist NK at the time and he had authorized the use of nuclear weapons twice in the war against Japan and again in the war in Korea, but I can hardly believe he would condone attrocities against civilians for any reason.

Why would Truman even be involved in a minor operation? The notion of fighting the communists everywhere was pretty well entrenched after the Korean invasion and the USSR dropping the bomb, so certainly US actions around the world didn't stop just because part of the military was tied up in Korea.

quote: It is clear that the NY Times thought Greene was full of it as well.

In those days, nobody challenged the US policy. We, of course, are the beacons of freedom, and they are the dark forces of communist enslavement. Etc.

	04-03-2003 19:54									#14
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Who's talking about banning? Box office is all that matters.

	04-03-2003 19:58									#15
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Never heard of it.

	04-03-2003 20:03									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Ned but I can hardly believe he would condone attrocities against civilians for any reason

In which corner of lala-land are you living?

	04-03-2003 20:10									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Ned he had authorized the use of nuclear weapons twice in the war against Japan and again in the war in Korea, but I can hardly believe he would condone attrocities against civilians for any reason.

So killing 150,000+ civilians with A-bombs isn't an atrocity?

	04-03-2003 20:14									#18
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No, considering the alternatives.

	04-03-2003 20:21									#19
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat No, considering the alternatives.

I'm sure those who orchestrated the bombing depicted in the film could rationalize their act with the same sentence.

Not getting a debate into whether the bomb was necessary or not to end the war, deliberately killing civilians in order to bring a war to a favorable conclusion is still an atrocity.

	04-03-2003 20:38									#20
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Of course. Every country was guilty of atrocities in that war. That was certainly one of them.

	04-03-2003 20:45									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov I'm sure those who orchestrated the bombing depicted in the film could rationalize their act with the same sentence.

I'm sure anybody can rationalize anything. The huge difference is that one was to start a war (or at least increase support for it), while the other was to end a war.

quote: Not getting a debate into whether the bomb was necessary or not to end the war, deliberately killing civilians in order to bring a war to a favorable conclusion is still an atrocity.

"Deliberate" also has to consider available means. If we had a nice clean technology to limit targeting to military targets, and chose not to use it, that's a different case than simply having no means available to target differentially.

Dresden was an atrocity because it was well known that there was nothing of military value - the sole intent was to kill and terrorize civilians. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had significant military targets spread through the cities, and the targeting centered on those locations, not the highest concentration of civilians.

	04-03-2003 20:53									#22
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So by that logic if Saddam had somehow managed to find a nuke and, in self defence, nuked the advancing US forces that wouldn't be an atrocity.

	04-03-2003 20:53									#23
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Listen, I don't doubt that if "our" man did commit attrociities, we would attempt to blame the communists. I simply do not accept that we deliberately killed people in order to do this.

That is the leap that is hard to accept.

I also do no buy our involvement in attrocities commited by dictators we may have helped to power. All that shows is that in a war, one can sometime ally with the devil. We certainly did that in WWII. But being an ally in the same war does not make us responsible for everything they do - this is a common accusation I see here from Che, for example.

	04-03-2003 21:02									#24
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Dresden was an atrocity because it was well known that there was nothing of military value - the sole intent was to kill and terrorize civilians.

Total war, those civilians were paying taxes and generating GNP. The intent was to lower production by
driving the people out of the cities," look what happened
to Dresden, Coming to your city next"

Dresden was not a atrocity, It was the Germans reaping
the horrors that they had sown.

	04-03-2003 21:04									#25
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Are you saying that when one side commits an attrocity it's perfectly morally OK for the other side to do exactly the same back to them?

	04-03-2003 21:07									#26
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quote: Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat I'm sure anybody can rationalize anything. The huge difference is that one was to start a war (or at least increase support for it), while the other was to end a war.

If they can rationalize that starting the war would be for the ultimate good (independence from French colonial rule), then the difference becomes pretty fuzzy.

quote: "Deliberate" also has to consider available means. If we had a nice clean technology to limit targeting to military targets, and chose not to use it, that's a different case than simply having no means available to target differentially.

This is assuming the purpose of dropping the bombs was to hit the military targets. That was clearly not the case, as they could have conducted normal bombing runs on the specific targets. Sure, that would have jeapordized the American pilots more, but it would have minimized civilian casualties. The purpose was to show Japan (and the USSR) that we had this incredibly massive weapon and weren't afraid to use it, even when it hit civilian targets. That was terrorizing the populace into submission.

quote: Dresden was an atrocity because it was well known that there was nothing of military value - the sole intent was to kill and terrorize civilians. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had significant military targets spread through the cities, and the targeting centered on those locations, not the highest concentration of civilians.

Well, the point still stands, since America had clearly had a precedent of authorizing atrocities, whether it be Dresden or Tokyo.

	04-03-2003 21:10									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Ozz Total war, those civilians were paying taxes and generating GNP. The intent was to lower production by driving the people out of the cities," look what happened to Dresden, Coming to your city next" Dresden was not a atrocity, It was the Germans reaping the horrors that they had sown.

We've already had this inane discussion, and once again... Dresden was bombed when the war was already over, everyone knew that. It was loaded with refugees. It wasn't contributing to anything. Germany no longer had a GNP at this point.

And there is no such thing as collective guilt. The children of Dresden had sown nothing.

Your "total war" nonsense basically justifies anything the Nazis ever did in their own quest for dominating Europe. It justifies every atrocity ever committed during war. It's a ridiculous and immoral line of reasoning.

	04-03-2003 21:17									#28
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Boris, I agree with your statement on Dresden. There was no excuse and that was terrorism, pure and simple.

Truman was not yet president, though. So we cannot blame Dresden on him. The question is, was he responsible for a CIA terror campaign in IndoChina, which is the theme of this movie.

	04-03-2003 21:20									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Ned The question is, was he responsible for a CIA terror campaign in IndoChina, which is the theme of this movie.

As MtG pointed out, he didn't have to be responsible for it in order for it to have happened. The CIA undoubtedly has done a lot of things without the sitting POTUS knowing.

If the President had simply said we should support The, he wasn't necessarily in on how the CIA chose to do so.

	04-03-2003 21:20									#30
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Who cares, it's only a film. Was there really a conspiracy to kill JFK? Did the US really steal the Enigma machine from U571?

Hollywood, and writers are always changing stories to make them more exciting or dramatic.