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www.groovekorea.com / December 2014 30 Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) INSIghT D i s t o r t i o n a n d d i s i l l u s i o n m e n t Finally I made it to Hanoi. Once called the “Grand Dame of Asia,” the old quarter is strikingly similar to the French Quarter of New Orleans, sister cities built on opposite ends of the Earth during the gold- en age of imperialism. In one massive columned structure lies the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh himself, the modern father of the nation. He left explicit instructions that his face was not to adorn any currency and his body was not to be preserved or embalmed. Yet his visage is on every single bill and his pickled body lies in a cool central hall under dim lights. For several hours on most days an end- less stream of tourists shuffles by, solemnly gaping from their human conveyor belt. Near the mausoleum is the B-52 lake, where wreckage of an American bomber still protrudes from the water and a museum gloats endlessly about how many U.S. pilots were shot down. Sewage from local businesses seeps into it, creating a putrid stench that left me gagging in the heat. A rainbow film sits atop the surface, and lifeless fish with clouded eyes lap gently onto the edge of this patriotic cesspool. An equally disturbing stop on the war history route was Hoa Lo Prison, or, as it’s commonly known, the Hanoi Hilton. Staged photo-ops show U.S. prisoners gleeful- ly playing basketball, drink- ing beer and eating steaks. Featured among these smil- ing inmates is a young John McCain, who survived to become a onetime presiden- tial candidate and one of the longer-serving current U.S. Senate members. Judging solely from the exhibits, one could assume he had a fine stay here, if you were ignorant of his scars and half-paralysis sustained from periods of regular torture within these very walls. I remem- ber lying awake at night as a child, hearing my father’s screams reverberate through the dark, si- lent house. For years he suffered from recurring nightmares of being buried up to his neck while a Viet Cong soldier slowly approached, intending to decapitate him. The endless rhetoric from the regime left a bitter taste in my mouth. I decided to get out of town on a day trip to Halong Bay, which features thousands of limestone islets jutting vertically from the tropical waters, stretching into the horizon as far as the eye can see. Wooden tourist boats sail between them, built in the fashion of old Chinese junks and puttering through the seemingly endless maze of karsts. The bay is actually part of the much larger Gulf of Tonkin, which played a pivotal role in the start of the war. On Aug. 2, 1964, the USS Maddox had a skirmish with several North Vietnamese ships, resulting in a few Vietnamese casualties. After an alleged second incident on Aug. 4, President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving him the ability to expand mili- tary operations in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Future declassi- fication of government documents showed that the U.S. was deliberately provoking the North and that the Aug. 4 attack had in fact never happened. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said in a 2003 interview that it had indeed been a false flag operation to serve as a pretext for war. On the way back to Hanoi in our minibus, my companions and I discussed the breaking news about a Malaysia Air- lines plane being shot down over Ukraine, with Western media pointing fingers at pro-Russian separatists. No side in the disputed area was claiming responsibility, and many questions remained unanswered. Whatever the truth of the matter was, it was difficult to put much trust in the information we were being given. In a similar vein, the people behind the lies that started the Vietnam War have still never been brought to task. How many times had such a deliberate distortion of the facts been em- ployed to serve an agenda, both then and now? Our bus slowed down considerably and the sun glowed a deep red over the treetops. A wreck was causing the traffic buildup, and as we got closer we saw a scooter, a bicycle and a car in a twist- ed morass of metal. Two bodies were lying on the side of the road and a man was desperately yelling directions at the people gathered around while lift- ing what appeared to be a young woman up in his arms. A piece of her skull and scalp flapped open, and blood and bits of flesh spilled rapidly down his sleeve and chest. As we rolled slowly by, I heard the click of a digital shutter as someone snapped a picture. Staged photo-ops show U.S. prisoners gleefully playing basketball, drinking beer and eating steaks. Featured among these smiling inmates is a young John McCain. Judging solely from the exhibits, one could assume he had a fine stay here, if you were ignorant of his scars and half-paralysis sustained from periods of regular torture within these very walls. Downed U.S. aircraft wreckage, Army Museum, Hanoi