In a briefing on November 1, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder responded to recent postings in social media where people said that there are U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Ukraine. According to Reuters, Ryder said “small teams that are comprised of embassy personnel” are conducting “inspections of security assistance delivery” in an effort to “track U.S.-provided capabilities and to prevent the illicit spread throughout Eastern Europe.” By “security assistance,” Ryder is talking about the tens of billions of dollars in heavy military equipment that the U.S. has pumped into Ukraine since early this year—in what is a proxy war between the U.S./NATO imperialists and the Russian imperialists. Ryder said, “We’ve been very clear there are no combat forces in Ukraine, no U.S. forces conducting combat operations in Ukraine. These are personnel that are going out in areas where they’re not going to be in harm’s way to conduct these types of inspections.”
Vietnam: U.S. Army Advisor trains batallions in the field. Photo: U.S. Army
If anyone feels “assured” by these words from a Pentagon mouthpiece—remember (or learn about) how the U.S. war in Vietnam started with covert operations and small number of “advisors” (authorized by Democratic President John F. Kennedy) in the early 1960s. These U.S. “advisors” in Vietnam were the initial wedge that created the opening and the basis for what eventually escalated into a full-scale war by the U.S.
The U.S. war grew to involve over half a million U.S. troops, with at least 3 million Vietnamese people killed, 5.3 million injured, and 11 million driven from their homes. The American troops carried out horrendous massacres and mass rapes, and used chemical weapons like napalm and Agent Orange that killed and maimed huge numbers of civilians and ravaged their farmlands.1