The Americans are using their best planes in Vietnam, such as the F-4F with its "attacking beak'. According to the official description, this Phantom's special flying qualities enable it "to make quicker and tighter turns when necessary, while it is considerably more stable and manoeuvrable throughout its flight performance". The best fighter plane supplied to Vietnam by the USSR is the Mig 21. The Six Day War demonstrated its inferiority to the French Mirage, which is itself far inferior to the American Phantom. It has a relatively low flight speed. The Phantom can carry much better weaponry, has much greater freedom of action and jet power. The Mig is no match for Ine A mencan pianos.
The Russians do however have a Mig 23, which is apparently the best fighter plane in the world today. It is used with impunity over Sinai, and according to the Israelis a third of those supplied to Egypt are already piloted by Egyptians. It has very high flight speeds, and can go up to at least 15-18 miles altitude, well beyond the B 52, and cannot be intercepted by Phantoms. It is so worrying to the USA that they have started a special programme to try to catch up (with the F 14 and F 15). There is even a Mig 28....and vertical-or short run-take-off planes, which unlike the Mig 21 are not dependent on long runways. But none of these are available to the Vietnamese. The above article is taken from the 17 June issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French Section of the Fourth International. The commentator, in an unmistakable message to the Kremlin bureaucrats who were wining and dining A merica's number one war criminal, WESTE "It is obvious that in order for the children of the world to be able to avoid being massacred and to live in peace, the adults will have to oppose the American imperialists and not recoil in the face of their threats. All men of conscience must distinguish between what is reasonable and what is absurd, between what is good and what is evil, between friends and enemies." "During a banquet, Nixon bragged that he would like to create a world of peace for all peeples", the newspaper observed, adding that "the president's fine words are being drowned out by the noise of the American bombs that day and night are plunging the Vietnamese homeland into mourning.
After noting that "Nixon says that the great powers must set an example and not let themselves be drawn into controntations provoked by small powers", the commentator asks: "Does he want the great powers to follow the example being set by the United States in Vietnam? He threatens other countries so that they will let the United States have its way, and he denies them the right to support the victims of aggression. This kind of talk is coming from an international hooligan."
Another North Vietnamese statement was reported by syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak in the June 14 New York Post. According to Evans and Novak, the North Vietnamese "accused the Soviet Union of putting its own 'national interests over those of the world revolution", They quote the following from the May 21 North Vietnamese army newspaper: "Communists always consider the revolution of each nation an inseparable part of the world revolution. They never set national interests against the interests of the world revolution nor place private national interests above the common interests of the world revolution, much less serve their own national selfishness." The only way to answer Nixon's latest offensive in Vietnam, it says, is by "a relentless attack against the U.S. imperialists." The refusal of the Vietnamese to give up in the face of the brutal U.S. aggression continues to inspire and set an example of struggle for all people fighting for freedom from oppression around the world. The Soviet government's denial of adequate military aid to Vietnam and its collaboration with the U.S. ruling class against the Vietnamese is a despicable betrayal of this international struggle.
The above is taken from the 30 June issue of The Militant, weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance in the United States.
and anti-Russian naval surveillance, under the guise of carrying out deepsea fishing. Nixon's visit to see the Shah after his trip to Moscow has also underlined US concern about an area on which the US will increasingly have to rely as its own oil production runs down while its demand shoots up. The key to revolutionary strategy and therefore to counter-revolutionary strategy is the state of the mass movements in the Gulf states. On its own Dhofar does not directly menace the oil monopolies. But if its example can be followed by mass action and urban guerrilla attacks in the Gulf states then the position of the monopolies will be threatened. Since the start of 1972 there have been two waves (mid-March, mid-May) of strikes and demonstrations in Bahrain, the first since 1965. These have been met by armoured cars and mass arrests. In Dubai oil workers have been on strike demanding the right to unionise and higher wages; the ruler Sheikh Rashid has tried to replace local Arabs by bringing in scab labour from India. In Oman itself corruption in the state apparatus has been causing increased anger: the Minister of Health has appointed himself sole authorised supplier of medicines to the ministry and is believed to have embezzled several tens of thousands of pounds. It is too early to say how strong these different trends are. But the extension of the war from Dhofar to the Gulf is the strategic priority.