MISERY
LOVES COMPANY
The
pious pomposity of the "lessons" we are supposed to have learned
from our great defeat is almost too much to bear, and I point
them out to my readers only because such pain cannot be borne
alone. "It changed America in innumerable ways, for better
and for worse." For better? When a writer falls into
bromides like "for better and for worse" – for richer
and for poorer, in sickness and in health – you know
he's trying to get away with something, and in this case it's
the appalling idea that there was anything good about the
Vietnam war. Like what, fr'instance? In the next sentence
the Times mournfully notes that the war "undermined
a generation's faith in the judgment and truthfulness of its
military and diplomatic leaders" – and you just know
they don't mean that. Oh no, the alleged great benefit
of this bloody sacrifice on the altar of the war god was that
"it taught us that the United States must not commit its soldiers
to protracted combat in the absence of clear security interests,
and that future wars cannot be fought without the support
of the American people." But only yesterday these same editorial
writers were earnestly egging Bubba on as he disdained the
concept of the "national interest" as the guiding principle
of American foreign policy and reduced much of Yugoslavia
to rubble in the name of "human rights." Now we're getting
to the really unbearable part, where our editorial
writer intones a solemn dirge, the anthem of his own hypocrisy:
"For
these and many other reasons, the Vietnam War Memorial in
Washington is different from the other monuments where America
honors its fallen soldiers. The starkness and simplicity of
the memorial, with the names of each soldier etched in polished
black granite, reminds visitors that no victory is celebrated
on this spot, no noble cause honored in memory of those who
sacrifice their lives. The monument instead commemorates as
needless sacrifice of troops who were betrayed by a president
who prosecuted a war he did not believe in for a goal that
he could not define in public speeches or private conversation.
That, more than anything, is what the nation must remember
this week, and that is why the words of Lyndon Johnson still
sting."
PAY
ANY PRICE?
What
words are they talking about?: Well, it seems that Johnson
once "confided" in a conversation with Senator Richard Russell
that he just didn't see the point of sending soldiers (speaking
specifically of one of his valets) into the rice paddies of
Vietnam: "And what the hell are we going to get out of his
doing it?" Johnson is supposed to have asked. "And it just
makes the chills run up my back." As well it should have.
But what of it? The war was never LBJ's idea to begin with,
it was the sainted John F. Kennedy who really escalated both
the number of American "advisors" in South Vietnam and their
scope of action. Here was a warmonger the New York Times could
love, perhaps because he expressed the rationale for getting
sucked in to another ground war on the Asian landmass in ringing
tones – as he did rather eloquently in his
first inaugural address, on a frigid Winter day in 1961:
"We
dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first
revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place,
to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to
a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered
by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our
ancient heritage – and unwilling to witness or permit the
slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has
always been committed, and to which we are committed today
at home and around the world.
"Let
every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that
we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the
survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge –
and more."
BEAR
ANY BURDEN?
The
price was higher than anyone imagined at the time. Yet the
ruler of "Camelot" is absolved – not even mentioned!
– by the self-appointed War Crimes Tribunal over on West
43rd Street. Unlike the glamorous JFK, LBJ was
a hideous old buzzard who had not been anointed by the elites
but merely filled in for one who had. Yet it was the Anointed
One who jumped into the Vietnamese quagmire headfirst, a determination
ominously foreshadowed in his famous inaugural speech. After
pledging to our "old allies" our undying devotion, an open-ended
commitment of troops and treasure, Kennedy turns to "those
new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free":
"We
pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not
have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron
tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting
our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting
their own freedom – and to remember that, in the past, those
who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger
ended up inside."
IN
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
It
was Americans, tens of thousands of young American soldiers,
who wound up in the Vietnamese tiger's belly, and it was Kennedy
who defended
our growing involvement in the Autumn of 1963 against
the gentle blandishments of Walter Cronkite:
"I
don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would
be a great mistake. That would be a great mistake. I know
people don't like Americans to be engaged in this kind of
an effort. Forty-seven Americans have been killed in combat
with the enemy, but this is a very important struggle even
though it is far away. We took all this-made this effort to
defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to
participate-we may not like it-in the defense of Asia."
FAMILIAR
PHRASES
In
the familiar phrases of militant Cold War liberalism, Kennedy
conjured the memory of America's "good war" to justify the
one at hand – not unlike the War Party of today, which
discovers a new "Hitler" every couple of years (or is that
months?) in order to justify a policy of perpetual war. Don't
worry, said Kennedy to the Third World, we won't abandon you
to the Commies:
"To
those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling
to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts
to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required
– not because the Communists may be doing it, not because
we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society
cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few
who are rich."
THE
LIBERALS' WAR
The
world-savers and do-gooders who thought they were the pioneers
of a "New Frontier" were merely the victims of their own hubris:
not only were we going to take on the Communists, but also
poverty and misery on a world scale – the alleged "underlying
causes" of Communism. Vietnam was the liberals' war, and the
new administration was the perfect incubator for the impending
disaster. Kennedy was just as hard on the Vietnam question
as his successors, not only Johnson but also Richard Nixon.
In a September interview with Chet Huntley
HUNTLEY:
"Are we likely to reduce our aid to South Vietnam now?"
JFK.
"I don't think we think that would be helpful at this time.
If you reduce your aid, it is possible you could have some
effect upon the government structure there. On the other hand,
you might have a situation which could bring about a collapse.
Strongly in our mind is what happened in the case of China
at the end of World War II, where China was lost-a weak government
became increasingly unable to control events. We don't want
that."
BRINKLEY:
"Mr. President, have you had any reason to doubt this so-called
"domino theory," that if South Vietnam falls, the rest of
Southeast Asia will go behind it ?"
JFK:
"No, I believe it. I believe it. I think that the struggle
is close enough. China is so large, looms so high just beyond
the frontiers, that if South Vietnam went, it would not only
give them an improved geographic position for a guerrilla
assault on Malaya but would also Live the impression that
the wave of the future in Southeast Asia was China and the
Communists. So I believe it."
THE
OLIVER STONE SCHOOL OF REVISIONISM, DEBUNKED
Robert
F. Kennedy confirms
his brother's determined interventionism even in the face
of an imploding political situation in Saigon, and the collapse
of public support at home – and so the Oliver Stone school
of revisionist history on this subject, as retailed on the
editorial page of the New York Times, is utterly without foundation.
I
DON'T LIKE IKE
But
while Kennedy may take a good part of the blame for escalating
the conflict to the point where it was noticed by the average
American, then it was Eisenhower who was the first to stake
our fateful claim. And it wasn't the Left that first raised
the alarm, but a veteran America Firster, the Old Right journalist
John T. Flynn. In a radio commentary broadcast on January
15, 1952, the conservative publicist pointed out that the
Eisenhower administration was bankrolling French colonialists
in their bid to retain their Indochinese empire, giving "hundreds
of millions of dollars in materials and arms." The war was
"sapping France" – just as it would drain us of our lifeblood
if we intervened. The US would be "put in the position of
aiding the aggressors against the people, while Russia will
pose as the defender of the natives against the European aggressors."
Against the rising outcry that the free world was facing a
"setback" in the region, Flynn bluntly replied: "Indo-China
is not part of the free world. It is a captive country. The
captors are the French."
THE
SKEPTIC
Just
as he had rejected the interventionist arguments of the 1930s,
when the Left was demanding that the US open up a "second
front" to save the Soviet Union and the empires of Europe,
so Flynn scoffed at when the cry went up – from many
of the same people – demanding that we launch a global
holy war against our formerly noble allies. The globalists,
said Flynn, "frighten us by telling us Stalin will come over
to eat us up, just as they told us Hitler would come over
here." The War Party naturally backed Ike in 1952 because
"they believe he has taken his stand with Truman and Acheson
and Dulles for the mad program of scattering our wealth and
our income all over the world." Flynn believed that we would
come to regret the consequences of our nascent intervention
in the Far East, and he was right. America's role as financier
of the French would soon give way to that of pinch-hitter
for European imperialism. While most eyes were fixated on
the Korean peninsula, Flynn was convinced that the next big
foreign policy crisis was bound to break out in Indochina
in time for the 1952 presidential election. He was a bit off
in timing his prediction – but in this case, better too
early than too late.
THE
PLAGUE IS UPON US
The
curious inability of the Times editorial writer to
comprehend how his solemn invocation of "lessons learned"
contradicts everything else that appears on the same page
in regard to Kosovo is a mental affliction that has all the
characteristic of a growing plague. It is a form of dementia,
apparently, where the victim is so blind to his own mendacity
that he has about him the air of an innocent – even while
he literally wallows in his own hypocrisy, in public and in
print. Which brings us to the subject of Todd Gitlin, and
his contribution to a Salon symposium dutifully entitled
"What
did we learn from Vietnam?"
'REVISIONISM'
SUI GENERIS
In
an introduction, the editors of Salon coyly note that
"each time the country is called upon to weigh the costs of
intervention – Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and elsewhere –
the lessons of Vietnam are revisited and revised." Revised
is hardly the word: completely rewritten to mean the
exact opposite is more like it, as the pathetic case of Gitlin
– official chronicler and glorifier of the New Left,
author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,
and a failed novelist – makes clear. The war, in Gitlin's
view, was an unremitting mistake, from beginning to end, and
the great lesson was to
"remind
subsequent political leaders that they should not arrogantly
assume that they can work their political will wherever and
whenever they want. It convinced them moreover that they should
think twice before committing American military forces without
major alliances – it damaged the prospect for unilateral
action, which is a good thing. Overall, it was an absolutely
horrible moment in American history."
GITLIN
CHILLS OUT
Notice
here the first sign of the coming sellout. It isn't just intervention
that is the problem, but only unilateral action by
the US. But what does he think the Vietnam war was: troops
from South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere stood shoulder to
shoulder with American troops. The Southeast Atlantic Treaty
Organization (SEATO), put in place by Dean Acheson and John
Foster Dulles, was the Asian counterpart to NATO. US troops
did not fight alone against the Vietcong: virtually all of
the "Free World" countries sent contingents, at first, so
that at least the fig-leaf of multi-lateralism covered up
the reality of American power as the driving force behind
the military effort. This didn't seem to impress young Todd
back in the sixties, his "days of rage": however, now that
he's sufficiently chilled out and "matured," his views seemed
to have undergone a weird inversion. Instead of lecturing
the elites about how they ought to give peace a chance, Gitlin
is scolding them for having lost their nerve: he berates
the military for its reluctance to jump into the Balkans
quickly as Gitlin and others would like, and turns on his
former comrades in the antiwar movement:
"Some
people on the left and on the right have concluded from the
Vietnam War, on the isolationist side, that the U.S. should
not commit military force anywhere for any purpose. I think
that's mistaken. Because the US was criminally wrongheaded
in the case of Vietnam, it does not follow that there can
be no legitimate use of force. I think a use of force toward
humanitarian ends is legitimate. It should be done in alliance
– it should not be done unilaterally. It would have been
absolutely right to do it in Rwanda, it was right to do it
in Bosnia, and it would have been right to do it in Kosovo,
where it should have been done earlier."
A
BADGE OF HONOR
The
Gitlin of old is no more, if he ever was. Would the "raging"
Gitlin of his long-lost youth have thought to call the antiwar
demonstrators of the sixties "isolationists"? The old epithet
of Cold War liberalism, the smear word that is meant to characterize
opponents of war as archaic eccentrics, futile crusaders against
modernity, is revived – and should be worn by all opponents
of the New World Order as a badge of honor.
A
PENCHANT FOR THUGS
To
the undiscerning reader – and we all know Salon has
plenty of those – the trick phrase "commit military force"
could mean committing violence per se, rather than
committing troops to some specific (overseas) hot-spot. Gitlin
deliberately confuses noninterventionism with pacifism: the
two, while not mutually exclusive, are hardly the same. In
any case, the new antiwar movement sees through the myth of
"collective security": by extending our alliances to the ends
of the earth, by guaranteeing the peace and "security" of
Azerbaijan and Estonia, the Middle East and the islands of
the Pacific, we make our condition more precarious,
not less. Along with our ever-widening "alliances," the threat
of war is also extended – but to Gitlin this is a good
thing. For opposition to war was never really his shtick,
and the passage of the years has clarified his views: it was
never the vision of a peaceful society that energized the
posturing little Lenins of the New Left, but their infatuation
with utopian schemes to uplift and better the masses, whom
they were condescending to "save." It was only natural that
having chanted "Ho, ho, Ho Chin Minh, the NLF is gonna win!"
and waving Vietcong flags, the "antiwar" protesters of the
yesterday's Left would become today's cheerleaders for the
Kosovo "Liberation" Army – yet another gang of Third-Worldish-looking
thugs with a fondness for red flags and a yen for "revolution."
Only this time they have NATO to back them up. Could anything
be more dangerous, or more grotesque? The addled Gitlin has
gone full-circle. From "give peace a chance," yesteryear's
peacenik is now asking us to give war a chance:
"But
the war traumatized American elites and led them to stall
where they could have actually done some good with military
force. The Weinberger principle is the recourse of elites
whose political grip was loosened, or even shattered, by a
horrendous mistake in Vietnam, and I'm glad they learned something.
It's certainly the case that political support is an absolute
requirement in a democratic society for an extended military
intervention, and it should be very rare. I would not accept
the interpretation that would bar the use of military force
in low investment, relatively rapid commitments of military
force in cases like Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo. I'm speaking in
favor of the possibility, not the inevitability, of military
intervention in alliance with substantial other forces whose
responsibility should not be usurped by us."
I
CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE
Here
is someone who spent the Vietnam war in the safe confines
of a university dormitory denouncing America's political and
military elites as a bunch of cowards. This is not unexpected
in a world where that other famous Vietnam era peacenik, William
Jefferson Clinton, is now known as one of the most warlike
presidents in American history. But it does raise the question:
Are we to be spared nothing?
UNLEARNING
THE LESSON
The
lessons of Vietnam, if they were ever learned, have been rather
conspicuously unlearned by the very "boomers" who once
sought to instruct us all in the basics of geopolitical morality.
Now they posture as the crusaders of a new globalist dispensation,
messianic prophets of "humanitarian" interventionism. But
nothing has really changed: the new act is not all that different
from the old. Only the cast of characters has changed. Instead
of LBJ agonizing over whether to endanger a single American
life in a cause not easily understood or justified, we have
Clinton (and Gitlin) glibly rationalizing the relentless bombardment
of one of the oldest cities in Europe as a "humanitarian"
act. It has been twenty-five years since the fall of Saigon
and the end of the Vietnam war – but the way some are
talking, and acting, it may as well be 2,500 years.
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