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Vietnam: Retrospective Part 4 of 8WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS about communism? Someone looking back who hadn’t lived through the Cold War Era might well wonder. It’s a defunct ideology practiced in a few backward and bankrupt countries. Okay, China isn’t exactly backward and bankrupt, but it isn’t exactly a communist enclave anymore. Capitalism rules the streets while a few geriatric communists rule the government palaces. “It's my fondest wish, that some day, every American will get down on their knees and pray to God that some day they will have the opportunity to live in a Communist Society.” - Jane Fonda Hayden, 1970 Face it. All other arguments aside, there were those anti-war activists who protested our involvement in Vietnam for the simple reason that we were denying the South Vietnamese the fruits of communism that their brethren in the north were already enjoying. They did not care what the South Vietnamese themselves wanted any more than they cared what we wanted for them. It's hard to debate against unless it can be demonstrated that communism would not only fail to provide any material advantage to the South Vietnamese, but also significantly harm them. Fortunately, we do not have to speculate on the possible outcome of a communist victory in South Vietnam. It is an accomplished fact and the results are readily apparent. Let's be honest. Communism has its allure. In theory, it seems that it ought to work. No class distinctions. Deprivations borne equally. The fruits and benefits of the community be shared equally. Happiness and sadness shared equally. However, communism only exists primarily because, as Thomas Sowell so aptly states, intellectuals have a penchant to “…replace what works with what ought to work.” This is why educators still preach it and, even today, students can be found on any American campus passing out copies of the Daily Worker. Unfortunately, communism in practice has never matched its theoretical possibilities. One of the problems with communism is that it requires a central authority to decide what the community will produce and how it will be shared. If this central authority is weak, the ideology fails because people are about as easy to herd as cats. This was well proven in one of the early communal experiments here in the United States. The Pilgrims formed a commune long before anyone defined communism. The land was owned by all and the fruits of their labor were stored in a communal warehouse. Families drew from the communal supplies and all starved equally. Many think that the Pilgrims were saved by the American natives who were their neighbors. In fact, the Pilgrim’s colony was on the verge of collapse even after the indigenous people taught them how to fertilize their crops with fish and hunt the forests. It was only after the Pilgrims abandoned their communal system and every family worked for themselves that the colony began to prosper. In all likelihood, it failed because the community was under the direction of a council of elders, a committee if you will. Their management was fragmented. Opportunities were missed and problems went unresolved for too long because committees are notoriously slow in responding to issues. Fortunately, the Pilgrims chose to relinquish responsibility for making economic decisions to the individual members of the community, thus giving birth to capitalism in America and giving them the liberty to take care of themselves. Had they chosen instead to retain the reins of authority, they would have ultimately attracted a tyrant. Tyrants always are drawn to the centers of power where they can grasp control. When people are free to exercise control over their lives as individuals, power is much too diluted to be grabbed by any one person. This is why history’s most iconic communist societies have all been ruled by tyrants, and they rule with a heavy hand. Stalin reputedly murdered at least 20 million of his own citizens. Mao murdered more than 80 million. Castro had a smaller population to work with and his death count only numbers in the tens of thousands. When communism failed, some communist leaders, most notably Chairman Mao Zedung, concluded that failures in communism were rooted in flaws in their citizens. They reasoned that people simply weren't constituted to live in a Utopian society. Mao attempted to create “perfect communists” during the Cultural Revolution. Children were taken from homes where they learned traditional Chinese values and mores, and sent to re-education centers where they were taught the skills and attitudes needed to be successful communists. Young intellectuals in the cities were sent to the countryside to learn the rigors of hard work. Youth gangs known as the Red Guards scoured the countryside for counter-revolutionaries, setting up their own tribunals, and persecuting many. Children were returned home to denounce their parents as traitors of the People's Revolution. Another appealing idea, but now a proven failure. Indeed, not only have the Chinese abandoned Mao's Cultural Revolution, but also, those who would redeem it are branded criminals. These communist leaders missed the point. The truth they refused to face was that their societies failed because of their own poor judgment. In a society where choices, especially economic choices, are left in the hands of individuals, their mistakes only harm themselves. However, in a centrally controlled society, the mistakes of leaders impact everyone. In Russia, for example, a committee had to set prices periodically on every one of the commodities and services sold there, from toothpaste to an oil change in a car (for those few who actually owned one). In a capitalistic society, these prices are set by agreement between buyers and sellers, and can vary greatly even within the same market region. Mistakes are borne only by the individuals who make them. As Thomas Sowell has observed so accurately, no one person, no matter how intelligent, can possess all the mundane information needed to know everything and make all decisions. Poor decisions lead to unintended consequences. Even in America, economic control has become increasingly centralized, and a large segment of the population is more than happy to accept entitlements when they equal or exceed the rewards of marginal employment. The incidence of welfare families has grown steadily ever since the inception of President Johnson's Great Society programs. Although the fate that waited the Vietnamese at the hands of the communists may have been a surprise to Ms. Fonda and company, it was no surprise to those who knew the Soviets or, as President Reagan called them, "The Evil Empire." The human toll was staggering. Stalin's disciples sent millions of South Vietnamese to re-education centers – prison camps – where more than 150,000 died (the toll may be exponentially greater). Hundreds of thousands were lost at sea attempting to flee communist deprivations. Three million refugees were forced to live in relocation centers – a few fortunate enough to integrate into other free societies.
Antiwar protesters argued that these were casualties of the United States intervention in Vietnam. The two halves of the country should have unified “peacefully” under the terms of the Geneva Convention that ended French Colonial Rule. But, there were those Vietnamese who didn’t want to live under communist rule. Shouldn’t they have been allowed to live the lives they chose in peace? Isn’t that what we were attempting to help them do? Still, the protesters argued: What right did America have to intervene?
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Vietnam: Retrospective Part 3 of 8HO CHI MINH was generally regarded by anti-war demonstrators as the George Washington of Vietnam leading the popular revolution that ultimately defeated French and then American occupiers, making way for a free and independent society. Furthermore, the myth-makers explain that America's support of the French drove Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese into the arms of the communists. In fact, that message seems to remain alive today in American schools and on American campuses where teachers and professors pass on the myth to their students. It is hard to understand how men like Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara become popular icons, celebrities actually, in the United States. Only ignorance can account for this. Men such as these do not stand up well under close scrutiny. Looking at Ho Chi Minh, for example, he betrayed the Vietnamese nationalistic movement. He delivered the country into the hands of the communists after they fought so long and well to free themselves from the French colonialists. No, Ho Chi Minh is nothing like George Washington. I should know. Washington and I share a birthdate, and I was reminded of this fact every year in the form of a cake embellished with cherries alluding to the myth of Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree and then owning up to it. As I studied history, I was fascinated to learn that Washington was far more complex and interesting as a real man. The myths fabricated to endear him to the citizenry and elevate him to giant proportions were distracting to me. I can imagine the same being true of any Vietnamese child learning about Bac Ho – Uncle Ho. “Truth is what is beneficial to the Fatherland and to the people. What is detrimental to the interests of the Fatherland and people is not truth. To strive to serve the Fatherland and the people is to obey the truth.” - Volume IV of Ho Chi Minh's Selected Works, from a 1956 speech. In fact, it’s difficult to find any parallels between the Father of America and the Father of Vietnam. For the Father of America to be compared to Ho, Washington would have had to have begun his career engineering the slaughter of American revolutionaries. Ho Chi Minh was abroad during the Second World War. He studied in America, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. He returned to France to help form the Communist Party there, and then returned to Vietnam when the war ended. The Vietnamese Nationalists welcomed him as a hero until they learned that Ho had signed agreements with the French allowing them to return with armed forces to reclaim the colony Japan had driven them from. The Nationalists fled to the hills and formed a revolutionary army, the Viet Minh, to fight for independence. Ho followed with French and Vietnamese forces bent on annihilating them. Ho's problem with the Nationalists was that they were not fighting for a communist state. Once he eradicated their leadership, he was able to transform the Viet Minh into a communist revolutionary army. Ho's history is also out of step with Washington's in that he did not suffer the privations and dangers of the battlefield. I'm not claiming that he was a coward. Ho simply was not up to the rigors of the battlefield. He suffered from tuberculosis. Other Vietnamese heroes led the front-line fight against the French and later the Americans. If anyone deserved the distinction as Vietnam's Father, it was Phan Boi Chau. He led the nationalist movement towards a free and democratic Vietnam which was antithetical to Ho's vision of a communist state. Chau might have succeeded but for the fact that Ho Chi Minh and his allies helped the French capture the leader of the Viet Minh in 1925 and execute him.
Ho then made his move to take command of the Viet Minh. Using his connections with the Soviets, he was able to offer them the promise of virtually unlimited funding and supplies. It was an offer they could not afford to reject. Once embedded as their new leader, Ho refashioned the Viet Minh (Free Vietnamese) into the Viet Cong (Red Vietnamese). With the defeat of the French foreign legion at Diem Ben Phu, the opposing sides met in Geneva to fashion a peace treaty. Ho was clearly upset that non-communist leaders from the Viet Minh sent their own representatives to the meeting. After much dickering, an agreement was fashioned to divide Vietnam into a communist enclave in the north and an anti-communist enclave in the south. The agreement crafted in Geneva also provided for free elections to unify the country at a later date. This provision of the treaty was seriously flawed inasmuch as the country was to be divided into two irreconcilable halves. The parties also agreed to allow Vietnamese to choose which half they wanted to live in. Ho was confident that his cause would prevail. However, he was greatly disappointed when hundreds of thousands queued up to flee communism. Ho was forced to allow a token amount to make the trek so as to appear to honor the accord. One must wonder: What caused so many to flee communism? Why can’t communism exist without the leadership of a strong tyrant and enforced loyalties? Vietnam: Retrospective Part 2 of 8“IT IS RIGHT to resist aggression…” - Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars. America, as well as every other nation has the right to defend itself but, Professor Walzer contends, there was no threat to America from the Vietnamese. And the anti-war movement held fast to this premise. However, there was a threat to America, and the rest of the Free World. It came from the Soviet Empire. Everyone in Europe and America felt the threat. It became as pervasive and persistent as tinnitus. However, as the Cold War heated up in Vietnam, another emotion seemed to drown it out. The war in Vietnam was a battlefield in the Cold War. The Soviet Union had usurped the victory of the Viet Minh over the French colonialists. The United States rushed in to “contain communism.” It’s as simple as that, but this is going to require a lot of explanation. Indeed, it sets the premise for all the remaining postings in this series. It raises the question: How did Vietnam become involved in the Cold War? It is no secret that the Soviet Union was set on world domination. They proclaimed their intentions openly at every opportunity. They maintained armies along the Iron Curtain that separated Free Europe from the Soviet Bloc, armies far in excess of any reasonable defensive needs. They boasted at the United Nations that they would bury us (meaning the United States). Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union prior to Khrushchev, crafted their strategy for world domination. It would first subjugate all of Asia, then Indochina. From there it would move on to bring Africa, then South America into its empire. Once these continents were firmly under the Soviet’s sphere of influence, Europe would fall and America would be isolated. Victory over the United States would be their crowning achievement. Again, none of this is speculation. Stalin was confident enough to speak openly of his plans. Stalin’s strategy was to employ insurgencies to topple governments from within. World War II had demonstrated that the Soviet Union did not have the resources to confront the “free world” in open warfare. Thus, he lured disaffected elements in targeted societies to champion his communist ideology with promises of weapons as well as diplomatic recognition. The Free World, led by America, adopted the Truman Doctrine of “containment.” Exhausted by World War II, no one wanted a direct confrontation. The Americans and allied Europeans chose instead to support whatever elements opposed Stalin’s communist insurgents regardless of their merit. Thus, they ended up supporting some very unsavory tyrants at times. The two sides, the Free World and the Soviet Empire, maneuvered for advantage, one timid, the other aggressive. Occasionally, the two sides met in heated battles such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. In all three cases, the regular forces of one, the Americans or the Soviets, engaged the clients of the other. The two main belligerents, Russia and the United States, never engaged directly. They were precluded from main battle because both possessed weapons of mass destruction that would result in “Mutual Assured Destruction.” As Ray Bradbury famously said in that time, “We should worship at the altar of the atomic bomb.” It prevented World War III. However, that did not prevent people from dying, as in Vietnam. Warfare is not for the faint of heart. But, if there is one lesson that was hammered home repeatedly during the Twenty-First Century, it was this: The faint of heart encouraged more wars than did anyone else. Harold Wilson and his allies appeased Herr Hitler time and again. In the years leading up to World War II, Hitler dreamed of conquest but was forestalled by the simple fact that the combined might of the French army and the British navy outgunned and outmanned Germany. However, he began to doubt their resolve to employ these forces, and he opened his campaign with probing actions. Would they respond if he subjugated Czechoslovakia? He annexed the Sudetenland, and when no one objected, he invaded the rest of the country. France and England responded by making a treaty to defend Poland. Next, Hitler annexed a portion of Poland. In failing to honor their treaty with Poland before the ink was even dry on the paper, France and England sent a clear message to Hitler that they had no resolve to defend others and, possibly, not even themselves. Thus, appeasement fed the fires of war. In the case of Korea, Truman and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, sent mixed signals about their willingness to defend South Korea. Although Stalin was reluctant to take advantage of the situation, a brash young Korean leader, Kim Il Sung, prevailed on him to support his attempt to unify the peninsula under his control, and the Korean War began. The Soviets suspected John Kennedy lacked resolve. His tolerance of communism’s encroachment in the Western Hemisphere surprised the Soviets. They were astounded by his decision at the Bay of Pigs. That’s not to say that Kennedy erred in withdrawing support for the invasion of Cuba, but the Soviets perceived it as a lack of resolve. When Kennedy later backed down the Soviets over the installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba, they blamed the weakness of Khrushchev rather than questioning their judgment of Kennedy. Ultimately, their success in Cuba encouraged them to pursue their objectives elsewhere, thereby setting the stage for war in Vietnam.
Warfare may appear exciting when viewed on the History Channel but, in reality, the time between battles is filled with much longer periods of resting, regrouping, rearming, and maneuver. A battle is often more influenced by where it is fought than by how it is fought. Armies maneuver to choose the best terrain. If the other side arrives to find that their enemy is firmly entrenched in the most advantageous positions, they will retire to another location, threaten the enemy from another quarter, and attempt to draw them into battle where they have the advantage. However, on occasion, while maneuvering, the forces bump into each other, and a battle commences. Much like the battle of Gettysburg, the opposing forces may be drawn together by people and circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Neither Lee nor the Yankee commanding general, McClellan, intended to join battle at Gettysburg. Two scouting parties ran into each other there and called for reinforcements. Soon, the main armies arrived and the battle lines were formed almost organically. Individual initiative on that first day, especially at Little Round Top, decided the outcome. In like manner, the forces that came together in Vietnam met there by accident. The Soviets, emboldened by events in Cuba, opened the next stage of their campaign at world domination in Southeast Asia. They probed with insurgencies in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Fortunately, the communists succeeded only in Vietnam. However, their victory was costly. Forced to focus all their energy and resources in Vietnam, they lost on all other fronts and the greater war in Southeast Asia went to the Free World. Had the United States not abandoned the South Vietnamese, they would not have won on even that front. The question that remains is this: Why did Vietnam become the focal point of the war in Southeast Asia? Simply, the opposing forces of the Free World and the Soviet Union came together in Vietnam when Stalin’s disciple, Ho Chi Minh, usurped control of the Viet Minh. 8/27/2012 2 Comments Are you ready for a ride through the history of the Vietnam war? It's gonna be bumpyVietnam: Retrospective Part 1 of 8THIS IS THE FIRST of an eight-part series in which I will look into the Vietnam War, its causes, its conduct, and its result. I have already written extensively about my participation in it, and the perspective that experience provided. This series will expand on that knowledge to include more that was acquired through years of research. These are not questions that can be answered with slogans or chants. They require a historical perspective as well as honest testimony. It's sad that with all this information available as well as hindsight, there are still those, especially on American campuses, who have little more to offer than the chants of the anti-war protesters who marched in the streets during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is not an academician's tome. There won't be any footnotes or citations. I want to make it as readable as possible to the widest possible audience. Now you may think that it is the product of an amateur, and that it should not be taken seriously. However, inasmuch as none of the journalists, pundits, politicians, and academics who have guided the debate about the war in Vietnam to this point, have made any effort to authenticate their sources, I don't see why I should be held to a higher standard. If anyone wants to challenge me on a particular point, I will be glad to lay my cards on the table, but they will have to lay theirs down first. After all, they will be the ones calling me. [Note: Find yourself a poker player to explain that metaphor if you don't understand it.] In this first installment, I will touch on what the war in Vietnam was not.
I will attempt to address each in detail. I say attempt because at least one, “Vietnam was a rich man's war” is indecipherable. It seems only to be a cry of class envy. Although novel in that time, it is one that resonates with many people today. Before I continue, let me make it clear that I am not opposed to dissent. I have cited President Eisenhower frequently in my writings on this subject. “Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” I have dissented to the policies and actions of our government on many occasions. Indeed, I am vigorously opposed to our current President and his allies in Congress, who have, in thought and in deed, pursued goals for our nation that I deem incredibly destructive and wholly at odds with constitutionally consistent institutions that I hold dear. I am vocal in my dissent. I encourage and support others who dissent at my side. However I may disagree with the current Administration and any citizens who support it, I respect their right to oppose me. I will defend their right to voice and act on their beliefs no matter how misguided I may believe them to be. I expect the same in return. However, there is a difference between honest dissention and unlawful protest. For as much as I will defend anyone’s right to dissent, I will not support protests like those that included the harassment of servicemen and women. I will not only encourage the prosecution and punishment of those who participate in unlawful acts, but also help their victims defend themselves. In fact, this history is part of that effort. Our schools and documentarians are promulgating the myths espoused by the Vietnam War dissenters and protesters to this day. They teach them to our children and their progeny. They repeat them among themselves and in public displays and discussions to the continuing detriment of American foreign policy. There are some who still attempt to inflict guilt on the veterans of that war. I know. I have been a target of those assaults. Unfortunately for them and their cause, I am not a willing victim. I believe I not only have the right to defend myself and other veterans, but also an obligation to do so. Imperialism “Imperialism” is frequently used as a four-letter word to condemn a nation or its leaders. Do you know what it really means? Simply put, it is one nation making another its subject. It’s the way that empires are created. America frequently has been accused of imperialism, arguably true in the case of the conquest of the North American Continent including the wars with the native populations as well as Mexico and Spain. Although it later ceded its claims on Cuba and the Philippines, and granted sovereignty to some land to North American native tribes (albeit less desirable land than that which their ancestors held), it was still guilty of blatant imperialism in those times and, like Mark Twain, I am opposed to imperialism. “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” Mark Twain, A Pen Warmed-Up In Hell
Was America attempting to subjugate Vietnam? There is no evidence to support this claim. Ultimately, we left voluntarily without reserving any claim whatsoever, thereby belying any charge of imperialism. Anyone who cares to argue this point further must demonstrate that any such intent ever existed. They must satisfactorily explain what advantage there might have been in annexing South Vietnam. Vietnam had no known natural resources that the United States coveted. I was once told that our fleet of B-52 bombers, one of the legs of the U.S. Triad of Strategic Defense in those days, could not land on synthetic rubber tires. We had to make sure that we had a ready supply of rubber to keep those bombers in the air. Well, I was never able to confirm this theory, even after contacting veterans who had serviced the big planes. What else did Vietnam have to offer? Cheap labor? Their agrarian population wasn’t qualified at that time to man production lines. Rice? We produced more rice in America than was ever produced in the Mekong Delta. Oil? Yes, deposits of crude have been discovered off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea, but not then. Also, in those days, America had its own abundant oil reserves. Finally, South Vietnam had no strategic assets, no port nor anything that would warrant the expenditure of lives and treasure to secure it from invasion from its Northern neighbor. Of course, these days people charge the United States with subjugating other nations economically. It is true that there was a time when the United States could have more easily and cheaply bought many nations instead of bombing them into servitude. That may have been true during other times, but not during the period of the Vietnam War. The invaders of South Vietnam were being financed by the Soviet Empire and they were not to be bought off cheaply. Morality Anti-war protesters during the Vietnam period were quite adamant that it was immoral. However, veterans of that movement seem to have finally abandoned that argument. They now speak in terms of “just” versus “unjust” wars. I think that they’re on firmer ground there. Morality is, after all, a judgment to be applied to individual actions rather than society at large. One of the intellectual leaders of the anti-war movement in that time was Michael Walzer, a prominent political philosopher and professor emeritus of Princeton University. I recommend his book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. (Yes, believe it or not, I read those authors with whom I disagree. I recommend the practice highly.) Generally, although Professor Walzer allows that a war may be just, he argues that America’s war in Vietnam was not. Basically, I agree with him in almost every detail save one: He declares that the war was unjust. Inasmuch as I will be addressing that in another installment in this series, I beg your indulgence until then. However, I recommend that you read Just and Unjust Wars to prepare yourself to debate if you disagree with me. Vital Interests The concept that the United States should not engage in war unless its vital interests are at risk was first promulgated by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in 1984. Thus, that argument wasn’t heard in the ranks of the Vietnam war’s defenders or dissenters. In those days, the anti-war movement simply said that “it wasn’t our war.” But, it was. Again, I’ll beg your indulgence to allow me to debate this point in a later posting wherein it will be more appropriate. I’ve already challenged my reader’s endurance with the length of this posting. To be continued… In the coming installments in this series I will address the following:
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