Vietnam’s Real Lessons - CommonDreams.org

Finding the debacle of the Vietnam War a rationale for sustaining the U.S. military presence in Iraq requires considerable imagination. If nothing else, President Bush’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars earlier this week revealed a hitherto unsuspected capacity for creativity. Yet as an exercise in historical analysis, his remarks proved to be self-serving and selective.

For years, the Bush administration has rejected all comparisons

between Iraq and Vietnam. Now the president cites Vietnam to bolster his insistence on “seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy.” To do otherwise, he says, will invite a recurrence of the events that followed the fall of Saigon, when “millions of innocent citizens” were murdered, imprisoned or forced to flee.

The president views the abandonment of our Southeast Asian allies as a disgrace, deploring the fate suffered by the “boat people” and the victims of the Khmer Rouge. According to Bush, withdrawing from Iraq constitutes a comparable act of abandonment. Beyond that, the president finds little connection between Vietnam and Iraq. This is unfortunate. For that earlier war offers lessons of immediate relevance to the predicament we face today. As the balance of the president’s VFW address makes clear, Bush remains oblivious to the history that actually matters.

Here are a few of the lessons that he overlooks.

In unconventional wars, body counts don’t really count. In the Vietnam War, superior American firepower enabled U.S. forces to prevail in most tactical engagements. We killed plenty of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. But killing didn’t produce victory — the exertions of U.S. troops all too frequently proved to be counterproductive.

So too in Iraq — although Bush insists on pretending otherwise. His speech had him sounding like President Lyndon Johnson, bragging that, in each month since January, U.S. troops in Iraq have “killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists.” If Bush thinks that by racking up big body counts the so-called surge will reverse the course of the war, he is deceiving himself. The real question is not how many bad guys we are killing, but how many our continued presence in Iraq is creating.

There’s no substitute for legitimacy. Wars like Vietnam and Iraq aren’t won militarily; at best, they are settled politically. But political solutions imply the existence of legitimate political institutions, able to govern effectively and to command the loyalty of the population.

In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist. Despite an enormous U.S. investment in nation-building, they never did. In the end, South Vietnam proved to be a fiction.

So too with Iraq, conjured up by the British after World War I out of remnants of the Ottoman Empire. As a courtesy, we might pretend that Iraq qualifies as a “nation-state,” much as we pretend that members of Division I varsity football programs are “scholar-athletes.” In fact, given its deep sectarian and tribal divisions, Iraq makes South Vietnam look good by comparison.

In his VFW presentation, Bush described Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki as “a good guy.” Whether Maliki is a good guy or even a heckuva good guy is beside the point. The real question is whether he presides over a government capable of governing. Mounting evidence suggests that the answer to that question is no.

As a lens for strategic analysis, ideology distorts rather than clarifies. From Dwight D. Eisenhower through Richard M. Nixon, a parade of presidents convinced themselves that defending South Vietnam qualified as a vital U.S. interest. For the free world, a communist takeover of that country would imply an unacceptable defeat.

Yet when South Vietnam did fall, the strategic effect proved to be limited. The falling dominoes never did pose a threat to our shores for one simple reason: The communists of North Vietnam were less interested in promoting world revolution than in unifying their country under socialist rule. We deluded ourselves into thinking that we were defending freedom against totalitarianism. In fact, we had blundered into a civil war.

With regard to Iraq, Bush persists in making an analogous error. In his remarks to the VFW, the president described Iraq as an “ideological struggle.” Our adversary there aims to crush “freedom, tolerance and dissent,” he said, thereby “imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world.” If we don’t fight them “there,” we will surely have to fight them “here.”

Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden do subscribe to a hateful ideology. But to imagine that Bin Laden and others of his ilk have the capability to control the Middle East, restoring the so-called Caliphate, is absurd, as silly as the vaunted domino theory of the 1950s and 1960s.

Politics, not ideology, will determine the future of the Middle East. That’s good news and bad news. Good news because the interests and aspirations of Arabs and non-Arabs, Shiites and Sunnis, modernizers and traditionalists will combine to prevent any one faction from gaining the upper hand. Bad news because those same factors guarantee that the Middle East will remain an unstable mess for the foreseeable future.

Sometimes people can manage their own affairs. Does the U.S. need to attend to that mess? Perhaps not.

Here the experience of Vietnam following the U.S. defeat is instructive. Once the Americans departed, the Vietnamese began getting their act together. Although not a utopia, Vietnam has become a stable and increasingly prosperous nation. It is a responsible member of the international community. In Hanoi, the communists remain in power. From an American point of view, who cares?

Bush did not even allude to the condition of Vietnam today. Yet the question poses itself: Is it not possible that the people of the Middle East might be better qualified to determine their future than a cadre of American soldiers, spooks and do-gooders? The answer to that question just might be yes.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is a Vietnam War veteran.

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25 Comments so far

Nathaniel Heidenheimer August 26th, 2007 2:15 pm

Yes, Gareth Porter in his book Perils of Dominance says that by 1953 the CIA no longer beleived in the Domino Theory. It continued to be used as a tactic to build public support for sending soldiers half way around the world to such a skinny country that did not, by itself, seem like a threat.
http://www.amazon.com/Perils-Dominance-Imbalance-Power-Vietnam/dp/0520239482

Also see Peter Dale Scott’s tracing of the domestic suppression tactics of the Vietnam Era, like Operation Garden Plot,to the Continutiy of Government Plans first implemented by Cheyney on 9/11. See his new book The Road to 9/11 by Peter Dale Scott

http://www.amazon.com/Road-11-Wealth-Empire-America/dp/0520237730

Dichterfreund August 26th, 2007 2:44 pm

“In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist. Despite an enormous U.S. investment in nation-building, they never did. In the end, South Vietnam proved to be a fiction.”

This is one of the hardest things for veterans to admit — and of course the Republicowards still deny — is that there never was a ‘South Vietnam’ outside of the US’s maintenance of its own self-generated fraud. That means that the Vietnam war was not a war primarily in Vietnam, but a war against the Vietnamese, full stop.

“Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden do subscribe to a hateful ideology. But to imagine that Bin Laden and others of his ilk have the capability to control the Middle East, restoring the so-called Caliphate, is absurd, as silly as the vaunted domino theory of the 1950s and 1960s.”

The whole ‘Islam is taking over’ business is much MORE delusional than the domino theory.

kathyodat August 26th, 2007 3:10 pm

Bush is blowing smoke. He could care less about democracy. Does he show any concern for it in our own country (consider his executive orders and attitude that it would be easier to be a dictator and the Constitution being “just a G-damned piece of paper”)? Does this sound remotely like someone who admires Thomas Jefferson? And he hasn’t paid attention to Osama bin Laden for years.

This is about getting control of Iraq’s oil reserves. Please remember those are PERMANENT military bases he’s built. He will go on killing Iraqi men, women, and children until he can force through his oil benchmark giving the oil reserves to the big five oil companies, who are eagerly waiting on the sidelines.

ballsy August 26th, 2007 3:56 pm

this article is misleading in some ways. the “civil war” of vietnam & iraq did not exist until the US invaded. western commentators frequently play up the sectarian divisions in iraq, but (as in kosovo, btw), ethnic cleansing and the like did not occur at all until the west moved in. what does that tell you?

secondly, the most important parallel b/n iraq & vietnam is in the number of people killed, displaced, and traumatized. and a country’s environment ravished & destroyed (everything is not hunky dory in vietnam by any means. vast swathes of land are saturated w/agent orange, land mines, unexploded ordinance, etc. cancer rates, birth defects, etc., in some parts of the country are thru the roof. farmland is unusable b/c there are bombs every where. i guess the vietnamese can be thankful we did not yet have DU to shoot all over the countryside.)

the most disgusting thing of all about people like bacevich (who’s not the worst by any means, and who lost a son in iraq) is the amero-centrism of their perspective.

another parallel w/vietnam? the US getting its ass kicked.

frank1569 August 26th, 2007 4:34 pm

The “Bush Doctrine” calls for US global hegemony via our vast and ever-expanding military capacity. When such is the stated goal, there is no leave Iraq option, ever, since the stated goal is to use the military to force our global hegemony.

MichaelH August 26th, 2007 5:28 pm

First of all, I am a real fan of Prof. Bacevich and have read his books and columns. However, I, too, must take exception to the comment about “blundering into a civil war.” In Vietnam, there is no question that “the South Vietnamese” was a fictional creation, whose noble cause we could not possibly be defending. Now, we have the simple-minded press referring to “the Iraqis” as if the “insurgents” are not Iraqis, but Martians,instead.

It is not helpful to think of sectarian conflict as being unconnected to the foreign invasion and occupation. Collaborators have always been reviled by the loyalists. Think “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle”. The thing being studied is altered by the far-from-neutral unmentioned factor.

The US hegemons never intended to leave Iraq as the “facts on the ground” can attest. The Democratic “loyal opposition” even assumes this. If rapine is immoral, then reduction of troops by Christmas is a smokescreen. Complete withdrawal of every last vestige is the only means to establish righteousness.

jim46 August 26th, 2007 5:46 pm

“In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist.”
WHAT “partition” of French Indochina is Mr. Bacevich talking about exactly? Perhaps the TEMPORARY partition of the Geneva Agreements which called for a Provisional Military Demarcation Line separating North and South until All-Vietnam elections scheduled for July 1956? An election Ho Chi Minh was sure to win? The election which the National Security Council secretly decided to sabotage (by violence, repression and warfare) a few days after the Geneva Agreements were reached?
The U.S. invasion of Vietnam was to PREVENT democracy, because Ho would have easily won nationwide elections, and he would not serve as the compliant stooge required by U.S. policymakers. The myth of “North” and “South” Vietnam, or in this case, of a “partition of French Indochina”, lives on.

gde August 26th, 2007 7:50 pm

In an otherwise excellent article, Bacevich made an outlandish and horrifying statement; “In unconventional wars, body counts don’t really count”. It is true body counts don’t win these wars. It is true they don’t count to the killers when they are the US in Vietnam, Iraq, or many other places(*), or many other nations in the past and present.

Body counts matter very much to the survivors of the victims.

The US public rationale for mass murder in Iraq is based on one basic principle. If I kill your kid, you will submit to me. Now that I have raised a kid (at least to be a teenager), I know emotionally as well as intellectually how absurd that arguemend.

I sincerely doubt the death of Bacevich’s son in Iraq has nothing to do with his desire to speak. I am absolutely certain that few would know the name Cindy Sheehan if her son hadn’t died in Iraq.

(*) Quite literally in the case of the US military in Iraq. They refuse to accept the best estimate of the total casualties of the re-invasion of Iraq, and they ignore the casualties of the earlier phases known as the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions.

damon13 August 26th, 2007 8:31 pm

I agree with kathyodat, in content and especially tone. Bush is blowing smoke. This was a superb media spinning on the part of the administration. He accomplished first to bring up the Vietnam/Iraq similarity and twist it to serve his own interests, thus quelling the masses. And secondly he has led those with more intellectual interests into taking the time and effort to actually research the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq. It is a diversion. And it is rather useless. The atrocities, deceit, greed, corruption of the Iraq war stand on their own. The study of political interests behind wars is a great subject, but we aren’t here for a history class, we are hear to stop THIS war.

curmudgeon99 August 26th, 2007 10:19 pm

Ditto, kathyodat

This is one of the most incisive articles written about Bush’ speech,

Now let’s put our efforts to prevention.

The polls indicate Giuliani is the GOP frontrunner. The amazing support he has shows that our country still basically supports the war in Iraq, just not how it is being waged. He also strongly supports the limitation of civil rights.

His election would be like having a smart person who has the ideals of Bush & Cheney running the country.

I wonder how the VietNam, Iraq, Iran spin will be made.

JoeTWallace August 26th, 2007 10:35 pm

I, too, agree with kathyodat, especially her second paragraph. Now that the administration has built permanent bases, the chaos and instability resulting from our invasion and occupation will do quite nicely to justify the continued presence of U.S. troops, lest the situation “get out of hand” (as if it hasn’t already).

Last week, a video surfaced of Dick Cheney explaining why it was not a good idea to invade Iraq after the first Gulf War (the video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I). If invasion wasn’t a good idea back in 1991, I’ve been trying to imagine what might have changed to make it a good idea in 2003. If Cheney had, in fact, changed his mind, I was at first inclined to chalk it up to his being a career toady who reflexively echoed back to his superiors whatever they wanted to hear. But here’s a chilling thought. What if he didn’t change his mind? What if he fully expected carnage and destruction, chaos and instability, and went ahead with the invasion precisely because the resulting situation would justify an enduring American presence that would enable the United States to influence events in the Middle East and to assert control over the Iraqi oil reserves?

Just a thought.

kathyodat August 26th, 2007 10:53 pm

JoeTWallace, your chilling thought sounds like you’ve been reading the neocon handbook for world domination.

I’ve been thinking about this administration arming both sides in the civil war. Now, why would they do that while “promoting” democracy?

JoeTWallace August 26th, 2007 11:22 pm

Gosh, kathyodat, if people keep thinking along these lines and asking questions that “go off the reservation,” we may be accused of cynicism or (still worse) “not supporting the troops.”

damon13 August 27th, 2007 12:38 am

This is when i get pissy. JoeTWallace. You write ,”If Cheney had, in fact, changed his mind, I was at first inclined to chalk it up to his being a career toady who reflexively echoed back to his superiors whatever they wanted to hear. But here’s a chilling thought. What if he didn’t change his mind?”
And why do i get pissy? Cause you give it a second-thought. You fail to realize that these people know exactly what they are doing. They don’t go around la-te-da about their lives, they have advisors, they are fully complicit in their actions. We need to treat this DOUBLETHINK as a crime. We as American have no trouble portraying common criminals as ugly thugs, but what of their white collar companions, who steal more than all of little crime. Harsh crimes need equally harsh penalities

kathyodat August 27th, 2007 12:40 am

JoeTWallace, those FOX News viewers who think slapping a yellow magnet on their SUVs is supporting the troops and telling themselves the troops are dying for “our freedom” but in reality are hoping to get cheap oil for their SUVs are seriously deluded. The oil companies, who have partially parallel interests with the neocons, have no intention of providing cheap oil. This whole mess gives them an excuse to jack the price of oil, in addition to giving them control of future reserves.

The only who has really made out like a bandit is Cheney, who obviously had his reasons for appointing himself Vice President. “Cheney’s deferred compensation and stock option benefits are in addition to a $20 million retirement package paid to him by Halliburton after only five years of employment; a $1.4 million cash bonus paid to him by Halliburton in 2001; and additional millions of dollars in compensation paid to him while he was employed by the company.” It’s hard to believe that Halliburton would be so generous for 5 years of employment, but on the other had, look how generous Cheney has been to Halliburton with the taxpayers’ money.

We seriously need the National Initiative. I believe we are in a Constitutional crisis, exacerbated by Nancy Impeachment-off-the-Table Pelosi. And it’s not just the issue of impeachment. She has given Bush anything and everything he wants to be a dictator.

piniella August 27th, 2007 3:28 am

U.S. troops in Iraq have “killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists.”

If you do the math on this, we would’ve eliminated about 30% of the TOTAL insurgency. There hasn’t been a corresponding drop in violence, so….

curmudgeon99 August 27th, 2007 3:29 am

I think most US citizens are against the war as it is being fought and want a different approach.

That said, I think most US citizens support our presence in Iraq - not for oil, but because they have been led to believe that if we pull our troops out of Iraq, we will be fighting terrorists on the streets of the US. Also, by far and away, the majority of us do not comprehend the serious fact that as long as we are engaged in this illegal war, we all are technically liable to prosecution as war criminals for enabling our government’s policies that are causing so much suffering.

The majority are and have been more concerned with the ilk of American Idol TV shows and Second Life on-line fantasy worlds. I hear 10X as much concern about media personalities than the murderous effects of our foreign policies. This is a direct reversal of discussion percentages from the VietNam era.

Say what you will, this admin knows enough not to re-institute the draft. If the draft was in effect and members of Congressional families subjected to it, there would be no Iraq War and possibly no Afghan presence as well by this time. If you remember, it was the escalation of draft callups and casualties among draftees that started the pressure to quit VietNam

I don’t know the answers, but I do think that only when the majority of our citizens truly understand the death and destruction we are raining down in Iraq and Afghanistan will we have the courage to stand up to our policy makers. Until then we are the ones blowing smoke, hoping others will catch the flame and bring to light the true destructiveness of our present course.

It is so obscene to be funding war and destruction while cutting support for health, infrastructure, education.

IMHO

twistoflex August 27th, 2007 5:55 am

They want the Operation Iraqi Liberation!!!!

DuraMater August 27th, 2007 6:32 am

curmudgeon99, “That said, I think most US citizens support our presence in Iraq - not for oil, but because they have been led to believe that if we pull our troops out of Iraq, we will be fighting terrorists on the streets of the US.”

Oh, but we will! Remember Oklahoma City and McVeigh?

Joe Six-Pack just doesn’t know _who_ the terrorists will be - he thinks they’re Muslims. Whereas, if you read the blurb for that Left Behind computer game, it’s not Muslims who are insanely obsessed about something they call “The Rapture” …

bligh August 27th, 2007 7:57 am

The U.S. surely blundered into the Vietnam War, and supported a government (South Vietnam) that was corrupt and not worth supporting. That said, Millions of vietnamese did not want to live under a communist regime. Witness the exchange of populations when the demarcation lines were set dividing french indochina into North and South. Ten TIMES as many people went south (4 million) as went North (400 thousand). And once the U.S. was gone, the communist north DID invade the south, breaking every agreement they signed for the Paris Peace accords. Over a million supporters of the South Vietnamese government, Including their families, were thrown into camps for sometimes decades. Over 150,000 were killed.

As far as preventing democracy, The U.S. may have prevented an Election that could have brought the communists to power, but does anyone really believe that-once in power- the communists (like communist regimes everywhere) would have ever allowed anything like free elections? It has been over 30 years and the people are still waiting. The Vietnam War was not simply a civil war, It was a proxy war with the Soviet Union, China,North Korea, And the eastern bloc on one side, U.S., Australia, South Korea, Turkey, ect. on the other.

The U.S. support for South Vietnam may have been a mistake, but that doens’t make Ho and Company the good guys.

MaxheMust August 27th, 2007 10:27 am

In Vietnam, the ruling elite learned that it is best not to count non-american casulties of war. Having some knowledge of the millions of Vietnamese (including lots of women and little children) who were killed pissed off lots of Americans - and they took to they protested the war vigourously.

curmudgeon99 August 27th, 2007 4:18 pm

The only time we support a democracy is if “our guy” who will do what we want is elected.

Just look at the leaders we support - and the ones we don’t. If somone not to our liking is elected, we immediately undermine that leadership.

JoeTWallace August 27th, 2007 4:35 pm

“And why do i get pissy? Cause you give it a second-thought. You fail to realize that these people know exactly what they are doing. They don’t go around la-te-da about their lives, they have advisors, they are fully complicit in their actions. We need to treat this DOUBLETHINK as a crime. We as American have no trouble portraying common criminals as ugly thugs, but what of their white collar companions, who steal more than all of little crime. Harsh crimes need equally harsh penalities.”

Good call, damon13! You really are being pissy!

You’re right that the electorate has been seduced by DOUBLETHINK, but it’s the kind of DOUBLETHINK that every administration enjoys at the beginning of its tenure. Until the evidence mounts, every administration enjoys a grace period when it’s granted the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because we balk at believing that our elected government might be a criminal enterprise. Who didn’t want to believe President Bush when he said, “We don’t torture.” That grace period expired for this bunch some time ago.

From the outset, my instincts told me that Bush and his cronies were a bunch of spoiled frat brats. I thought wealth and class biases would blind them, insulate them, make them oblivious to the plight of many of their fellow citizens, not to mention people in other countries. And if, against all odds, certain facts and information were pressed on them and penetrated their consciousness, I expected these realities to be met with indifference. Sure enough, they’ve lived up to my expectations; they’ve been oblivious and indifferent. But they’re worse than that. Where they’ve exceeded my expectations is in the malignant, even criminal motivations that undergird much of what they have done.

Perhaps you agree that whatever divides us in this country, whether we’re Republicans or Democrats, whether we’re conservative or liberal/progressive in our outlook, few of us have entered a voting booth in a presidential election to vote for a criminal or to prevent one from taking power. We resist thinking that anyone occupying the oval office could possibly be a criminal; that’s just beyond the pale. When we step into the booth, we’re not voting for or against criminality; we’re voting for or against a candidate’s policies and politics. Which is not to say that we won’t keep an eye on whoever is elected, and hold them to account as evidence of wrongdoing is exposed.

distantocean August 27th, 2007 5:05 pm

Thanks to Andrew Bacevich for adding yet more perspective to the critical question of the real lesson of Vietnam, as a corrective for the silly Vietnamese who think the lesson is that the war “caused tremendous suffering and loss to the Vietnamese people” or that “The price we, the Vietnamese people on both sides, paid during the war was due to the fact that the Americans went into Vietnam in the first place.”

Bacevich clearly displays his priorities when he says that “killing didn’t produce victory”; after all, the deaths of non-Americans matter only to the extent that they impact American policy, and have no other conceivable significance. Or at least that would appear to be the crucial qualification for being allowed to express an opinion on the matter in the Los Angeles Times.

decrepittex August 27th, 2007 6:21 pm

“Just look at the leaders we support - and the ones we don’t. If somone not to our liking is elected, we immediately undermine that leadership.”

curmudgeon, are you saying George W. Bush has displayed
leadership and we have undermined it?

Nathaniel Heidenheimer August 26th, 2007 2:15 pm

Yes, Gareth Porter in his book Perils of Dominance says that by 1953 the CIA no longer beleived in the Domino Theory. It continued to be used as a tactic to build public support for sending soldiers half way around the world to such a skinny country that did not, by itself, seem like a threat.
http://www.amazon.com/Perils-Dominance-Imbalance-Power-Vietnam/dp/0520239482

Also see Peter Dale Scott’s tracing of the domestic suppression tactics of the Vietnam Era, like Operation Garden Plot,to the Continutiy of Government Plans first implemented by Cheyney on 9/11. See his new book The Road to 9/11 by Peter Dale Scott

http://www.amazon.com/Road-11-Wealth-Empire-America/dp/0520237730
Dichterfreund August 26th, 2007 2:44 pm

“In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist. Despite an enormous U.S. investment in nation-building, they never did. In the end, South Vietnam proved to be a fiction.”

This is one of the hardest things for veterans to admit — and of course the Republicowards still deny — is that there never was a ‘South Vietnam’ outside of the US’s maintenance of its own self-generated fraud. That means that the Vietnam war was not a war primarily in Vietnam, but a war against the Vietnamese, full stop.

“Radical Islamists like Osama bin Laden do subscribe to a hateful ideology. But to imagine that Bin Laden and others of his ilk have the capability to control the Middle East, restoring the so-called Caliphate, is absurd, as silly as the vaunted domino theory of the 1950s and 1960s.”

The whole ‘Islam is taking over’ business is much MORE delusional than the domino theory.
kathyodat August 26th, 2007 3:10 pm

Bush is blowing smoke. He could care less about democracy. Does he show any concern for it in our own country (consider his executive orders and attitude that it would be easier to be a dictator and the Constitution being “just a G-damned piece of paper”)? Does this sound remotely like someone who admires Thomas Jefferson? And he hasn’t paid attention to Osama bin Laden for years.

This is about getting control of Iraq’s oil reserves. Please remember those are PERMANENT military bases he’s built. He will go on killing Iraqi men, women, and children until he can force through his oil benchmark giving the oil reserves to the big five oil companies, who are eagerly waiting on the sidelines.
ballsy August 26th, 2007 3:56 pm

this article is misleading in some ways. the “civil war” of vietnam & iraq did not exist until the US invaded. western commentators frequently play up the sectarian divisions in iraq, but (as in kosovo, btw), ethnic cleansing and the like did not occur at all until the west moved in. what does that tell you?

secondly, the most important parallel b/n iraq & vietnam is in the number of people killed, displaced, and traumatized. and a country’s environment ravished & destroyed (everything is not hunky dory in vietnam by any means. vast swathes of land are saturated w/agent orange, land mines, unexploded ordinance, etc. cancer rates, birth defects, etc., in some parts of the country are thru the roof. farmland is unusable b/c there are bombs every where. i guess the vietnamese can be thankful we did not yet have DU to shoot all over the countryside.)

the most disgusting thing of all about people like bacevich (who’s not the worst by any means, and who lost a son in iraq) is the amero-centrism of their perspective.

another parallel w/vietnam? the US getting its ass kicked.
frank1569 August 26th, 2007 4:34 pm

The “Bush Doctrine” calls for US global hegemony via our vast and ever-expanding military capacity. When such is the stated goal, there is no leave Iraq option, ever, since the stated goal is to use the military to force our global hegemony.
MichaelH August 26th, 2007 5:28 pm

First of all, I am a real fan of Prof. Bacevich and have read his books and columns. However, I, too, must take exception to the comment about “blundering into a civil war.” In Vietnam, there is no question that “the South Vietnamese” was a fictional creation, whose noble cause we could not possibly be defending. Now, we have the simple-minded press referring to “the Iraqis” as if the “insurgents” are not Iraqis, but Martians,instead.

It is not helpful to think of sectarian conflict as being unconnected to the foreign invasion and occupation. Collaborators have always been reviled by the loyalists. Think “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle”. The thing being studied is altered by the far-from-neutral unmentioned factor.

The US hegemons never intended to leave Iraq as the “facts on the ground” can attest. The Democratic “loyal opposition” even assumes this. If rapine is immoral, then reduction of troops by Christmas is a smokescreen. Complete withdrawal of every last vestige is the only means to establish righteousness.
jim46 August 26th, 2007 5:46 pm

“In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist.”
WHAT “partition” of French Indochina is Mr. Bacevich talking about exactly? Perhaps the TEMPORARY partition of the Geneva Agreements which called for a Provisional Military Demarcation Line separating North and South until All-Vietnam elections scheduled for July 1956? An election Ho Chi Minh was sure to win? The election which the National Security Council secretly decided to sabotage (by violence, repression and warfare) a few days after the Geneva Agreements were reached?
The U.S. invasion of Vietnam was to PREVENT democracy, because Ho would have easily won nationwide elections, and he would not serve as the compliant stooge required by U.S. policymakers. The myth of “North” and “South” Vietnam, or in this case, of a “partition of French Indochina”, lives on.
gde August 26th, 2007 7:50 pm

In an otherwise excellent article, Bacevich made an outlandish and horrifying statement; “In unconventional wars, body counts don’t really count”. It is true body counts don’t win these wars. It is true they don’t count to the killers when they are the US in Vietnam, Iraq, or many other places(*), or many other nations in the past and present.

Body counts matter very much to the survivors of the victims.

The US public rationale for mass murder in Iraq is based on one basic principle. If I kill your kid, you will submit to me. Now that I have raised a kid (at least to be a teenager), I know emotionally as well as intellectually how absurd that arguemend.

I sincerely doubt the death of Bacevich’s son in Iraq has nothing to do with his desire to speak. I am absolutely certain that few would know the name Cindy Sheehan if her son hadn’t died in Iraq.

(*) Quite literally in the case of the US military in Iraq. They refuse to accept the best estimate of the total casualties of the re-invasion of Iraq, and they ignore the casualties of the earlier phases known as the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions.
damon13 August 26th, 2007 8:31 pm

I agree with kathyodat, in content and especially tone. Bush is blowing smoke. This was a superb media spinning on the part of the administration. He accomplished first to bring up the Vietnam/Iraq similarity and twist it to serve his own interests, thus quelling the masses. And secondly he has led those with more intellectual interests into taking the time and effort to actually research the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq. It is a diversion. And it is rather useless. The atrocities, deceit, greed, corruption of the Iraq war stand on their own. The study of political interests behind wars is a great subject, but we aren’t here for a history class, we are hear to stop THIS war.
curmudgeon99 August 26th, 2007 10:19 pm

Ditto, kathyodat

This is one of the most incisive articles written about Bush’ speech,

Now let’s put our efforts to prevention.

The polls indicate Giuliani is the GOP frontrunner. The amazing support he has shows that our country still basically supports the war in Iraq, just not how it is being waged. He also strongly supports the limitation of civil rights.

His election would be like having a smart person who has the ideals of Bush & Cheney running the country.

I wonder how the VietNam, Iraq, Iran spin will be made.
JoeTWallace August 26th, 2007 10:35 pm

I, too, agree with kathyodat, especially her second paragraph. Now that the administration has built permanent bases, the chaos and instability resulting from our invasion and occupation will do quite nicely to justify the continued presence of U.S. troops, lest the situation “get out of hand” (as if it hasn’t already).

Last week, a video surfaced of Dick Cheney explaining why it was not a good idea to invade Iraq after the first Gulf War (the video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I). If invasion wasn’t a good idea back in 1991, I’ve been trying to imagine what might have changed to make it a good idea in 2003. If Cheney had, in fact, changed his mind, I was at first inclined to chalk it up to his being a career toady who reflexively echoed back to his superiors whatever they wanted to hear. But here’s a chilling thought. What if he didn’t change his mind? What if he fully expected carnage and destruction, chaos and instability, and went ahead with the invasion precisely because the resulting situation would justify an enduring American presence that would enable the United States to influence events in the Middle East and to assert control over the Iraqi oil reserves?

Just a thought.
kathyodat August 26th, 2007 10:53 pm

JoeTWallace, your chilling thought sounds like you’ve been reading the neocon handbook for world domination.

I’ve been thinking about this administration arming both sides in the civil war. Now, why would they do that while “promoting” democracy?
JoeTWallace August 26th, 2007 11:22 pm

Gosh, kathyodat, if people keep thinking along these lines and asking questions that “go off the reservation,” we may be accused of cynicism or (still worse) “not supporting the troops.”
damon13 August 27th, 2007 12:38 am

This is when i get pissy. JoeTWallace. You write ,”If Cheney had, in fact, changed his mind, I was at first inclined to chalk it up to his being a career toady who reflexively echoed back to his superiors whatever they wanted to hear. But here’s a chilling thought. What if he didn’t change his mind?”
And why do i get pissy? Cause you give it a second-thought. You fail to realize that these people know exactly what they are doing. They don’t go around la-te-da about their lives, they have advisors, they are fully complicit in their actions. We need to treat this DOUBLETHINK as a crime. We as American have no trouble portraying common criminals as ugly thugs, but what of their white collar companions, who steal more than all of little crime. Harsh crimes need equally harsh penalities
kathyodat August 27th, 2007 12:40 am

JoeTWallace, those FOX News viewers who think slapping a yellow magnet on their SUVs is supporting the troops and telling themselves the troops are dying for “our freedom” but in reality are hoping to get cheap oil for their SUVs are seriously deluded. The oil companies, who have partially parallel interests with the neocons, have no intention of providing cheap oil. This whole mess gives them an excuse to jack the price of oil, in addition to giving them control of future reserves.

The only who has really made out like a bandit is Cheney, who obviously had his reasons for appointing himself Vice President. “Cheney’s deferred compensation and stock option benefits are in addition to a $20 million retirement package paid to him by Halliburton after only five years of employment; a $1.4 million cash bonus paid to him by Halliburton in 2001; and additional millions of dollars in compensation paid to him while he was employed by the company.” It’s hard to believe that Halliburton would be so generous for 5 years of employment, but on the other had, look how generous Cheney has been to Halliburton with the taxpayers’ money.

We seriously need the National Initiative. I believe we are in a Constitutional crisis, exacerbated by Nancy Impeachment-off-the-Table Pelosi. And it’s not just the issue of impeachment. She has given Bush anything and everything he wants to be a dictator.
piniella August 27th, 2007 3:28 am

U.S. troops in Iraq have “killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists.”

If you do the math on this, we would’ve eliminated about 30% of the TOTAL insurgency. There hasn’t been a corresponding drop in violence, so….
curmudgeon99 August 27th, 2007 3:29 am

I think most US citizens are against the war as it is being fought and want a different approach.

That said, I think most US citizens support our presence in Iraq - not for oil, but because they have been led to believe that if we pull our troops out of Iraq, we will be fighting terrorists on the streets of the US. Also, by far and away, the majority of us do not comprehend the serious fact that as long as we are engaged in this illegal war, we all are technically liable to prosecution as war criminals for enabling our government’s policies that are causing so much suffering.

The majority are and have been more concerned with the ilk of American Idol TV shows and Second Life on-line fantasy worlds. I hear 10X as much concern about media personalities than the murderous effects of our foreign policies. This is a direct reversal of discussion percentages from the VietNam era.

Say what you will, this admin knows enough not to re-institute the draft. If the draft was in effect and members of Congressional families subjected to it, there would be no Iraq War and possibly no Afghan presence as well by this time. If you remember, it was the escalation of draft callups and casualties among draftees that started the pressure to quit VietNam

I don’t know the answers, but I do think that only when the majority of our citizens truly understand the death and destruction we are raining down in Iraq and Afghanistan will we have the courage to stand up to our policy makers. Until then we are the ones blowing smoke, hoping others will catch the flame and bring to light the true destructiveness of our present course.

It is so obscene to be funding war and destruction while cutting support for health, infrastructure, education.

IMHO
twistoflex August 27th, 2007 5:55 am

They want the Operation Iraqi Liberation!!!!
DuraMater August 27th, 2007 6:32 am

curmudgeon99, “That said, I think most US citizens support our presence in Iraq - not for oil, but because they have been led to believe that if we pull our troops out of Iraq, we will be fighting terrorists on the streets of the US.”

Oh, but we will! Remember Oklahoma City and McVeigh?

Joe Six-Pack just doesn’t know _who_ the terrorists will be - he thinks they’re Muslims. Whereas, if you read the blurb for that Left Behind computer game, it’s not Muslims who are insanely obsessed about something they call “The Rapture” …
bligh August 27th, 2007 7:57 am

The U.S. surely blundered into the Vietnam War, and supported a government (South Vietnam) that was corrupt and not worth supporting. That said, Millions of vietnamese did not want to live under a communist regime. Witness the exchange of populations when the demarcation lines were set dividing french indochina into North and South. Ten TIMES as many people went south (4 million) as went North (400 thousand). And once the U.S. was gone, the communist north DID invade the south, breaking every agreement they signed for the Paris Peace accords. Over a million supporters of the South Vietnamese government, Including their families, were thrown into camps for sometimes decades. Over 150,000 were killed.

As far as preventing democracy, The U.S. may have prevented an Election that could have brought the communists to power, but does anyone really believe that-once in power- the communists (like communist regimes everywhere) would have ever allowed anything like free elections? It has been over 30 years and the people are still waiting. The Vietnam War was not simply a civil war, It was a proxy war with the Soviet Union, China,North Korea, And the eastern bloc on one side, U.S., Australia, South Korea, Turkey, ect. on the other.

The U.S. support for South Vietnam may have been a mistake, but that doens’t make Ho and Company the good guys.
MaxheMust August 27th, 2007 10:27 am

In Vietnam, the ruling elite learned that it is best not to count non-american casulties of war. Having some knowledge of the millions of Vietnamese (including lots of women and little children) who were killed pissed off lots of Americans - and they took to they protested the war vigourously.
curmudgeon99 August 27th, 2007 4:18 pm

The only time we support a democracy is if “our guy” who will do what we want is elected.

Just look at the leaders we support - and the ones we don’t. If somone not to our liking is elected, we immediately undermine that leadership.
JoeTWallace August 27th, 2007 4:35 pm

“And why do i get pissy? Cause you give it a second-thought. You fail to realize that these people know exactly what they are doing. They don’t go around la-te-da about their lives, they have advisors, they are fully complicit in their actions. We need to treat this DOUBLETHINK as a crime. We as American have no trouble portraying common criminals as ugly thugs, but what of their white collar companions, who steal more than all of little crime. Harsh crimes need equally harsh penalities.”

Good call, damon13! You really are being pissy!

You’re right that the electorate has been seduced by DOUBLETHINK, but it’s the kind of DOUBLETHINK that every administration enjoys at the beginning of its tenure. Until the evidence mounts, every administration enjoys a grace period when it’s granted the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because we balk at believing that our elected government might be a criminal enterprise. Who didn’t want to believe President Bush when he said, “We don’t torture.” That grace period expired for this bunch some time ago.

From the outset, my instincts told me that Bush and his cronies were a bunch of spoiled frat brats. I thought wealth and class biases would blind them, insulate them, make them oblivious to the plight of many of their fellow citizens, not to mention people in other countries. And if, against all odds, certain facts and information were pressed on them and penetrated their consciousness, I expected these realities to be met with indifference. Sure enough, they’ve lived up to my expectations; they’ve been oblivious and indifferent. But they’re worse than that. Where they’ve exceeded my expectations is in the malignant, even criminal motivations that undergird much of what they have done.

Perhaps you agree that whatever divides us in this country, whether we’re Republicans or Democrats, whether we’re conservative or liberal/progressive in our outlook, few of us have entered a voting booth in a presidential election to vote for a criminal or to prevent one from taking power. We resist thinking that anyone occupying the oval office could possibly be a criminal; that’s just beyond the pale. When we step into the booth, we’re not voting for or against criminality; we’re voting for or against a candidate’s policies and politics. Which is not to say that we won’t keep an eye on whoever is elected, and hold them to account as evidence of wrongdoing is exposed.
distantocean August 27th, 2007 5:05 pm

Thanks to Andrew Bacevich for adding yet more perspective to the critical question of the real lesson of Vietnam, as a corrective for the silly Vietnamese who think the lesson is that the war “caused tremendous suffering and loss to the Vietnamese people” or that “The price we, the Vietnamese people on both sides, paid during the war was due to the fact that the Americans went into Vietnam in the first place.”

Bacevich clearly displays his priorities when he says that “killing didn’t produce victory”; after all, the deaths of non-Americans matter only to the extent that they impact American policy, and have no other conceivable significance. Or at least that would appear to be the crucial qualification for being allowed to express an opinion on the matter in the Los Angeles Times.
decrepittex August 27th, 2007 6:21 pm

“Just look at the leaders we support - and the ones we don’t. If somone not to our liking is elected, we immediately undermine that leadership.”

curmudgeon, are you saying George W. Bush has displayed
leadership and we have undermined it?

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