More Unsolicited Advice for the Bush Camp

A reader directs us to the blog of the conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, who doesn't think much of John Kerry's criticism (Hewitt prefers the word "slander") of the military during his Vietnam Veterans Against the War days. Here's Hewitt's position in a nutshell:

The Kerry of 1971 is very much the Kerry of 2004. His views on the last long war surely matter in evaluating his ability to lead the country in the next long war -- the one in which we find ourselves today.

Note to the Bush campaign: I'd think twice before adopting this argument as your own. For a year you've been arguing that Iraq isn't Vietnam -- a position that Kerry, who voted for the current war, presumably shares. I don't think you'll make your cause more popular by suddenly discovering some historical parallels.

Comments

[Yehudit]

I think you are misinterpreting Hewitt. He is saying that, to Kerry, Iraq is Vietnam (never mind that Kerry voted for the war - Kerry's been trying to spin that inconvenient fact into an antiwar position). To Bush and his supporters, Iraq is not Vietnam. So it makes sense to point out the difference.

[Shultz]

Whether or not you were in favor of the Iraq War, there are huge differences between Vietnam and Iraq.

In Vietnam, we used an army of conscripts, the overwhelming majority of which were too young to vote, to break the back of a mature revolutionary force trying to throw off the shackles of an imperialist power, France. In Iraq, we used an army of volunteers, all of whom could vote, to overthrow a fascist dictator, with the supposed intention of establishing a constitutional democracy.

Apples and Oranges.

And Kerry should be more concerned with issues of the Culture War than Bush should be concerned with support for the War in Iraq.

The Democratic Convention is in Boston this go 'round, is it not? How well will his embrace of the Gay Marriage issue, in his home state, at his home convention go over with a national electorate that, according to the last poll I saw, is against Gay Marriage by two to one? The last poll I saw on the Iraq War came in it at about 50/50.

Maybe if Kerry doesn't bring up the Gay Marriage issue no one else will.

P.S. Don't bet on it.

[Ruthless]

VN was "my" war so here are a few similarities I see between VN and Iraq:

1. All the US "higher-ups" are ignorant of the culture of the indigenous.
2. Military stategy relies heavily on belief in "good cop; bad cop"
3. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
4. If we need cannon fodder, that's where the indigenous come in.

Hope that helps get you started.

[Luca Brasi]

Couldn't he have been refering to the War on Terror as the long war, and not the war in Iraq?

Just a thought.

[Mark Fox]

Obviously there will be similarities and differences between any two wars.

The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam make Bush suffer for pulling the country into a crappy war, and not having a competent plan. MachineGun Kerry suffers for what he did in Vietnam, for protesting that war, and for having an unclear position on Iraq.

Since Kerry voted for Iraq, he might also suffer somewhat along with Bush for our current crappy war. On balance it seems Kerry is screwed.

[Mark Fox]

Luca: Good thought. Look for somebody to Photoshop a towel onto Kerry's head.

[Eric Pobirs]

Put simply, the man who gave that intensely imflammatory testimony in 1971, nearly all of which was found to be impossible to substantiate under scrutiny and quite deserving of description as slander, should not even be considered as a candidate for CinC.

[MadPad]

I just checked out the hughhewitt.com. Not much different from any other conservative talk-show host.

Ultimately, they're all the same stale, stilted crap...Hate Clinton...Hillary's an evil ex-commie planning a massive conspracy to steal the presidency...liberal media...anybody who questions us is evil, stupid or a traitor...blah, blah, blah.

Oh sure...some of them get points for style. But crap, at the end of the day, is still crap.

They all rely on an audience that - for the most part - never question what Rush, Sean or any other of the hyperventilating "liberals are destroying America from the inside out" ranters.

My point is (yes, I do have a point) is "how is this guy ANY different from any other conservative with a microphone and a sanctimonious attitude."

Listen, they all hairsplit the enemy's deeds (or misdeeds) apart from the deeds of their own favorite Dubya.

There ARE significant differences AND similarities between Iraq & Vietnam.

The differences are legion but one glaring similarity bother's me. That's the assertion that winning the war was akin to conquering an front.

In Vietnam, we were constantly "winning" the war based on body counts. And we kept winning by the numbers for years. Ultimately we misjudged an enemy that was only too willing to keep throwing more bodies at us than we were at them.

That horror, televised nightly to the children of WWII veterans every night just as they were graduating from high scholl made most of them eventually say "wait a minute"

In Iraq, we've already "Won" the war according to the administration. But our own bodies are now stacking up and it's the definition of "winning" that's actually in play.

What pisses the hawks off so much is that you have some very smart people looking at Iraq and hearing, "We've won the war." Those more reluctant warriors say, "What are you talking about? Don't you remember what happened in Vietnam? We haven't won shit as long as they keep sending people to blow us up AND people at home are protesting about it"

And on top of that they're still convinced that Dubya didn't join the Guard to get out of going to Vietnam. I grew up then and I do not begrudge Bush for joining the Guard for any reason...least of all to get out of Vietnam. Hell, he'd have been an idiot not to have at least thought about it.

In the end, George W. Bush joined the guard and served his country and avoided an otherwise terrible experience that many people avoided in far less graceful but equally understandable ways.

And in the end, Kerry went to war, served his country as well and came home angry enough to say that he felt it wasn't right.

Screw the traitor talk on both sides because it's a bucket load of crap. If Iraq is still an albatross around our necks in 4, 5 or (God forbid) 8 years, let's see if they still feel the same way about this or any other war for that matter...

Most of these jackasses with microphones either avoided the draft themselves (Rush) or are too young to have remembered what things were like back then and are talking out their bungholes about things they know nothing about (almost every OTHER one).

I say that the LAST thing we need is to hear what yet another "conservative talk-show host" has to say.

[phil]

That is a pretty angry rant against the conservative press. But seriously folks. Is the message that we are to get from this crowd that the war in Vietnam was a wise idea? Or if not, that protesting against unwise policy is bad? Even if you are a veteran? Isn't that sort of like liberals complaining about republican complaints about the old AFDC welfare system, even after the reform has been shown to be a success and not the evil they believed it to be?

[MadPad]

Phil,

Not angry at all. I'm not mad that conservative talk show hosts exist or practice their trade and I've even been know to occassionally listen to some of them, though none of them all the time.

I was simply lamenting (with some resignation) that this was just more of the same ol' stuff.

Conservative talk show hosts are a dime a dozen now. I'd almost go so far as to say that the phrase "conservative talk show host" is redundant.

Lot's of them are idiots aping the same stuff that Rush and Sean do only without as much charm, style or production value.

I mean really, how often and from how many different corners can you here the same screed without it getting as little old?

After a while I want someone to talk about something other than how much they hate Clinton, how much "all the liberal media is lying to us" and how "all those liberals that question the war are America-haters."

Fair and balanced? Right. And I've got this nice bridge over here for sale...

[Jesse Walker]

Luca writes: Couldn't he have been refering to the War on Terror as the long war, and not the war in Iraq?

Sure. But Hewitt sees Iraq as part of the war on terror. And -- getting to the point I was trying to make -- I don't think it's in Bush's political interest to compare any of his foreign policy to Vietnam. That would not be, shall we say, politically astute.

[MadPad]

good point

[Mark Fox]

joe: I've got my money down already. If you can make a good case for Kerry, or anybody but Bush to win, lay it on me while there's still time to adjust my bets.

I know now that Kerry is from your area, so you certainly have more details about his recent activities. It is my contention that his Vietnam-era activites have not been fully exposed and exploited, and once that happens he will prove unelectable.

What Jesse Walker decries as smears are a regular part of every campaign. Bush has already gone through that wringer. Kerry is only beginning to be caught in the rollers.

[joe]

"There was never an option to just let the people of the region make their own choice free from external power."

You mean like, say, in a free election monitored by international observers? Scheduled for 1956, cancelled under American pressure.

Or how about if the US had adopted Vietnam as a protectorate in the aftermath of WW2, as Ho Chi Minh requested in a 1945 letter to the State Department?

You're the blind partisan here, Shannon, and you've got a lot of reading to do.

[Fred]

A couple of quick points, Shannon.

We already know that. No one has been carefully mis-educated.

You could have made your post brief by simply saying "I am a proponent of the cold war."

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

"You have uncritically swallowed a generation of self-serving Leftist analysis."

Your argument boils down to "two wrongs make a right." And to be blunt I am not defending the regime of Ho Chi Minh; but to be frank, what the U.S. and France did in SE Asia is undefensible as well. Do you deny what I have written? If so, you are the one living in fantasy land.

Answer this question: if the American and South Vietnamese position was so strong, and there was no "native" popularity for the regime of Ho Chi Minh, why did the U.S. undermine the 1956 elections? Because it realized it would lose them.

Ask yourself another question, if the South Vietnamese government was so strong, why was it neccessary for the U.S. government to keep it propped up with infusions of bribes and the like?

You can talk all day about the Soviet actions there, Ho Chi Minh's actions (he was dead long before the war even ended remember), etc., but the fact remains that the U.S. did SE Asia no favors, participated in the destruction of popular regimes in the area (in Cambodia and Laos in particular), and ultimately provided no credible alternative to the Communists. Indeed, American actions regarding back Lon Nol drove Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, particularly Prince Sihanouk, who tried mightly to keep his country out of the war in Viet Nam.

And the only one propping up a self-serving analysis here is you; trying your country's atrocities under some banner of anti-communism or humantarianism.

[Jean Bart]

joe,

People like Shannon will never really care about SE Asians during that war; its all Kissinger and le Pen immoral foreign policy and state-sponsored murder in service of some abstract, flawed foreign policy doctrine for them.

[Jean Bart]

I think its rather obvious from the fact all three countries that came out of Indochina became communist that American foreign policy failed there as well; America drove those it fought further and further into the arms of the Soviets and China, all the while causing enough death and destruction so as to set back any progress in the region economically and the like.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon,

Also, so long as we are trading insults, I think you are apologist for murder and evil, and willing to whitewash American (and apparently French) actions and atrocities in SE Asia in order to defend your a jaded, and defunct foreign policy doctrine.

[Jesse Walker]

What Jesse Walker decries as smears are a regular part of every campaign.

I didn't use the word "smear" in this particular post, but I may have earlier (probably in reference to the Jane Fonda business). Anyway, I don't get your point. Do you think I believe smears aren't a regular part of every campaign?

[Floyd McWilliams]

So if Kerry nominated Robert McNamara to be his VP, the Bush administration should not talk about his failures because that would remind people of Vietnam and Iraq is not supposed to be like Vietnam?

Is there one staffer at Hit and Run who can write one intelligent sentence about Iraq?

[Jean Bart]

Floyd McWilliams,

Let's hope that bastard (McNamara) never has power again.

[joe]

Jean Bart, American policy only failed in Vietnam because, right when our brave troops were about to emerge victorious, they were stabbed in the back by a collection of leftists, draft dodgers, and - uh - media types (let's call them that for now) back home.

A stab in the back. I bet it sounds even better in German.

[Bostonian]

Jean Bart,
If you believe that US atrocities in Vietnam far outweighed any other atrocities there, then why don't you prove it? If this is true, it should be possible to prove. Direct us to your facts. (N.B.: It has been tried before.)

You also interestingly claim that failure of US policy "drove" Indochina into communism. What role do you assign to China, who was supplying arms to the VC? If China (and Russia) had not been around, what do you think Indochina would look like today?

[Jean Bart]

joe,

When were they about to emerge victorious? In war, as in everything, when the price becomes too high, people refuse to pay it. So the question one has to ask, was did America reach the level where the price was too steep to bear? I believe it did; and obviously the price they were inflicting on the Viet Cong and Viet Minh was not so high as to make them feel like giving up.

France had the same experience in Algeria with the same results.

[MadPad]

Joe,

About to emerge victorious?

When was that exactly? 1965 after are first heated firefight? 1968 during the tet offensive? 1970 during secret (and ineffectual) bombings of Cambodia and Laos?

Your statement suggests that there was one golden and pristine moment, now lost, where we could have "trounced those buggers once and for all if it hadn't been for those damn pot smoking hippies"

Are you sure you're not stoned yourself?

[mil_hist]

Jean Bart asks: "did America reach the level where the price was too steep to bear?"

Easy... when there was enough US political pressure on US politicians. The war was ended (and lost) for political reasons entirely within the US.

Arguably, the war was ill-conceived because we had decided to avoid direct confrontation with China. The military commanders had to operate within self-defeating policitical constraints. If the commander in chief had removed those constraints, the shape of war (and of Vietnam today) would have been much different.

The history books don't tend to tell you this, but the US forces did not lose a single major battle. Moreover, every battle killed far more VC than US soldiers. And the VC operated without any strategy other than random harassment.

The North Vietnamese won because US citizens were horrified at seeing war on TV.

[thoreau]

Joe was being facetious.

[madpad]

Oooops,

sorry joe....missed earlier posts

[Andrew]

I don't think any American war, now or in the future, will be very much like Viet Nam...BECAUSE of VietNam.

Our dilemma in Viet Nam was that most of our leadership (and much of the mainstream) felt powerless to call it a day and go home. Viet Nam itself shattered that taboo, and once the sting wore off, it has (curiously) permitted us to risk MORE limited actions abroad-- Hey...if it's a bad idea, we call it off.

And that is just the truth about Iraq. We very likely will be leaving by the end of June, no matter what the situation looks like there. Iraq CAN'T be a quagmire. We don't DO quagmires any more.

[Jesse Walker]

So if Kerry nominated Robert McNamara to be his VP, the Bush administration should not talk about his failures because that would remind people of Vietnam and Iraq is not supposed to be like Vietnam?

Is there one staffer at Hit and Run who can write one intelligent sentence about Iraq?

I sure hope your comment about Robert McNamara is not your idea of an "intelligent sentence."

I didn't say Bush should never say anything "that would remind people of Vietnam." I said it wasn't wise to argue that opposition to the Vietnam War translates into an undesirable stance on Iraq; the reason, which I guess I have to spell out, is that most Americans regret the Vietnam War and oppose it in retrospect.

With McNamera that wouldn't be relevant, because McNamera (duh) did not oppose the Vietnam War. Bush would be criticizing his proven failure to manage a war, which is obviously a very different manner.

The point is moot, anyway, since my post was directed at the Bush campaign in the universe we live in, not the fairytale world where it is possible that Kerry would pick McNamera to be his VP. Asking whether Bush should bring up Vietnam if he runs against McNamera makes about as much sense as asking whether he should bring up Vietnam if we still had troops in Cambodia, or if Bush actually opposed the Iraq war, or if all postmen wore pink muumuus.

[Jean Bart]

mil hist,

"Easy... when there was enough US political pressure on US politicians. The war was ended (and lost) for political reasons entirely within the US."

And the continued fighting of the Vietnamese against the U.S. had nothing to do with those "political reasons," right? There wouldn't have been any "political reasons" if the Vietnamese had simply "rolled over."

"Arguably, the war was ill-conceived because we had decided to avoid direct confrontation with China."

Actually, America's largest worry was the USSR; it being North Vietnam's more consistent and robust ally during the war. Indeed, JFK, LBJ and Nixon bent over backwards to make sure the USSR was not drawn into the war (for obvious reasons).

"The military commanders had to operate within self-defeating policitical constraints."

All military commanders have to work within political constraints; even those commanders who make up a junta. Which is why the political constraints argument is so silly (and an indication of why you are definately not a military historian).

"If the commander in chief had removed those constraints, the shape of war (and of Vietnam today) would have been much different."

My goodness, the Commander in Chief did remove those constraints; indeed, he ignored the will of the U.S. Congress and even his own military in conducting the war - and this was the case for LBJ and Nixon.

"The history books don't tend to tell you this, but the US forces did not lose a single major battle. Moreover, every battle killed far more VC than US soldiers. And the VC operated without any strategy other than random harassment."

The first is well known, and always harped on by apologists for the war as if it is some great "truth" they are imparting to people. The second sentence rings out with a big "so what?" Without any strategy? You boviously know shit about the war.

[Mark Fox]

Jesse: Right. It was in the "Roger Vadim" post.

Bush backers had better hope their man's campaign isn't mixed up with these smears. It would be a bad sign if they were this desperate this early.

I don't see the use of smears as unusual, so there's no extra evil in being "mixed up" with them. And since it is a normal tactic, I wonder why the Bushies haven't already started using them? Maybe they're waiting for Kerry's nomination before unleashing the BabyKiller propaganda.

I do recognize that smearing makes the smearer look bad, too. But when Right-leaners start seeing images equating shooting babies with supporting abortion, they'll forget their unhappiness with Bush and turn out against Kerry.

[Jesse Walker]

Mark: I don't think there's extra evil in being mixed up with smears. I do think there's a certain desperation to being mixed up with transparent, easily disproven smears, especially this early in the campaign.

I say this as someone who expects Bush to win in November.

[Andrew]

Couple points...

1.) The elections scheduled to unify Viet Nam were to be held across the whole of Viet nam, with about two thirds of the population voting under communist supervision. The fears of the United States were understandable (common sense, really).

2.) The American war aim was to maintain a non-communist southern redoubt...not to "roll over" the communist North.

3.) The numbers of civilian killed in areas of American action (by any credible estimate) were noticeiably lower than in previous wars (eg. France and Italy in WWII).

4.) Mis-conduct by soldiers was not indulged by the chain of command (as Kerry stated), nearly the only credible reports of it are examples punished, and it was not official policy...as was French torture of prisoners in Algeria.

5.) The American sponsered regime in the South was not about to win any Civics prises...but it didn't drive millions of its citizens into the ocean, and was really no more squalid than the war-time society of South Korea, which has since evolved into a democracy.

South Viet Nam proved remarkably resilient in the years following the withdrawl of most US combat troops, and only finally succumbed to Force Majeure, when invaded by an overwhelmingly larger conventional army. Even a measure of American support might have saved it in the end...but a post-Watergate congress had no heart for it.

Viet Nam was arguably a policy blunder...but it was not a morally ignoble cause.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

"1.) The elections scheduled to unify Viet Nam were to be held across the whole of Viet nam, with about two thirds of the population voting under communist supervision. The fears of the United States were understandable (common sense, really)."

It was the agreement which South Vietnamese leaders agreed to; they and the U.S. should have respected it (indeed, almost immediately after it was signed they began to violate it).

"2.) The American war aim was to maintain a non-communist southern redoubt...not to "roll over" the communist North."

Yet the war expanded to Laos as early as 1962.

"3.) The numbers of civilian killed in areas of American action (by any credible estimate) were noticeiably lower than in previous wars (eg. France and Italy in WWII)."

That is neither true in Cambodia or Laos.

"4.) Mis-conduct by soldiers was not indulged by the chain of command (as Kerry stated), nearly the only credible reports of it are examples punished, and it was not official policy...as was French torture of prisoners in Algeria."

That is also not true; the U.S. Navy's "free fire zone" was official policy for example.

"5.) The American sponsered regime in the South was not about to win any Civics prises...but it didn't drive millions of its citizens into the ocean, and was really no more squalid than the war-time society of South Korea, which has since evolved into a democracy."

Actually, the human rights record of the South Vietnamese government was despicable; it was not simply corrupt and despotic, it disappeared tens of thousands of Vietnamese.

"South Viet Nam proved remarkably resilient in the years following the withdrawl of most US combat troops, and only finally succumbed to Force Majeure, when invaded by an overwhelmingly larger conventional army."

It lasted less than two years.

"Even a measure of American support might have saved it in the end...but a post-Watergate congress had no heart for it."

Perhaps if American Presidents had not consistently lied to that body for over ten years that may have not been the case.

"Viet Nam was arguably a policy blunder...but it was not a morally ignoble cause."

It was probably the most evil act that the U.S. government has ever been involved in.

[Mark Fox]

Jesse: I accept that it can be taken as desparation. The transparency is seen by pundits and those devoted to politics. Most voters don't think so hard; they see the shocking image, hear the jokes, and pull the lever.

[kmw]

I?ll add a couple of cents here.

I have quite a few extended family members that served during Vietnam, some actually in the jungle. Not a single one of them have fond memories of ?Nam. I don?t think any of them took up banners and protested when they got home, but they still hated the war. Robert McNamara is a bad phrase in my family.

As far as I can tell, baby boomers represent about 70 million voters, give or take. If you start telling them that Kerry is unelectable for protesting the war, at least half will actually SUPPORT Kerry for it. (That?s 35 million votes.) After all, in their rebellious youth, they did the same thing. And still believe in what they did. Some hated Hanoi Jane for betraying the troops, and view her actions as beyond mere protest. But there doesn?t even seem to be a consensus about whether or not to hate Fonda.

The only people who would distain Kerry for protesting are extreme neocons, and they?re already with Bush anyway.

Jesse makes a good warning, and I hope Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove comprehend it.

(I don?t really expect them to, though. They seem lost in their own little Republican universe.)

[joe]

I can't believe nobody got my "stab in the back" reference. Except maybe thoreau.

Read your Shirer, people!

[Les]

Not that it's necessary to add to Jean Bart's excellent rebuttal, but (obviously I can't help myself) along with "free fire" zones, there was Operation Phoenix which involved the intentional, targeted killing of thousands of Vietnamese civilians.

[Andrew]

JB

1.) "Respecting" the terms of the French surrender at Geneva would have simply delivered the South Vietnamese (and their neighbors-- anyone who believes Laos and Cambodia would have held out long is smoking crack) that much sooner.

2.) The crisis in Laos was at the instigation of the NORTH Vietnamese (who consistently violated the neutrality of neighboring states) and the Communist Pathet Lao...and a occured before the introduction of combat troops into South Viet Nam-- 1965:1972.

3.) For the number of troops involved, and the number of civilians estimated to be residing in areas of operation, civilian deaths were MUCH higher throughout WWII...especially 1943-44 in northern France and central Italy-- the most comparable case. A similar relationship holds for combat during the Korean War.

American combat operations have conspicuously gotten "cleaner" with each war in the modern era...and Viet Nam falls neatly into that historical evolution.

(To be fair, that holds for Britain and France as well.)

4.) Free Fire Zones are commonly mis-understood.

The rules of engagement in a Free-Fire Zone were simply the rules of engagemnt that the US military understands to be Geneva Convention doctrine, binding on the conduct of American troops AT ANY TIME.

IN ADDITION, other Rules of Engagement-- MORE restrictive than what the US military believes to be required by the Geneva Convention-- were imposed on the conduct of American troops in areas NOT designated Free Fire Zones...outside a FFZ a soldier was under extra constraints.

5.) The South Vietnamese regime was a war-time emergency state...but living standards ROSE, and they managed to hold several competitive elections...there has been a dearth of those since 1975!

What was the most evil action of the US government? Returning hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of displaced persons to their (as of the time) communist coutries of origin at the end of WWII would be my personal nomination. The fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities would take a close second.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Zieg heil, joe!

[Douglas Fletcher]

"Also, so long as we are trading insults, I think you are apologist for murder and evil..."

JB you really ought to resist your more extreme rhetorical urges. Sometimes when you really get going it seems like Inspector Clouseau has taken over your mind, I swear...

[Demosthenes]

Hey Doug,

speaking of "extreme rhetorical urges", don't you think that "Sieg Heil!" back there was a bit intemperate?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Sorry, I don't like being commanded to read things just so joe can have the satisfaction of having his clever allusions understood. I wasn't calling him a Nazi, for god sake.

Maybe I should have said 'so it is written, so it shall be done', would that be any better?

[joe]

For a brief moment, I had a glimmer that Doug was a literate student of history. But it was just a dumb Godwin violation. Sigh.

'"Respecting" the terms of the French surrender at Geneva would have simply delivered the South Vietnamese (and their neighbors-- anyone who believes Laos and Cambodia would have held out long is smoking crack) that much sooner.'

I have to disagree. I had the good fortune of having a former Ambassador to South Vietnam as a professer in a class about American involvement in Vietnam. His take was that we drew the line in the wrong place, across the middle of Vietnam, which made our defeat against an anti-colonial force inevitable, and caused the conflict to spread outside of Vietnam's borders (eventually bringing communist regimes to power in Laos and Cambodia). If we had recognized the unsustainability of dividing a cohesive country in two (and trying to defend a half that was crawling with our enemy's partisans) and adopted a policy of containing communism at the Vietnamese border, we very well could have succeeded. Let's face it, the Viet Cong solders weren't motivated by reading Marx, but by an anti-colonial struggle that got subsumed into a communist revolution. By seeking to impose an unpopular government on the South Vietnamese, we just took the French's place as the power to eject.

So respecting the elections would not only have been consistent with our principles and good for our image, but it would have proven more effective in limiting the fall of dominoes than the strategy adopted by the Cold Warriors. If we had sided with Laotians and Cambodians in their efforts to avoid being bullied by their historically aggressive neighbor, the line between the communist world and the capitalist world in Southeast Asia would have ended up hundreds and miles, and millions of people, further east.

[Jean Bart]

"1.) "Respecting" the terms of the French surrender at Geneva would have simply delivered the South Vietnamese (and their neighbors-- anyone who believes Laos and Cambodia would have held out long is smoking crack) that much sooner."

Actually, you don't know what would have happened; we do know that U.S. efforts in the region propelled to power a murderous group of thugs who killed upwards to 2-3 million people in Cambodia. You're going to have to explain to me a worse outcome than that.

"2.) The crisis in Laos was at the instigation of the NORTH Vietnamese (who consistently violated the neutrality of neighboring states) and the Communist Pathet Lao...and a occured before the introduction of combat troops into South Viet Nam-- 1965:1972."

That is such a canard; the CIA started the crisis there by backing Gen Phoumi Nosavan against the government of Souvanna Phouma in 1959. As in Cambodia, by fucking with popular government, which wanted to stay neutral, the U.S. created a nightmare.

"3.) For the number of troops involved, and the number of civilians estimated to be residing in areas of operation, civilian deaths were MUCH higher throughout WWII...especially 1943-44 in northern France and central Italy-- the most comparable case. A similar relationship holds for combat during the Korean War."

Actually, per capita they were higher in Cambodia at least; and comparable in South Viet Nam.

4.) Free Fire Zones are commonly mis-understood.

"The rules of engagement in a Free-Fire Zone were simply the rules of engagemnt that the US military understands to be Geneva Convention doctrine, binding on the conduct of American troops AT ANY TIME."

Bullshit; a free fire zone by definition is a violation of the Geneva Convention. I went into this other day with you; apparently you make a very poor student.

"5.) The South Vietnamese regime was a war-time emergency state...but living standards ROSE, and they managed to hold several competitive elections...there has been a dearth of those since 1975!"

S. Viet Nam did not have once a competitive election; every election there was pre-determined and electoral fraud was the norm.

[Jean Bart]

Douglas Fletcher,

You are likely right. 🙂

[Andrew]

JB

I don't know who you were talking to yesterday...but it wasn't me-- evidently you are a bit confused.

Joe...I have heard the same contentions, but they aren't non-controversial-- persons I respect disagree.

It IS interesting to assess the failure of American efforts in South-East Asia. It won't help at all in that assessment to mis-characterise the event in the fashion of left-wing journalism (I am not saying you are...JB is another matter).

My own take is that the stationing of a massive number of conventional troops (up to about half a million at the peak) for a number of years (about six) was the central mistake. Aggravated by the rapid rotation of individual soldiers (which squandered any benefit of experience and intellegence...and also aggravated the sense of the futility of the effort, and as well the human rights concerns-- eg. typical operations involved spoiling abandonded villages and evacuating civilians. Soldiers seldom toured long enough to get more perspective on operations, and returned home with confused impressions.)

The mis-use of air-power was also too bad...inconsistent "strategic" bombings of the North intended to pressure political events.

American policy-makers of the period believed that a resolute show of commitment by the US, combined with high enemy body-counts and massive bomb-induced economic damage to the North Vietnames regime would induce a change of course by the NV's.

We now know that they came closer than they realised the day we gave it up (isn't that always true, really?),

and if North Viet Nam had been even a quasi-open society (like Milosovich's Serbia, for example), rather than a Stalinist police-state, they would PROBABLY have been right--

with all due respect for the indomitable patriotism of folks who speak Vietnamese, I don't think a generation of parents in Hanoi or Haiphong would have tossed their sons into the meat-grinder year after year, just to make Uncle Ho the greatest Vietnamese of all time...if they had had more to say about it.

There are all kinds of lessons to learn from Viet Nam... but one of the most important thing to observe about ANY past event, is that the future will ALWAYS be different-- the past is NEVER repeated, and it is always mis-leading to project past concerns on to the challenges of the present.

The US will never fight the Viet Nam war again, even if we fight somewhere. France will never fight the Algerian War again, even if France fights in Algeria again (entirely possible).

I have NO emotional or moral stake in American policy in the period-- I was too young to serve, and was a leftist anti-war protestor during my teens.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

"I don't know who you were talking to yesterday...but it wasn't me-- evidently you are a bit confused."

My comments were directed specifically to you and others making claims about war crimes in SE Asia.
"It won't help at all in that assessment to mis-characterise the event in the fashion of left-wing journalism (I am not saying you are...JB is another matter)."

How am I being a "left-wing journalist?" Please back up that assertion.
The mis-use of air-power was also too bad...inconsistent "strategic" bombings of the North intended to pressure political events.

"with all due respect for the indomitable patriotism of folks who speak Vietnamese, I don't think a generation of parents in Hanoi or Haiphong would have tossed their sons into the meat-grinder year after year, just to make Uncle Ho the greatest Vietnamese of all time...if they had had more to say about it."

Well, Ho was dead long before the war was ever over; what occurred after the war ended was deplorabled (but likely predictable - since such reactions have been common after long, intractable wars have ended). Finally, the U.S. never gave Vietnamese a choice about what they wanted; if they had, things might have worked out differently (and better).

"France will never fight the Algerian War again, even if France fights in Algeria again (entirely possible)."

Doubtful; French foreign policy since the disaster at Rawanda is to disengage as much as possible from Africa's problems. The actions in Cote d'Ivorie are a bit of an anomaly in this way.

As usual Andrew, you try to elide my arguments by not mentioning them. Nice to see you up to your old tricks.

[Floyd McWilliams]

Jesse Walker: "I didn't say Bush should never say anything "that would remind people of Vietnam." I said it wasn't wise to argue that opposition to the Vietnam War translates into an undesirable stance on Iraq; the reason, which I guess I have to spell out, is that most Americans regret the Vietnam War and oppose it in retrospect."

Here is what Hewitt said (links to his site don't seem to persist, by the way):

"The impact of actually hearing Kerry slander the military--his accent is unbelievable, and his tone of arrogance and condescension repulsive-- is powerful, and I do not believe he can serve successfully as Commander-in-Chief given the reactions I heard from veterans and currently serving military. We are in the middle of a war, and the Democrats are in the process of nominating a man hated by a large portion of the uniformed service for his actions of thirty years ago."

My contention, which I guess I have to spell out, is that Hewitt and company do not object to Kerry because he was opposed to the Vietnam War.

[Bostonian]

Jean Bart, in between foaming at the mouth, were you planning to get back to your claim/implication that US atrocities in Vietnam far outweighed any other atrocities there?

In essence, you were agreeing with Kerry's 1971 overall characterization of US soldiers as war criminals, were you not? So were you going to back that up in any way?

[Jean Bart]

Bostonian,

"...were you planning to get back to your claim/implication that US atrocities in Vietnam far outweighed any other atrocities there?"

I never claimed that. I did say that atrocities and human rights abuses by U.S. soldiers were common; and I have said that U.S. instructers have told me this and that extreme efforts were made after the war to deal with that issue. Indeed, the creation of the Delta Force was partly response to these issues (along with others).

[Jean Bart]

Bostonian,

Parfois vous ?tes tr?s, tr?s confus. 🙂

[Andrew]

JB

Characterising the Viet Nam war is the most evil event in American history (Indians? Slaves?) is a good start on a Wilfred Burchett piece;)

The My Lai incident occured AFTER Kerry's testimony, and as a matter of fact, was investigated and punished by the chain of command. True, President Nixon pardoned Lt. Calley later-- France passed a law amnestying ALL soldiers who served in Algeria...that they found it necessary to do so speaks volumes, and raises interesting questions about the application of the ICC to France.

Joe

Worth factoring in is the fate of South Vietnam itself. In 1954 South Korea was a one-man dictatorship under Syngman Rhee (incontestably worse than South Viet Nam at ANY time), and a smoking ruin. It was still a military dictatorship when I was a kid. Today it is an Asian democracy and an prosperous society.
The upside of American efforts could have been worth a lot...and decisions ARE made under uncertainty.

The communist successor regime has disappeared hundreds of thousands in Viet Nam alone, and driven millions into exile...a bit more than "deplorable"-- it remains a despotism to this day.

I don't think any American policy-makers since Viet Nam have been so cemented to a certain set of assumptions-- Reagan left Lebanon, and Clinton left Somalia, without much political damage.

The Vet's Administration reports that war trauma cases were less than in WWII and Korea, and public opinion surveys consistently showed that men serving in Nam closely mirrored home-front opinion...although SLIGHTLY more supportive, and with a pronounced preference for Nixon as a candidate.

[Jesse Walker]

My contention, which I guess I have to spell out, is that Hewitt and company do not object to Kerry because he was opposed to the Vietnam War.

If you scroll down the Hewitt blog and read a while, you'll see that they do object to Kerry because of his antiwar activism. They offer several other reasons to oppose him as well, most of which are linked to that initial objection; you've just quoted some of them. Hewitt says that he's more interested in Kerry's views today than his views in 1971, but he also argues that his 1971 views are relevant because there is (in Hewitt's opinion) an unbroken chain linking them to his positions today. Having established that chain to his satisfaction, Hewitt pretty explicitly treats Kerry the antiwar activist as a harbinger for Kerry the potential president faced with Iraq.

I trust you're not claiming to have said anything about Hewitt's views in your previous comment. As far as I can tell, all you did there was offer a tendentious misreading of my post, bury it in a ridiculous hypothetical question, and top it off with an obnoxious insult. But hey, maybe I missed something.

[Ruthless]

This thread has had a dead horse in a blender long enough, but does anyone wonder if Iraqis might be having doubts about the future of their country what with Haiti being a recent example of U.S. "nation-building" with a double-dip of democracy al-a-mode?

[Gadfly]

Anybody remember the Powell Doctrine? It came as a result of Viet Nam and served pretty well for 30 years.

We've now trashed it and are now more vulnerable than any time I can remember. Our troops are exhausted and spread thin. A true threat that develops, say over Taiwan or North Korea, and we're fucked.

[Jean Bart]

Shultz,

France was had long departed Viet Nam before the U.S. really got involved in a serious fashion there.

[Jean Bart]

So is the prediction now that Bush can be beaten?

[Luca Brasi]

I know nothing about Hewitt, so I was just throwing an idea out.

[Shultz]

Um...I agree with Jesse.

The distinctions between Vietnam and Iraq, as generalized in my initial post, are already understood and accepted by the electorate at large.

Many of you have forgotten when people were afraid to touch their mail for fear of Anthrax spores. Indeed, most of you are skepticly inclined as a general rule. But most of the electorate doesn't really question the President's integrity on the Iraq War. According to this poll (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37340-2004Feb12.html), "...nearly seven in 10 think Bush "honestly believed" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

And the attitude of the people at the time we invaded, as I remember, was something like, "Hey, the Iraq War is, more or less, an act of self-defense."

No American, that I've heard of, EVER worried that the VC would attack civilians here in the homeland. They were just afraid that Uncle Ho, after throwing out the French, would become a puppet of the communists.

In addition to the differnces mentioned in my initial post, that's another huge differnce. But wait, there's more.

Every life is precious. Having said that, only 550 American Soldiers have died in the Iraq War. Around 58,000 American Soldiers died in Vietnam.

Huge difference, yes?

The point is that in the minds of most American voters, the differences between the Iraq and Vietnam Wars are obvious, and if the Bush campaign were to suggest that opposition to the Vietnam War amounts to opposition to democracy in Iraq or opposition to the War on Terrorism, then it would probably be a mistake.

Oh, and because of that, Jesse's advice to the Bush campaign is pretty good.

[Bostonian]

>Madpad: "I just checked out the hughhewitt.com. Not much different from any other conservative talk-show host"

That may very well be true, but Kerry's words stand for themselves. Hewitt wasn't there in 1971 making John Kerry slander his fellow soldiers. Kerry did that all by himself, and he is on the record.

So the question is whether Kerry's words and actions in 1971 matter now or not, and people should be free to decide that for themselves.

I read Kerry's 1971 testimony and he sounds like a very confused and angry young man, looking for any possible language to end the Vietnam war. I can understand that desire, but I cannot understand lying about what your fellow soldiers had done. That is unforgiveable, in my view.

[Shannon Love]

Kerry's 1971 testimony before congress is fair game for two reasons.

(1) To my knowledge, he has never repudiated them; not even the accusations of routine atrocities and war crimes.

(2) The comments reflect a fundamentally broken model of American foreign policy and its role in the world. In a nutshell, Kerry believed that the U.S. in Vietnam was the bad guy and that the Soviet Union and communist China were the good guys.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union we learned for an absolute fact the huge degree of support that Ho Chi Min received from the communist regimes. Only the willfully ignorant could still believe that the conflict was an anti-colonialist civil war and not a foreign led subversion.

If Kerry still believes what he believed in the 1970's then he is to ignorant and un-selfcritical to be president.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

Soviet support for the Viet Minh and Viet Cong was well known in the 1960s; this should not have been a suprise. And to be blunt, such support does not cut into the enterprise as being anti-colonialist (which it was from the start); if it did, then French support for America against Britain during your revolution would mean that the revolution was only about French imperialism.

[some guy]

Since when have ignorance and an inability of self-critique kept ANYONE out of the White House?

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

Indeed, it was America's purpose from 1954 onward, and the Pentagon Papers prove this, to undermined the 1954 Paris peace treaty and suvert and otherwise stop from happening the 1956 elections there. It is patently dishonest on your part to portray the U.S. effort as if it were supporting some popular government in the South (such as the Diem government), when indeed the reason why the U.S. subverted the 1956 elections was because it was afraid of the communists winning it. Apparently in your mind it was proper for the U.S. to undermine this international treaty, and all the north should have done was not take supplies from the USSR or China and let the U.S. run them over.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

I think an appropriate model is that the U.S. was a bad guy in Viet Nam (not "the" bad guy); and to be frank, whether his particular testimony is true, American soldiers did commit war crimes and atrocities there.

[joe]

Shultz "And Kerry should be more concerned with issues of the Culture War than Bush should be concerned with support for the War in Iraq." To conservatives, one's stance on Vietnam is the heart and soul of the culture war. How else to explain the contorted efforts to link Kerry to Jane Fonda? Their beliefs and policies are very different. The fake photo and use of the term "Jane Fonda anti-war protestor" are attempts to smear Kerry as "one of those people," not attempts to critique him for opposing a war most Americans have come to regret. Also, Kerry has come out against gay marriage, but in favor of civil unions. That has become the moderate majority's position as well, but we'll see how the game plays out.

Mark Fox, if the public's reaction to what Kerry did in Vietan counts as suffering, then bring it on. He'll suffer all the way to 1600.

Bostonian, truth is an absolute defense against charges of slader. Prior to Kerry's appearance in 71, other veterans had given first hand accounts of observing, participating, and being told of the atrocities you mention. I don't expect Bush to stick his neck out to defend our actions there as a Good War.

I agree with your last part, Shannon. Nobody whose political beliefs haven't changed since their early 20s should be elected president. But I think it's pretty unlikely that a stint as a prosecutor and 20 years as a Senator have had no impact his thinking.

So, if Kerry wins, who takes his seat? My guesses:

1. Barney Frank, especially if Bush goes heavy on trashing Massachusetts on gay marriage.

2. Marty Meehan

3. Tom Birmingham, former state Senate Majority Leader

4. Robert Reich

5. Atty General Tom Reilly

Dark Horses: Mitt Romney, Bill Weld, Shannon O'Brien (former Treasurer, lost to Romney), Cheryl Jacques (former State Senator, lost Congressional primary for South Boston to Stephen Lynch, current President of Human Rights Compaign)

[thoreau]

I keep hearing on these forums that Kerry slandered his fellow veterans in his testimony. Supposedly he called them war criminals.

Consider two hypothetical statements. Tell me which one is slander:

1) The things our leaders are telling us to do, the things we are required to do under our oath to obey orders, are nothing short of war crimes. We don't want to do them, but we have our orders.

2) The things that soldiers are doing, the decisions they are making, are war crimes.

The first one criticizes the leaders. The second one criticizes the soldiers.

Which one is a more accurate reflection of Kerry's testimony. I predict a simple litmus test: Those who think Bush is a good President will say that #2 is a more accurate synopsis of Kerry's testimony. Those who think he's a lousy one (irrespective of what they think of Kerry) will say that #1 accurately reflects Kerry's testimony.

[Fred]

I've said it before and will continue to say this right up until the day the Neo-Troglodytes find a post nuclear war cave to crawl into: Seditious Republican Mendacity.

[Shannon Love]

Jean Bart,

You have been carefully mis-educated. I predict that you know next to nothing about the history of communism in Vietnam or of communism in general. You will have read thousands of pages about the actions of America and France in Vietnam but you will have read only a dozen pro forma pages about Ho Chi Min and his regime. You have uncritically swallowed a generation of self-serving Leftist analysis.

The actions of the U.S. in Vietnam look selfish and cruel only because the total context of the war was hidden from you. Someone once remarked that if a Leftist wrote about WWII the same way they wrote about the Cold War, they would start by listing every bad things the Allies had ever done back to the stone age. Then they would carefully document every Allied atrocity or morally dubious strategy. At no point would they ever mention Nazis.

Its as if you took a Kung Fu movie depicting the hero battling the villain and then digitally removed the villain. The film would then be of an apparently insane hero thrashing at the air, breaking furniture, colliding with bystanders and crashing through walls for no apparent reason. US actions in Vietnam likewise look insane because you are never shown the opponent.

The fundamental truth of the conflict in Indochina was that the region was under direct attack from the communist block. Communism was not a native invention. The Soviets recruited Vietnamese elites sent to study in Europe then sent them back. The Vietnamese communist received huge amounts of money, weapons, training and propaganda support. The communist killed or drove into exile all the non-communist and when they assumed control, whether by bullet or ballot, they instituted totalitarian Stalinist/Maoist regimes. Non-communist leaders and movements could not survive without allying with a counterbalancing external power.

The U.S. had two choices in Indochina. Fight the communist or let them overwhelm the region. There was never an option to just let the people of the region make their own choice free from external power.

That is what Kerry and other Leftist critics of war have never acknowledged. If that remains his understanding of conflict 30 years later then he is unfit.

[Andrew]

"dozens of instances of war crimes"

THAT makes for the MOST evil thing the US has EVER done?
JB...before I just thought you were a blowhard and a fool-- NOW I realise that you are a secret admirer of all things American!!! So like a Frenchman I suppose, to be a closet Ameri-phile.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

"Characterising the Viet Nam war is the most evil event in American history (Indians? Slaves?) is a good start on a Wilfred Burchett piece;)"

(a) I do not know who Wilfred Burchett is; (b) I would argue that the wilful participation in the destruction of whole societies is rather evil; and (c) I see you continue to avoid my arguments above.

"The My Lai incident occured AFTER Kerry's testimony, and as a matter of fact, was investigated and punished by the chain of command. True, President Nixon pardoned Lt. Calley later..."

The U.S. Army and Navy commissions that looked into these issues found dozens of instances of war crimes; not a single episode from those investigations ever came to trial.

"France passed a law amnestying ALL soldiers who served in Algeria...that they found it necessary to do so speaks volumes..."

Which is, to be blunt, more of an acknowledgment than the U.S. ever made about its actions in SE Asia. Indeed, France has formerly apologized to Algeria for its actions there; American politicians are loathe to do that about SE Asia.

"...and raises interesting questions about the application of the ICC to France."

Andrew, the ICC is applied proscriptively; please, at least learn the BASIC FACTS about the things that you are talking about - idiot.

[joe]

chairm, those "false instances" he reported were reiterations of facts testified to by other veterans appearing before the committee.

[chairm]

Whatever the merits of the "free fire zone" debate, the core of Kerry's discredited testimony was based on false accusations of atrocities (rape, torture, mutilation of the dead, and other horrible falsehoods not fit to repeat) that weren't about "free fire zones". He was wrong on the facts and wrong in his analysis. He hasn't shown the courage to acknowledge this but clings tohis falsehoods. He tries to paint GWB as repeating the "errors" of the Vietnam period. That's what makes his record during the Vietnam war relevant to judging his potential for commanding the war on global terrorism today.

[chairm]

Perhaps we are referring to different items. I'm referring to his remarks that have not been substantiated. He didn't just say that so-and-so claims... He said that he represented and could attest to the accusations. This was further amplified in subsequent speeches and public remarks.

If available online or elsewhere, please point to the items about atrocities in Kerry's testimony that were supported by under-oath-testimony of other veterans. Not the exceptional stuff, the things that Kerry claimed were done on a day-to-day basis. Thanks.

[chairm]

joe, can you quote the testimony before the committee that matches that of other bonafide veterans? Thanks.

Perhaps you've confused committee appearances with attendance at the improvised Winter Soldier "investigation" which has been discredited.