LA Progressive

Smart Content for Smart People

  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Us / Copyright Info
    • Privacy Policy
  • Topics
    • Animal Rights
    • Climate Change
    • Economic Justice
    • Education Reform
    • Elections and Campaigns
    • Environment
    • Community Calendar
    • Healthcare Reform
    • Immigration Reform
    • Labor
    • Law and Justice
    • LGBTQ
    • Progressive Issues
    • Social Justice / Racism
    • The Media
    • The Middle East
    • War and Peace
  • Authors
    • All Authors
    • Steve Hochstadt
    • Charles D. Hayes
    • David A. Love
    • Diane Lefer
    • Dick Price
    • Jerry Drucker
    • John Peeler
    • Joseph Palermo
    • Tom Hall
    • Sharon Kyle
    • Sikivu Hutchinson
  • Events
    • Left Coast Forum
    • Event Calendar
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us

Vietnam and “The Vietnam War”

 

ken burns vietnamThe epic Ken Burns-Lynn Novick series, “The Vietnam War,” ends with the Beatles’ classic  “Let It Be” in the background.  Burns explains that the music is meant to convey the need for sober reflection on the war rather than, as Henry Kissinger says earlier in the film, putting the war behind us.  But the challenge for all of us who lived through that terrible conflict remains: What should we remember, and how should memories affect our view of America’s behavior in the world?  “The Vietnam War” urges us to consider lessons learned.  But lessons learned are a matter of opinion; they are not self-evident.

Vietnam’s Meaning

As Ken Burns says, the Vietnam War produced “a kind of healthy skepticism.”  Civil society—the mass media, organized labor, popular protests—came alive in dynamic if sometimes frightening ways.  But it wasn’t long before war silenced elements of civil society. The media certainly failed in response to the invasion of Iraq, the ensuing debate over weapons of mass destruction, and George W. Bush’s war on terror. Hyping the terrorism threat facilitated assaults on privacy and on the enemy within—American Muslims. And although the mainstream media—the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post—are doing much better now speaking truth to power, we have a whole new phenomenon—“fake news” from the far right—that prefers fiction to facts, and gets applause for doing so. As divisive as Vietnam was, it is beginning to pale beside the hate and violence spurred by an incompetent, deceitful, corrupt, racist, and arrogant Trump administration.

As divisive as Vietnam was, it is beginning to pale beside the hate and violence spurred by an incompetent, deceitful, corrupt, racist, and arrogant Trump administration.

An imperial presidency is another legacy of Vietnam that has proven lasting. We might recall that not until very late in the Vietnam War did liberals in Congress seek to use the power of the purse to stop the war. By then, enormous damage had been done, not only in blood and treasure expended but also in the rise of secret government.  And today? Leaders of both parties embrace unending war, and Congress acquiesces, consistently funding “national defense” to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.  Amidst all the debate on domestic issues, the priorities of the military-industrial complex—the “defense” budget, nuclear weapons modernization, the global reach of the services—remain sacrosanct.

Favoring military over diplomatic options in conflict clearly has survived Vietnam where, as the Pentagon Papers revealed, presidents facing defeat consistently looked for higher levels of force to bring victory. Failures in the use of force were accompanied by failures at nation-building. Yet these failures have not kept Democratic or Republican administrations from pursuing military solutions in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, often tying their policies to support (as in Vietnam) of dictators.  Yes, there have been a few successes for diplomatic engagement, but disengagement is more often the rule—with Russia, North Korea, and China, for instance—and now engagement with Iran and Cuba is subject to reversal.

From a human-interest perspective, Burns and Novick make an important contribution by interviewing Vietnamese and thus enabling viewers to understand the war through the eyes of nationalists out to save their country from another in a long line of foreign oppressors. As Robert McNamara wrote in his memoir of Vietnam (In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam), “We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people . . . to fight and die for their beliefs and values—and we continue to do so today in many parts of the world.”

I came to the same conclusion when researching for the Pentagon Papers project.  Where were the Vietnamese—even our Vietnamese—in war planning?  Advancing US interests and reputation at any cost was always foremost in American thinking, and the war would therefore be prosecuted with the Vietnamese if possible, but without them if necessary. That view ultimately produced the humiliating final withdrawal from the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon, leaving behind thousands of South Vietnamese who had faithfully served the US cause.

While the film’s producers deserve credit for coverage of the thirty years of US involvement in Vietnam, a full account of the American experience there, as a number of critical historians have written, must place the war in the context of a long period of imperial crusading and flawed assumptions about economic and political development in Third World countries. That story extends from the Latin American interventions and Pacific expansionism at the end of the 19th century to Puerto Rico today—a tragic history from which US leaders clearly have learned little. I wonder how many viewers will pause to reflect on the historical continuity of the Vietnam experience.

A Nation Still Divided

The Vietnam War’s end produced a brief period of hopefulness that we Americans had learned some lessons, about ourselves—that we are not almighty, that God is not automatically on our side, and that we are not the beacon of democracy and human rights we thought we were—and about others, those objects of our intervention whom we barely knew.  But this new understanding has not happened, for here we are still talking up our exceptionalism and moral superiority, still prioritizing regime stability over social justice, still stereotyping the other and building walls to keep “them” out.

“America First” selfishness is back in fashion in Washington, coupled with obliviousness to the larger dangers to our planet that demand an “Earth First” policy.  We still have no “decent respect for the opinion of mankind”; to the contrary, the current administration could care less what “mankind” (or US allies) thinks.  We’re still overstretched abroad in numerous fights that cannot be won militarily and that fuel outrage and terrorism with drone strikes and the killing of innocent civilians.  And we still don’t have people at the highest level of government who have any understanding, much less appreciation, of the cultures and histories of our adversaries.

Some people, notably war veterans, have made reconciliation with the Vietnamese a personal mission.  “The Vietnam War” suggests, appropriately, that reconciliation with former enemies, in particular by contributing concretely to Vietnam’s recovery from years of bombing, is the most positive way to overcome our guilt and dishonor. President Obama put reconciliation into practice when he visited Vietnam and Cuba, receiving heartwarming welcomes from their people.  When we see how Vietnam’s reforms have transformed the country even as a highly centralized party-led system remains in place, we have to wonder how much better off they, and we, would have been had we left Vietnam (and Cuba) alone.

The hope behind the Burns-Novick series that remembering Vietnam will help unite us actually reminds us how far we need to go to comprehend the utter futility and costliness of war, devastating not only peoples and environments abroad but also democratic institutions at home.  We will be—and should be—haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam for many years to come.

Mel Gurtov
PeaceVoice

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

By Mel Gurtov posted on October 4, 2017

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

Comments

  1. Larry Brown says

    October 5, 2017 at 10:27 am

    The United States has a perverse obsession with all things military. We constantly hear that soldiers coming back from Nam were treated poorly “spat upon” etc etc etc but we rarely hear about right wing pricks spewing racial epithets about Gooks and Squinters and telling us to “love it or leave it”. We had a fanciful bumper sticker in the hippy days that said “what if they gave a war and nobody came”. I truly do not understand and deeply resent the logical fallacy “soldiers get a pass” and all the blame goes to politicians and generals. “I vas only following orders” went out at Nuremberg and I see nothing courageous or noble about men … not even the lowliest grunt, who kill other people just because they are told to. Those are nothing more than poorly trained hitmen. The Vietnam series made me angry all over again documenting the incredible lies and hypocrisy of government which is all the more reason I want to puke every time someone says “support your troops”. If you are too stupid to figure out whether people deserve to be killed or not maybe humanity is better off with them removed from the gene pool.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Thank You For Supporting Independent Media. The LA Progressive cannot publish without your support. Please donate. Thanks....

This Weeks Featured Posts

NSA Whistleblower

How a Government Censored an NSA Whistleblower

Fight for Food Justice

Chicago Leads the Fight for Food Justice by Building Innovative Local Food Ecosystems

Homeless Youth

I Am One of the 12,000 Youth Who Is Homeless in California

Drug War Mastermind

Arrest of Drug War Mastermind Exposes Futility of War on Drugs

DA Lacey Confronted

DA Lacey Confronted at Fundraiser with Trump Ties by Mothers of Police-Shooting Victims





DA Lacey ConfrontedDemocrats Impeach TrumpStrike Against AusterityJewish NationalistyMillennial Latinos Support SandersHomeless ServicesChanging Light BulbsWeak Charges Against Trump



Sponsored

Senior Healthcare

The State of Senior Healthcare

Sportsbook

The Best 1xbet Sportsbook for Men’s and Women’s Tennis

More Posts from Sponsored

Book-A-Bus



Article Categories

Africa | Animal Rights | California
Climate Change | Defense | Economic Justice
Education Reform | Elections | Environment
Events | Foreign Policy | Gay Rights
Healthcare Reform | Immigration Reform
Juvenile Justice | Labor | Latin America
Law and Justice | Los Angeles | Prison Reform
Progressive Issues | Science & Religion
Sexism | Social Justice | Terminal Velocity | The Body Politic
| The Media | The Middle East | Veterans
War and Peace | Wellness

Los Angeles

Organizing in South LA

Rethinking 27 Years of Organizing in South LA

Elect Loraine Lundquist

Let’s Elect Loraine Lundquist, a Breath of Fresh Air for City Council 

More Posts from Los Angeles

The Middle East

Jewish Nationalisty

Trump Executive Order on Jewish Nationality: Ploy to Limit Free Speech

If Americans Knew

The Most Enduring Media Cover Up

More Posts from The Middle East

Economic Issues

Fight for Food Justice

Chicago Leads the Fight for Food Justice by Building Innovative Local Food Ecosystems

Homeless Services

The Homeless Can Transform Homeless Services If They Are Given the Chance

More Posts from Economic Justice

Copyright © 2019 · Dick Price and Sharon Kyle · Log in