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TechnoratiAnthropologists speak of "foundational" violence, acts that establish a broad milieu of destruction and discord. Forty years ago, America was in the grip of the foundational violence of its war against Vietnam, which, while killing thousands in Southeast Asia, was causing massive divisions in the United States, divisions that were increasingly violent. There was no separating that distant war from the broad social, political, and racial discord that made 1968 America's annus terribilis. On this date in that year, the man most responsible made a valiant attempt both to turn away from violence and to reckon with his own role as its instigator.
In a televised address, President Lyndon B. Johnson surprised the world by announcing a major de-escalation of American hostilities, a cessation of almost all bombing of North Vietnam, coupled with a plea to Hanoi for negotiations aimed at a political settlement. Johnson effectively renounced the goal of military victory.Indeed, his speech marked the end of an escalation that, inside the Pentagon, included proposals for the use of nuclear weapons. What gave this startling announcement its gravity, however, was what followed.
"There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as president of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples . . .
"With our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes . . . Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
Johnson did not explicitly define the meaning of this renunciation of office, and at the time many misunderstood it. Only weeks before, he had come close to losing the New Hampshire primary to Eugene McCarthy, and now some polls showed him trailing Robert Kennedy.
But Johnson could have rallied in that contest, and, with diehard support of unions and party bosses, almost certainly won re-nomination. By taking himself out of politics, he was adding weight to his appeal for peace negotiations, but not even that explains what he did.
In leaving the presidency, Johnson was accepting the ethical consequences of the mistake he had made. He could not pretend that the many thousands of deaths in Vietnam, and the torn fabric of American society, were of no significance to him. The words he spoke that night were not nearly as eloquent as the simple action he took, and nothing else could have given such truthful expression to the burden he felt.
At last, it was possible to believe that the president of the United States had been paying attention to the loss of life, erosion of community, skepticism of the young, disappointment of the old, despair of the poor - all that had followed on his foundational choices.
Lyndon Johnson stood before us as an American Oedipus - seeing the truth of what he had done, and doing what to him was the political equivalent of self-blinding. The last words of his speech concerned honor and sacrifice - "the sacrifice that duty may require."
But for once, an American president understood that responsibilities of honor and sacrifice belonged more to him than to anyone.
Johnson's action should have been the climax of that American tragedy, but it was not. The devils were loose, and the spirit of violence was unchecked. Four days after the speech, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, opening an abyss into which, with much else, the meaning of Johnson's momentous deed fell like a stone.
The peace talks began, but they would be inconclusive. Divisiveness thrived. Robert Kennedy was murdered. Democrats turned on each other. When Richard Nixon was elected as the peace candidate, he immediately restored the goal of victory in Vietnam. The bombers flew as never before.
But today, when the attitude of America's leadership toward the foundational tragedy it has caused is summed up with Dick Cheney's "So?", it is important to remember, by contrast, another president's act of authentic moral reckoning. What a difference! And why shouldn't this nation's soul be sorrowful?
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
85 Comments so far
Show AllKeep safe on your travels through lib land and remember -
reality has a liberal bias.
Nice fucking with ya devil, (again, nice name choice I guess someones got to be evil) try not to kill any innocent civilians and watch them panties.
"Petulant" ? - ouch devil, that hurt. Got your panties all up in a bunch, eh?
I was going to flame you back but I figured what good would that do since we can't actually kick each other's ass anyway. Like it would be much of a contest, 36 vs 60. I figured since you're so new to the whole internets thing, I''ll cut you a break and assume you didn't know what the hell this:) was. Look at it from the side. I was giving you a rough time. You don't expect to come on a librul site acting all smart ass and tossing around insults and expecting all us libruls to treat you PC, weak kneed and roll over like Rush told ya, did ya? I know lots of liberals who don't have too much of a problem with violence, wreaking it, that is. Sorry to disapoint.
This still stands. "You DO like to get the last word in, even if you have nothing to say, which is pretty much always." You want to know why I keep responding to you? It is because by you not responding to what I say, you say it all.
You say you're fine with what you know about yourself. That's great, I'm happy for you. I guess that goes along with "I know what history I believe." You're so sure about everything, huh? Sure that mass murder is the right thing to do. If you truly believe what I think you're "saying" you truly are a twisted fuck and too bad there are too many like you on all sides.
You DO like to get the last word in, even if you have nothing to say, which is pretty much always.
Trying to get a libruls panties in a bunch I imagine, well I go commando, mfr!
Curiously, you never really respond to any of the incredibly profound and wise points I make and I wonder why that is: either you're thick or you're an A-hole:) Probably both.
I'm not sure if you can understand a word I write, but whatever. Since we seem to have ascertained which side of the divide we stand on as far as mass murder goes, I might as well digress.
No. 8 would have been my second guess. You must know each type can go healthy and unhealthy. 8s, 6s, and 1s, can get esp. dangerous when they go unhealthy. Hitler was a 1. I'm a 9, a "Peacemaker." It ain't easy being a 9. And it isn't like it sounds, 9s don't go around trying to make peace with others. It merely means my key motive is to be at peace of mind of some kind. Could be under a tree or at sea in a hurricane. A 8s prime motivator is to be self-reliant and in control. I still think you're more of a 6, though. Loyalty seems to be your big thing. But hey, I could be wrong.
Here's the Key Motivators to a 6: Want to have security, to feel supported, to have the approval of others, to test the attitudes of others to them, and to defend their beliefs.
A good book is called Personality Types: using the enneagram for self-discovery. Check it out, you might learn something about yourself.
One last thought...
Here is the main area me and you seem to differ.
While you have no problem killing as many people (others* you don't know) as it takes to achieve "victory", no matter how hollow,** I find that thoughtless and cruel mass murder, unnecessary and counterproductive. Only in a total war when your nation and people's existence is truly in peril, do I abide by your extreme. You seem to have flippant concern for the deaths of the others,* I'll make a guess that you're a Christian.
FYI, I'd guess again that you're a personality type known as No. 6, the Loyalist, in the enneagram, a personality typology used in psychology. You can use the internets to look it up if you're curious (doubtful), I doubt it'd be on Conservapedia, you might have to go to Wikipedia.
*Others - a tribal thing in which outsiders are held as separate and with overblown suspicion and disregard (and therefore much easier to kill)
**Pyhrric Victory - see the internets
First off. That must have been some difficult, terrible shit to deal with.
Now to it...
So you espouse victory at any cost? Or victory for the sake of victory? Even if we would have to surpass the crimes of Hitler to do it?
I imagine that you must have at least some "real" justification for your support of our intervention in SE Asia. I imagine it is based on the Domino Theory and a hysterical opposition to socialism. But consider that the Domino Theory was just that - a theory. We go half way around the world and invade a country, turn it upside down, kill millions of people who had done NOTHING to us based on a theory and you're cool with that. Not my American values. They're more in line with the "Manifest Destiny" side of American values, a high sounding phrase coined in the first half of the nineteenth century to justify stealing land that wasn't ours.
You say smugly that you "know what history you believe." I think it would be more accurately put that you believe whatever you WANT to believe despite any and all evidence to the contrary.
A quote from someone who was there.
General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war
"first, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean war, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies … And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous."
devil 1...
so u hate losing..who doesn't? is that why u keep this thread going? getting in the last word will be a "win" for u?
most common dreamers will concede u probably behaved honourably in vietnam. what we won't concede is that the decision to be there in the first place and the decision to keep it going were honourable. u keep talking like your "experience" gives u some special understanding of vietnam. there was another guy who experienced vietnam as directly as u....david halberstam. he wrote a book about it (the best and the brightest) in which he set the political context for our military entry into that country. in our political duopoly, the democrats were charged with "losing" china and career politicians became ever afraid of being fear-mongered out of office. they were willing to send young men to die just to keep their political careers going. hopefully, u believe in civilian/political control of the military. u didn't behave dishonouably, but the people who sent u there and kept it going did.
what i typed in here probably won't mean much to u, but, hey, all a person can do is try...
Devil, Devil, Devil,
Another wise man told me that winning isn't everything. Who to believe? And experience can be misleading. Many others who had the same experience as you came back with quite the different conclusions. How does that factor in your thinking?
As for those who didn't welcome you back when asked to give so much for their country (how ever misguided those leaders were who sent you is irrelevant) and spit on you and your comrades, they were fools who didn't understand shit, like you, but different. Vietnam was a learning moment for our nation.
BeForKids has it right. Remember all those monks who set themselves on fire? What the hell was that all about, eh? Pretty abhorrent and hard to comprehend for the average Western Christian who was raised on the belief that such an act will send you straight to hell. But - NEWSFLASH - other peoples see things differently than us - and who are we to judge them by our standards. Remember Self Determination? FYI, they were protesting the repressive, undemocratic, MINORITY, Roman Catholic government we were propping up over there.
Things aren't always as they appear and most who went over there didn't know shit about the people and situation they were about to enter and were going on propaganda and hearsay. I personally would like to know a little more about the people I'm about to go and kill and I sure as hell am not going to trust Uncle Sam to tell me, which is why I joined the USCG instead of the other services.
I'm not sure whether you had your Ass in the Grass or were a REMF or maybe even a Squid bouncing around safely in your steel box, but open your mind and read some history, you might learn something.
devil 1,
Your recollection is quite poor. Only a small minority of the Vietnamese were Catholic. By and large an elite, educated by the French. The vast majority are Bhuddist. The notable exceptions Diem and Madame Nhu (also known as the "Dragon Lady") who were in power when our intervention started. They were notable repressors of Bhuddists. The famous photograph of a monk burning himself to death was a direct protest to their actions.
We assisted in the removal of Diem from power, but no real government ever existed in the south that was in any way embraced by the people.
On the other hand, Ho Chi Minh was celebrated on both sides of the border as a Vietnamese George Washington. During WWII he was the leader of Vietnamese resistance against the Japanese. He repatriated downed US airmen and soldiers who escaped from the Japanese. Our biggest mistake was not embracing him and instead supporting French imperial ambitions.
By the way, devil1, although I was actively resisting the war, my heart ached for the soldiers who were sent to do this, who had to carry with them for the rest of their lives their experiences which the rest of us could only imagine. I saw a homeless Vietnam vet recently outside a store, we talked and he told me he still cries. We hugged, I gave him money even though he reeked of alcohol. I am furious and have been for 40 years that our country puts these young people in harms way and abandons them when they return.
When I lived in northern Minnesota I observed that the vets there fared better because they returned to small communities that embraced and supported them. It didn't matter if people were for or against the war, they were for their young men. We owe them that.
It took me a long time to understand why returning soldiers would never talk about their experiences - except to each other. There is no way people who hadn't been through what they had could possibly understand, there would be no connection.
I understand your defensive wall, and you may not think you need any compassion from me, but you have it. No one comes out of such an experience without spiritual harm. Whatever we do to another, we do to ourselves, regardless of the reasons.
kathyodat
devil1, I'm guessing you were pretty young when you went in to Vietnam, because your recollection is pure military propaganda fantasy used to brainwash young innocents. I was apolitical and uninformed at age 22 in 1964 when LBJ stated bombing North Vietnam, but it felt all wrong so I started researching what was going on. When the French gave up and left in 1954, Eisenhower said we cannot allow Vietnam to vote for President, they will elect Ho Chi Min, so he proposed dividing the country and had a puppet regime (Roman Catholic in a country full of Buddhists) financed and supported by US "advisers". Ho Chi Min was no Communist, he was a nationalist, but was forced to turn to China and Russia for help resisting what he considered the occupation of the southern half of his country. He had considerable sympathy in the south for this, which is why American soldiers had to "sanitize" South Vietnamese villages for harboring insurgents. Well, some of us were aware of the horrors of that sanitization, including napalm, land mines, and agent orange. I suspect your mind is about as locked down as a steel vault, but if you should want to inform yourself, there is a book written by a conservative, Alan Trustman, who although supporting the war, nevertheless, believed people should know the truth about Ho Chi Min. He wrote of our betrayal of Ho Chi Min, who during WW11 was rescuing downed American pilots.
Following is a link to a very brief history of Vietnam:
http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/uncleho.htm
The fact is, war is very good for the armaments business and that's why we fight. Our Congress is bought and paid for by the military industrial complex, about which Eisenhower warned - too little, too late, and will continue to throw our tax dollars in their direction.
kathyodat
drift,
Thanks for your thoughts, but don't feel too bad for Devil, he can give as well as he gets. It's support from him and his gang that keeps getting us into these messes. He can vote and you know who for.
I'm actually having a time myself. I eat wingnuts for breakfast.
And other posters may learn a thing or two about dealing with wingnuts. Must we always preach to our own choir?
devil 1: Thank you for your service. And if you didn't hear it enough at the time, then welcome home.
Everyone else: Save your keystrokes. He's here for shits and giggles. Don't think he's really open to the progressive point of view. Besides, insulting him won't win him over. Most of us here don't need too much more info than we already have that Vietnam and Iraq were/are murderous affairs based upon deceit, greed, and mendacity.
Yes, there are reams of information to refute his contention that we lost because we weren't allowed to win. But if he was really in that shithole, and thinking that has helped him cope these last 40 yrs, who are any of us to take that away?
Hello again Devil, still hanging around, eh? I guess CD posters could use a resident wingnut to practice on. I know I've had my own share to deal with, being in the service myself.
Call me crazy, but I think it takes more to be considered an American than pulling a trigger and being shot at. The Nazis were pretty good at that too.
The big problem I have with the whole Vietnam issue is that it contradicts the most important of America's founding principles, the one we got our panties all in a bunch about over two hundred years ago - Self Determination.
So now we go around the globe depriving others of that same right because of paranoia, arrogance and greed. It seems to me the Vietnamese were in the process of self determination themselves but US leaders imagined a threat. I say imagined because that's what it was - imagination.
The Vietnamese did not threaten the US in any real way. So we go and kill TWO MILLION of them just in case. In fact, from what I've read, Uncle Ho was quite the fan of America and democracy. He did, however, prefer a different economic system. Whoa! Stop the presses! Unacceptable! If anything matters to US leaders it is that choice, not whether the country is democratic or not. See Venezuela for an excellent modern day example of this.
For the record, I'm no socialist. But other peoples have an "inalienable right" to choose their own destiny, any real American should be able to understand this.
devil 1,
You clearly are no student of history. We were backing an unpopular government against a people willing to sacrifice more and longer than we were. We could have committed millions of soldiers and killed millions more of the Vietnamese and in the end it would have meant nothing more.
The Vietnamese fought the Chinese for centuries, the French for decades, and the US and Japanese for years. My father flew B-52s over Hanoi and Haiphong during Linebacker II (also called the Christmas bombing offensive) in 1972. They blockaded Haiphong harbor with air-dropped mines and leveled a good deal of Hanoi. He lost many friends during the course of the campaign. Sure the North came to the bargaining table. They could see that the American public no longer supported the war. If they could get us to leave by negotiating that was okay by them. Better than more people dying.
Apparently, declaring "Peace with honor", left the door open for some incredibly stupid people to think that we didn't try hard enough. I guess the British didn't try hard enough to stop our own independence.
The irrefutable fact remains - They simply wanted to be free of foreign influence more than we were willing to sacrifice to impose our will upon them. Nothing you say can change that. All arguments to the contrary simply display your ignorance and inability to learn from history.
devil1,
You didn't answer my question. What was "the job" we were supposed to be doing in Vietnam? Why did the U.S. enter Vietnam? We were told it was to stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia -- the "domino theory" stating that if one country fell to communism they all would. But we left the country before the job was done. OK. Either the domino theory was wrong and 58,000 American lives and 2 million or more Vietnamese lives were wasted for no good reason or stopping the spread of communism was not the reason. And now, China practically owns the United States through debt and imbalance of trade. So, again, why was stopping communism so important, if, ultimately, we are to become subservient through our own free will to the Red Chinese Communists.
Its a simple question. You say we left before the job was done. So. What was the job we were there to do? And for that matter, why are we in Iraq? What is "the job" we are doing there? There were no WMD so why are we still there?
-- kent shaw
"If the polititians stayed out and let the military do what it was there for."
devil1,
What was the mmilitary there for? To stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia? Why didn't that happen after the U.S. left Vietnam? And if that was such an important goal, why is Red Communist China now our largest creditor? Please enlighten us?
-- kent shaw
i'm relatively new to this all....posting on a site and then getting into a pissing match with someone. devil 1, i do give u points for putting your balls on the line in vietnam, since u evidently thought that was the right thing to do. your comfort level with things as they are is not so commendable...most of us common dreamers probably see u as being in denial as to the way things are going. and, of course, u had to end your last post telling us how much you've enjoyed getting our collective panties up. is fighting over the internet really fighting? or does it all just mean shit to a tree as a sixties song said...
Grant, Devil1 obviously isn't concerned about other people dying or suffering, just about winning or losing. I think that skull is too hard -and old- to penetrate.
kathyodat
I can't agree with James Carroll about why Johnson quit. Some posters did hit on it. Carroll must be subscribing to the single assassin theory of JFK. I believe the reality is Johnson knew he wouldn't be reelected unless he ended the war and would suffer the fate of JFK if he did end it. So he quit.
I was struck by the last line: And why shouldn't this nation's soul be sorrowful?
If only we knew what we are doing to ourselves when we invade and occupy other countries. We make ourselves no better than the Nazis. Does anyone think for one minute we ourselves would welcome an invasion and occupation? That we would not at least furtively support our own insurgents (deemed terrorists by our invaders)?
Of course Iraq is a more complex situation. We have unleashed an uncontrollable civil war and now the only thing we can do is get out of the way and let them work it out. We are only prolonging and contributing to the tragedy and loss of life with our presence. Saddham was imposing a brutal minority control over a majority population and we ripped him out of the way, fired his army and then protected nothing but the oil ministry and fields. Just in case you wondered why we're there. And to add insult to injury, while we while we left the Iraqis without water or electricity, our glorious leaders moved into Saddham's palaces. Money that should have gone to the Iraqis went to Halliburton and KBR who pretended to rebuild Iraq.
kathyodat
By the way, as I mentioned above, your economic well being is largely the result of us, the taxpayers. You have healthcare, a month stipend, a chance to get a free college education, amongst other things because of US taxpayers. If we all had that the economy would be "robust". If it's beyond you to think objectively then you shouldn't enter into these types of conversations, it's not only immature but logically stupid.
devil1,
When you say "We never lost one battle in Viet Nam but history portrays us as losers,because we left there without taking it to its' logical conclusion.Now you pray for the same outcome in this war.I didn't agree back then and I don't agree now."
Johnson thought the logical conclusion was defeat or mutually assured destruction.
What is your idea of the logical conclusion?
You're just as ignorant about economics as you are foreign policy. So a country that has a dwindling industrial base outside of weapons, declining or stagnating real wages for the majority of the population (which has been the case for decades now), a lack of investment in education and healthcare (with a healthcare system the most expensive and the worse performing in the industrialized world, with an educational system that is under-funded and producing far too many people like yourself), a fiscal and trade deficit, huge increases in wealth disparity, a national NEGATIVE savings rate (first time since the Great Depression), amongst other things is "robust". Wow, I'd ask you to explain this but won't give you a headache.
"If we don't send money to these counties we would be sending bombs." So we either "send money" (do you mean invest?) or kill people…ok. The fact that you have the outlook you have, and know as little about the subjects you speak about (with a lot of bravado for some reason), while having your hands on weapons is scary. It isn't scary for people richer and more powerful than yourself, you're a "useful idiot" to them, it's scary for the people in the same economic situation as yourself. You obviously aren't rich and have an elegance to a class that could in the end give two craps if you live or die, they only care about how they can use people like you to make themselves more money (investors aren't the ones fighting the wars, they send people like you to do that, they're just the ones making hand over fist in the process).
Frankly, if you think it's your right to kill people in another country because they dare disagree with the leaders of the US government, or more accurately the corporations who own the government, then I hope you meet you get what's coming to you. You don't represent me or this country, you represent yourself and all that is wrong with the US. It's because of people like you that this country is in this position, doubly that it's in this position and you're too ignorant & stupid to see it for what it is.
but my economy is robust
If that all that counts in this world!
Think about that great economy we promised the Iraqis, and how they are living at present!
You proud of that?
Johnson was a hard core prick who played extreme hard ball politics. Morality was no where to be found in him, as pointed out by many posts here. Furthermore, he became a millionaire after he became president because of his shares in Bell Helicopters - which happened to get fat contracts during the Vietnam War. No different than the Bush administration - use war as a means to line your own pockets.
"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Roy O. Driskill,
I pray your son comes home safe and unharmed.
Kent Shaw
Ultimately, the American public is responsible for the continuing war, economic destruction, and cultural decay of this nation.
Every vote for either the Demo's or Repub's is a vote in support of political, economic, social and cultural disaster.
If change is desired, then vote for an alternate political party. Flush the current crop of misfits from Congress and the White House.
Take a chance for change.
kent shaw March 31st, 2008 3:37 pm
"The Troops" are ALL war criminals, obeying ILLEGAL ORDERS in an ILLEGAL WAR. Harsh, but factual.
Kent:
I share your pain. You are obviously a patriot in the truest sense.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
I forget who said it, but it is a truism.
My youngest son is in Iraq or off it's coast in the US Navy. Him also, I DO NOT SUPPORT in this ILLEGAL, HORRIFIC
military adventure. It is not even really a war.
It is an ongoing effort by our MIL/IND Complex to extend their hegemony over the world by acquiring an unsinkable aircraft carry in the form of Iraq.
Thanx,
Ray O. Driskill
Kent Shaw has gotten the correct picture and expressed it correctly.
There is no excuse for actively participating in what is universally known to be genocidal warcrimes against the innocent...for the sake of criminal corporate interests.
As for "protecting their buddy next to them", make me laugh.
You want to protect your "buddy" next to you?
Then start walking, bub.
All the way to Basra and then get on that ship to Washington D.C. and commence the soldiering you signed up for.
Otherwise, prepare for the mother of The Little Big Horn. Or Hattin, whichever you are capable of grasping.
And don´t expect any favors when you ... possibly ... arrive stateside in a wheelchair.
Somebody said something about Marines, but all I see are ... Morons.
Harsh, but factual. Well put, indeed.
Johnson lied to the US population, deliberately and repeatedly, about what was really going on in the war, with the result that, not thousands, but millions died and brought the US into economic turmoil, he was told, by US business leaders, not to run again, and he obeyed, to attribute to this mass murderer a degree of 'morality' is disgraceful
George W Bush was AWOL from the texas Air National Guard during Viet Nam.
Dick Cheney had five service deferments because he had 'better things to do' at the same time.
4000 dead US servicemen (according to the APPROVED count). Compared to the 58 000 plus of Viet Nam.
In the words of Dick Cheney: SO?!
Jason B., Lord Trigo, and Grant
Great Posts!
kent shaw,
Thanks for the tip. Not sure how to go about it though. Do I just tell my employer to stop sending my taxes to the Man, then wait until he comes and takes me away so I can begin my martyrdom?
Who is responsible for the invasion of Iraq?
Like many of you I was out protesting and arguing against the invasion. Maybe half the people ignored what I said, or flipped me the bird, or called me a traitor, or shouted lies at me when I tried to tell the truth. I told the truth, gave them sources they could verify it with, explained the motives, and so forth, but they refused to listen or act, and many voted for Bush a second time. They are the ones responsible: a large part, probably a majority, of the American people. Sure the "leaders" and mass media -- and the schools and the cultural structures and myths and the rest of it played a part, but ultimately, it's the people who determine what the government can and can't do. The buck doesn't stop at any president's or politician's desk -- it stops with the people.
Sorry -- but that's the truth.
lwhunt330: "they are fighting for your right to free speech"
Americans who say US soliders are fighting in Iraq for that are using "free speech" as a pretext for an unnamed agenda, usually their own economic enrichment by the military industrial complex. In a culture of secrecy the destruction piles up from secrecy in all the various sectors, from trade secrets to the Penguin's secret energy meetings, to support of wealth redistribution hidden behind patriotism and other "virtues". When it comes to the civic and economic sectors, the citizens' true agendas should be public knowledge.
Vietnam 58,000 US dead many more wounded and disabled to this day.
I saw a show on PBS about Vets returning to Vietnam.. I have respect for whatever their personal journies compel them to do. However, I saw a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store and some US owned cell phone stores etc on the street behind the park where they gave the interviews. Oh and you can also take a Mekong Delta dinner cruise and buy your New Balance sneakers there real cheap.
Is war only used to open new markets???????
GRANT: excellent post!
Devil 1: due to the completeness of your dehumanizing imprint, you are required to report within 10 days to the nearest grunge bar and listen to Patti Smith's Radio Baghdad non-stop until you cry "uncle".
I have long respected James Carroll and his insight; however, I'm inclined to agree with hedology (March 31st, 2008 4:56 p.m.) and Ostrogoth (March 31st, 2008 5:29 p.m.).
Mr. Carroll, I shall, however, give your thesis some serious thought.
Thank you, Grant (March 31st, 2008 5:03 p.m.) for responding to devil 1, and I, for one, pray that he doesn't re-up. We have, as a nation, apparently trained and sent enough of his kind out as "ambassadors" of democracy during these past sixty years.
Please see Mr. Fish's latest on our role in the world:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002744
Pax.
devil 1...your blithe attitude toward violence induced me to tell u to re-up and suffer the consequences. if you're gonna talk the talk, then go walk the walk.
your comment "we never lost 1 battle in vietnam but history portrays us as the loser, because we left there without taking it to its logical conclusion" is disturbing. what could u possibly mean by logical conclusion...nukes? 2 million vietnamese dead and 58000 american dead...not enuf for u? you've swallowed the kool-aid of your masters and they're gonna play u to your dying day as long as u let them.
kendpotter: "You, I, and everyone else that hasn't stopped this war are the war criminals.
I agree wholeheartedly.
"Last time I checked, the military answers to civilian control, ..."
And the civilians have issued illegal orders which "the troops" have followed, thereby committing war crimes. Again, its harsh, and I wish it wasn't so, but it is FACT.
"Quite obviously, you are ingnorant of the stop-loss orders as well."
Untrue. I am well aware of the "back door draft" and we are failing our youth by not educating them prior to their entrance to a recruiting station. You really should read my first comment above before you "go off" on me.
One other thing you got completely wrong - a major cost factored in Stieglitz's study was the interest on the borrowed money, so that was factored into the 3 trillion.
Joseph Stiglitz, not Stieglitz. As far as the dollar cost, I stand corrected. As far as spelling, so do you! ;)
-- kent shaw
Mordechai Shiblikov has it correct. Go back up and re-read what he has written. Right to the core.
Recently I read an article where a soldier in Iraq was complaining that no one here is paying any attention to the war. He and his comrades feel forgotten. Unfortunately, that's exactly the way Bush and Co. intend for it to be. The very nature of imperial war is that it is never-ending. There's always a rebellion to be put down here, or a hostile regime to be overthrown there, and occupation forces everywhere. There's never really a "victory," per se, so there's never a victory parade. The public in the home country eventually tunes out news of the various minor clashes on the peripharies of the empire, unless there's a particularly devastating military setback.
Devil 1 reminds me a bit of my father, who served in Vietnam, and was extremely bitter about the outcome of that conflict. He blamed the hippies for undermining the war effort, and eventually blamed Robert McNamara for starting the war in the first place after Mac admitted in the 1990s that the U.S. believed it had only a one-in-three chance of victory even before they sent in the first troops. Biggest murderer in U.S. history, my father called him, for sending American soldiers to a pointless death. Vietnam, like Iraq, was not our war to win, no matter how the individual battles turned out. We have neither the military power, the moral authority or the public will to dictate the direction of other nations' and peoples' cultural or economic development. It's a shame that men like Devil 1 and my father, who have much to offer this nation, get screwed by politicians who can't resist the lure of the "foreign entanglements" that the Founding Fathers justifiably warned us about.
jehosepha: "I know it must be hard for you to keep more than one thing in your head at a time but it is possible to support the troops and not the mission."
Not possible as long as you are a U.S. citizen still paying taxes. If that applies to you then you support the mission. You may not LIKE the fact that you support the mission, but its a fact that you do.
devill 1 -
Loving the USA doesn't make you a bad guy, but there's no virtue in blindly loving our country's mistakes or in pretending we never make dumb and sometimes disastrous mistakes.
Americans, afer all, aren't a perfected class of humans who never err. And to keep believing we are, is exactly the kind of unsmart hubris our country's founders were sick of dealing with, with colonial Britain, and never wanted us to become ourselves.
We 'lost' militarily in Vietnam because, short of destroying its people with nukes, there was no way that any amount of conventional firepower could defeat its determined insurgency of native people who - both North and South - damn well didn't want us there.
And we 'lost' politically in Vietnam, even before being driven-out militarily, because our government was so myopically obsessed with the Dominoe Theory (of 'Global Communism'), that we ignored the reasons for the French colonialist defeat at Dien Bien Phu, in 1954: colonial exploitation); and had no patience, ourselves, to understand Ho Chi Minh's nationalistic (and only nominally socialist)agenda. Ho loved the USA in many ways, and said so again and again in his early autobiography [he had lived in NYC for several years, and came to see that a form of democratic socialism/capitalism mix, unaligned with the USSR or the traditionally-hated Chinese, was his right to fight for, in a re-unified Vietnam which had been artificially divided by the presumptuous French.] And in the end, who the hell were we Americans to tell the Vietnamese otherwise?
Instead, the USA mindlessly used the South Vietnamese people and its colonial-puppet government as a proxy in an hystericalized global-thwarting strategy against the USSR and PRC; a strategy which took no account of what the Vietnamese themselves wanted. This is arguably what finally what drove Ho Chi Minh and his insurgents into the unqualified helping hands of the big bad Commie powers.
Since that war's chief architect, erstwhile DOD Secretary Robert S. McNamara, acknolwedged, much later in his own autobiography, the blindly stupid mistakes of US government policy toward Vietnam, who are YOU, devil 1, to implicitly counter-claim that our beloved USA never makes mistakes?
To thoughtful readers of history, there's now overwhelming evidence that our country has again made, and persists in making, the same kinds of mistakes in Iraq and the Middle east: shooting ourseves in the foot by creating a popular insurgency in a country we had and no business invading to begin with.
Unless, of course you think you own the world, and that your government's NEVER, EVER wrong, or is ever motivated by less than sterling agendas.
I think that very few Common Dreams commentators believe in 'peace at any price.' But it sounds like you believe in mindless obediance to government policy at any price.
Thank God, devil 1, that your kind of thinking didn't dominate the Constitution's framing at the founding of our Republic. For an older person, you still have a lot to learn.
I was in the Army at the time of LBJ's speech and remember it well. I doubt he experienced any "moral reckoning." At the time of his resignation he was absolutely loathed by Democrats and Republicans alike, although for different reasons. The Democrats were doomed to defeat if he ran again.
If LBJ expressed any remorse over the war, I've never heard about it. His omnipotence was challenged by some uppity Commie gooks and he decided to teach them a lesson. Ergo the bogus attack on a US destroyer and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The American public finally realized that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist, not a conqueror, and turned on LBJ. He never forgave us.
Are the current torturing fascists in the White House even capable of a moral reckoning? To ask the question is to answer it.
James Carroll doesn't have to be instructed on the number of Vietnamese, and American, and "thousands" of other deaths in South East Asia. Nor is he one to "downplay" sin when he sees it. And I'd be very surprised if he were "afraid of being attacked", by "stupid rightwingers" or by anyone else. Read "An American Requiem", Houghton Mifflin (Mariner Books, 1996).
As to the Americans in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, probably Iran, who knows where else - some may be evil, as I believe many out of uniform, in this country, are. But I doubt that many are. In the Indo-China war protests, the right position, in my view, was "Stop the Bombing, Stop the War, Bring the Troops Home Now." I think it's the right position now. Don't imitate Cheney, bush and the others' evil: sitting safely at home, judging and damning others. Pray for them all to come home, to heal, and to stop killing others.
kent shaw,
"The Troops" are ALL war criminals, obeying ILLEGAL ORDERS in an ILLEGAL WAR. Harsh, but factual."
You, I, and everyone else that hasn't stopped this war are the war criminals. The troops can land in the penintentiary for doing what we can. Last time I checked, the military answers to civilian control, which suits me just fine, not wanting to end up like some of the former South American republics with their coup-o-the-week governments. Quite obviously, you are ingnorant of the stop-loss orders as well.
One other thing you got completely wrong - a major cost factored in Stieglitz's study was the interest on the borrowed money, so that was factored into the 3 trillion.
Since you obviously never served and couldn't be bothered to acutually read the study, why don't you just shut the hell up?
Three to four years ago nearly one out of every four or five vehicles (my personal estimate)in my city had one of those yellow "support our troops" ribbons. They have completely disappeared, as far as I can tell, and I've been actively looking when I drive.
It made me wonder what has gone on in the minds of all those people who eventually removed the ribbons. What thoughts did they go through as they peeled them away, then threw them in the trash?"
As they washed off the outline the ribbon must have left on the vehicle did they ask themselves why? "Why did I put this here?", "Why am I washing it off?", "Does it mean I no longer support the troops?", "I wonder if anyone will notice?"
Were these acts of ribbon removal done quietly, at night, or in the garage, in the hopes that no one would notice?
devil1,
Vietnam was lost because the US wanted to impose a system on the Vietnamese that they didn't want. Look at the declassified documents. The Geneva Accords of 1954 said there was to be an election in Vietnam by 1956 and everyone in US intelligence knew that the US' preferred candidates had no mass support and would lose in a landslide. The earliest attacks against Vietnam were in the SOUTH, because the largest and best organized resistance was there. In Iraq, the US and its corporations have stolen everything in sight and have forced and economic system on the Iraqis, which has largely caused this mess. Both times this country, because of imperial ambitions, tried to force its system on a country that didn't want it and both times it was met with a resistance that was willing to get slaughtered as long as it took to drive the US out. There is no moral defense of either war, your empty platitudes don't cut it. They're devoid of any honest historical facts and don't work logically.
Regarding staying in the Mid East to STOP rogue countries, which country is less of a rogue state than before the invasion? Iraq, is much more of rogue state, Afghanistan is bombed out and destroyed (the only thing working there, the National Solidarity Program, is seeing its funding cut by this administration because corporate theft isn't involved) and every other country is in a better place strategically than before.
Explain something for me: the US economy is caput. We have no industrial base, wages are declining, investment in the public has decreased, we have a trade and fiscal deficit, amongst other horrors. We also spend now, directly and indirectly, over a TRILLION on the socialist institution known as the military (a collection of paid killers on the public dole, every benefit you have is thanks to US taxpayers). Where is this money going to come from for your imperialist empire? How is the US going to maintain its military empire and pay NEEDED social services? Please enlighten us as to what new branch of economic you're going to develop to make this possible.
"We're supposed to kill people and break things."
You disgusting pig, we're supposed to have a functioning society, that invests in healthcare, education (which you clearly lack), our environment, etc. We aren't supposed to invade other countries, force our economic system on them, steal their resources and call it "democracy" or "freedom". Frankly, if the entire military think like you rip your damn flag off because you don't represent me or any country could call itself moral. Your mindset belongs in countries like Nazi Germany, and I don't care if that comes across as cliché.
Regarding Iran: in 2003 the Iranian government (then lead by a more moderate leader) offered an amazing deal (recognition of Israel being one of them), what did the Bush administration do? They attacked the person who delivered the information to them. There was and is a deal for countries who want to use uranium for civilian purposes. It says that an international organization should possess the uranium and countries like Iran would have to apply to use it, under strict rules that stipulate civilian only use, supervised by the same organization, possibly the IAEA. There's one stipulation though, Iran wants it so that the uranium can ONLY be use for civilian purposes, meaning countries like the US (including Iran themselves) wouldn't be able to use it for the reasons you'd like. Well, Iran is one of the only countries in the world willing to go along with the plan, the US isn't. It's funny too, India, Israel and Pakistan all are US allies and are all in violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (the US itself violates the treaty more than anyone else). As a matter of fact, the US has stated that it's GOAL in regards to India is to essentially undercut the NPT, helping them build nuclear weapons and use uranium for military purposes. No one, especially someone as ignorant as you, says a damn thing about this. You have a list of platitudes and you'll be dammed if you learn a damn thing about what you're talking about.
America learned nothing from Vietnam. If it had, the catastrophe of Iraq would never have taken place. The United States is destroying itself, almost gleefully. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, George Wanker Bush. No one learns anything. One vainglorious fool and criminal follows upon another. This is what it's like to live through the self-destruction of our own country. The Republicans and the Democrats need to be electorally burned to the ground. But the great mass of heedless and half-assed Americans will make another one, most likely the Republican, our next Fuhrer and this castastrophe will march on until it buries us all.
LBJ did the establishment a favor, and may have been advised as such. By taking the fall on his sword, because it was more a failure to achieve victory than any real sorrow on behalf of the US to ruin the future of yet another nations people. This cleared the way for another establishment imperial aggressor leader free of conscience to escalate the conflict, giving the air force bombing aficionados their head. The responsible thing for LBJ would have been to seek office with a overt (or covert if necessary) policy to end US involvement in the war. The establishment signaled they would not let him. His failure to do just that took the issue of peace off the table, and prolonged the war by another Presidential term, just like the Democrats took impeachment off the table. All wars from the US are related to political cycles and Presidential terms. The following assassinations of liberal figures enabled a shift to the right again.
Why all this ugly nay-saying and bad grammar and spelling? I was grateful for James Carroll's reminder that politicians can rise above their circumstances. LBJ was as dirty a politician as ever existed, but he had ideals and principles that, in the end, he adhered to. I see few of our current, small-time politicians recognizing higher principles. Please, don't let our discussion be less than that honestly dirty man achieved.
yeah, jehosepha most ME leaders and movements now consider "American Support" the kiss of death. Got to keep it quiet, under the table, just give us the money and weapons and keep your stupid mouths shut.
During Vietnam, when people saw on TV what was going on, they correctly found it repulsive. The press now, refuses to show any controversial war footage. As such, most Americans can live in denial about the horrors of our occupation.
Take a look at my short video (banned by YouTube). In it I show my triumphant war supporter, Senator Chambliss (R-GA) and his prized war.
http://nukular-waste.tripod.com/nukular-waste.htm
or watch the YouTube promo for the banned video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7iliaJDiI
Please watch and pass it on.
Thanks, devil1, for demonstrating an inclination that I am sure is quite prevalent among the troops, a sorry lack of capacity for critical thinking. I know it must be hard for you to keep more than one thing in your head at a time but it is possible to support the troops and not the mission. Maybe you can figure it out if you try hard enough. Try not to give up too soon and start breaking things.
You seem like a good cowboy though, maybe you can understand this. If someone came to your ranch and tried to tell you how to run things, how would you react, even if they said they were well intentioned and wanted to help?
Please try to understand (I know that's a tall order, being so macho and stuff) that the ME (Middle East) is a large area with a complicated history involving many colonial interventions by the West (including US, see Operation Ajax for a little edu on our former "support" of democracy over there). So to put it mildly, they're a bit suspicious when we say we're going to give them some of our "freedoms."
So go ahead and re-up devil1 (an apt name choice, by the way), you'll make a great bullet sponge. Maybe you'll get to kill a bunch of innocent civilians. I'm sure you won't hesitate, it's war, you have all your justifications in place, right?
well ,looks like the only re-upping devil1 will be doing is at his local VFW bar. If he is even eligable to be in the VFW.
Unchained: the surest way to get this country out of Iraq would be to institute a draft, and the neocons know this. As they see it we'd be back in the bad old 60's with students and ordinary citizens rallying in the streets. Besides, draftees thrown into battle don't really follow orders blindly. Dr. Death (Rumsfeld) was fully aware of this. No, easier to shove the country into a harsh depression, then you can have all the cannon fodder you want. Worked out well for Hitler.
Charlie Rangel tried to get this on the table and all his cohorts avoided him like the plague. There will be no draft. There will be large aerial and missile attacks (cruise) and possibly a few nukes thrown in there just to prove to the rest of the world that we are dangerously crazy.
"The Troops" are ALL war criminals, obeying ILLEGAL ORDERS in an ILLEGAL WAR. Harsh, but factual.
Devil 1: I agree with you, we should not support the troops, they are derelict in their constitutional duty, and many are war criminals. I presume that is what you mean.
Devil 1: Devil's advocate? Rogue nation? who? Cockroach of a President? Who?
The many comparisons between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War are quite valid, despite some differences.
Military, social, political, economic, international, media-related and other aspects often look like history repeating itself in very significant ways.
The 'Nam War ended in a way that probably will be similar to the way the 'Raq War ends.
What other similarities will emerge? Food for thought in the article ...
"Going in Circles: Vietnam, Iraq, Calls for Impeachment"
Truthout.org
16 January 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011607D.shtml
devil 1....do us a favor and re-up and hopefully good riddance
Note that twice in this article (including in the second sentence) Carroll refers to the "thousands" of deaths that the US caused in Vietnam. Actually, the number is "millions." Informed estimates generally are between 2 and 4 million.
Carroll is doubtless aware of this, yet apparently chose to deliberately downplay the number. He's probably afraid of being attacked by stupid rightwingers.
"Would that have made a difference?"
Probably not. Except they might have to spin the propaganda at a faster rate.
About the 4000 dead. The ratio of wounded to dead is now 8 to 1. In Vietnam it was 2 to 1. That means you have to add 2 more dead per dead soldier to compare witht Vienam. Of the 6 extra wounded, 2 would be dead and 4 wounded. So the figure would have been 12,000 dead. Would that have made a difference?
Hey, devil1. Why are you in favor of attacking Iran, a country which has not attacked anyone for a thousand years or so? So what if Iran builds a bomb? Pakistan has 'em. Israel has 'em. Russia has 'em. India has 'em. So who cares if Iran builds a bomb? Do you think that Iran would actually attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons? Wouldn't that be a bit foolhardy? But, oh, what about our good buddies, the Israelis? What if Iran attacks them with nuclear weapons? Yeah, exactly. So what? Who cares?
very moving piece, james. i lived thru the sixties and there was always something about lbj that i liked. mcnamara, kissinger and and trick nixon seemed to me to be the most dishonorable of the vietnam power players.
The extravagant lifestyle of the middle and upper classes Americans lead to aggressive imperial strategies which then lead to wars which then necessitate tighter, undemocratic domestic terrorism and control of its own populace.
What we can hope for is an awakening of the American people which can take precedence over and prevent the occurences such as an economic or societal collapse at home or a series of suicidal foreign wars. The choice is within us and the solution is only ours to make.
Unchained: "I will support the troops…not the policy."
Sounds good. Glad to hear you have stopped paying your income taxes.
-- Kent Shaw
lwhunt330: "If our freedom were really at stake, then our leaders would send their own children to fight and would have us help pay for their efforts."
Well put. It has been said, in a recent academic study, that this war will cost $3 trillion before its all over, if it ever IS over. But this does not take into account that this is all BORROWED money which will be repaid by TAXPAYERS with INTEREST. It will be $6 trillion dollars minimum.
As to Johnson....he catered to the industrial military complex...he was corrupt before becoming President. All sorts of scandals in Texas involving Billy Saul Estes...guess you have to be a Texan to know the true nature of the man.
Vietnam was about money and resources, just like Iraq is...Johnson was one of the facilitators.
I will support the troops...not the policy.
When troops are midst of battles...they are not thinking about policy...they are thinking about the guy next to him....getting themselves and their buddy out alive..and back home.
Fact is, if the quota isn't met...they will draft people (except for the neocon and politicians kids)...
And for those who say it the people's fault for letting it happen and not doing enough...how many of you are flooding Washington with letters....attending rallies....making your voice known? I think is vastly easy to complain in a comment section....rather than hitting the streets with the people are open and willing to stand up in public and protest about the attrocities in Iraq, both American and Iraqi.
"Most of the young men and women who enlisted in the military believed that they were going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11 and those who sought to harm the US."
Yes, the Administration made great play of the non-existent link between Al Qaida and Iraq. And the consequence is - thousands of young, ill-educated soldiers thought that the Iraqis were responsible for 9/11 and took their revenge on them at Abu Graib, Haditha, and many other places.
Most of the young men and women who enlisted in the military believed that they were going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11 and those who sought to harm the US. The sidetrack to Iraq and subsequent disaster there has caught many off guard. This is not what they thought they were going to do. It sickens me to hear people say that "Freedom isn't free" or that "they are fighting for your right to free speech". The troops in Iraq are not fighting for our freedom! Those in Iraq are fighting for the oil companies, and countless cronie subcontractors, and for the building of bases in the Middle East which will only cause more anti-US resentment in the world. If our freedom were really at stake, then our leaders would send their own children to fight and would have us help pay for their efforts.
I have thought about Lyndon Johnson a million times, and somehow the ethical aspect of his refusal to run for a second full term escaped me.
This is an excellent article, and James Carroll deserves congratulations for his moral insight.
Speaking of War and 1968, how much of the Corporate Media will make the point that MLK was assassinated by the US gov. for the same reason as Malcolm X: He was making connections between domestic inequality and foreign war and foreign poverty.
A new edition of An Act Of State is being published on 4/7/08 to go with the fortieth anniversary of the King Execution this friday.
http://www.amazon.com/Act-State-Execution-Martin-Updated/dp/1844672859
THIS IS A NEW AND UPDATED EDITION. Pepper's book began with some research and articles in the Memphis Appeal, the daily newspaper of Memphis.
Only the most well trained parrots will be able to dismiss it as conspiracy theory, (provided they never pick it up, which is the purpose of this baby n' bathwatter psy-op word!)
hobnob, you are absolutely correct.
DownriverDem, you are also correct. It is up to us to educate those 17 year olds before they even consider entering a recruiting office.
NateW, and we need to be courageous and spread that TRUTH, no matter how unpopular or politically incorrect.
-- kent shaw
The old cliche, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it," has come back to haunt us with a wicked and twisted vengeance. The Iraq fiasco was brought to us by chicken hawks who's mindset would not be out-of-place amongst the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age. Already, they have their media minions preparing spin strategies to place the blame for "who lost Iraq" a la the German military at the end of World War One with the "stab in the back" myth. Progressives should not despair though, as we have a very powerful weapon that we should not be afraid to use in the upcoming, no holds barred brawl about to erupt: THE TRUTH.
Many of those signing up for the military are so young that they are brainwashed in basic training. Without a draft too many Americans are not involved and really don't care.
This illegal war continues because we, the citizen-sovereigns of the US, have not done enough, have not done all that we can to stop it. We are to be the highest authority in this political system. The government exists to serve our ends; we do not exist to serve its ends. The state has been turned upside-down and WE have not yet set it right...
CD is malfunctioning at the moment and will not allow me to edit the previous message. The intended version of this message follows:
I can no longer "support the troops". Sorry. In the early days of the war "the troops" were already in the military and had little choice but to follow orders. It is now in the late days of the war and most of "the troops" entered the military after the ILLEGAL war had begun. Those individuals had plenty of time to research the country's actions regarding Iraq. They chbose to enlist nevertheless. They chose freely to participate in an ILLEGAL WAR. Congress did not declare war. Bad precedents were set with Korea and Vietnam, especially, but also with many smaller "wars" like the invasion of Panama, but the constitution has never been amended to allow such acts as the "Authorization to use military force" whenever the president might feel like invading another country. The US invaded and destroyed Iraq, a country which had never attacked the United States. I reiterate. This is an ILLEGAL war. Therefore EVERY order associated with this war is an ILLEGAL order. "The troops" are failing to refuse to follow these illegal orders and are therefore WAR CRIMINALS. Every single one of them. Every one. I do NOT support "the troops". All of them are committing crimes, many of them as serial murderers. Hard language but every word is truth. I imagine you don't like hearing this. Indeed, it saddens me to write it. Wake up America. Wake up. Time is short. Incidentally, many of "the troops", especially those who were serial murderers in Iraq are committing suicide when they return home, having realized their complicity in the deaths of a million innocents. Too bad they didn't think ahead before the signed the dotted line at the recruiting office. Poor stupid bastards. We have failed them. We must educate them before they enlist.