Still learning about US interference in Indochina
After I read The Culture of Terrorism (referring to our culture in the US), I wanted to learn more about the war in Vietnam, so I checked out Theodore Draper's Abuse of Power and Chomsky's At War with Asia. That earlier quote from George W. Ball posted on Sept 7 came from Draper. Here are a few interesting bits from At war with Asia.

"Anything resembling a clear-cut military victory in Vietnam appears possible only at the price of literally destroying SVN [South Viet Nam], tearing apart the social and political fabric of our own country, alienating our European friends, and gravely weakening the whole free world structure of relations of alliances."
- Under-Secretary of the Air Force Townsend Hoopes from a March 1968 memorandum. (quoted on p. 42 of At war with Asia)

How did his assessment of the situation turn out? The US didn't accomplish a "clear-cut military victory" in the end, but the closer it came to achieving that, the more it approached those other results. We really did destroy a lot of South Vietnam. We really did change the social and political fabric of the US. Not sure about those last two parts.

Now compare that statement with today's situation in Iraq, in which we have similarly attempted a military victory without trying political or economic fixes. [Twelve years of sanctions affecting the people of Iraq accomplished nothing against Saddam, so don't even bother repeating that myth.]
1. The social and political fabric of our own country has experienced barely a flutter of activity from our usual beer and football and thank-god-it's-friday experience. Newsflash: J-Lo and Ben Affleck have split up! Much bigger story than the number of Iraqis or Americans who will inevitably die today.
2. You can judge how much we've destroyed Iraq based on ever-increasing estimates of reconstruction costs, not to mention the reports of actual people killed on either side (which probably can't be accepted as accurate until five or ten years after the "fog of war" dissipates, wink nudge bump nudge).
3 and 4. I won't even bother to try proving whether we've "alienated European friends" or weakened the free world structure of relations of alliances. Bush says the UN is no longer relevant, which becomes a prophecy he fulfills when he ignores them. The strengths of international alliances are of no concern to people who continuously violate treaties and agreements.

So three out of four apply to the situation in Iraq, and I suspect the social and political fabric will be strained or torn after a few years of American soldiers dying daily.



I've noticed in a lot of Chomsky's older writings and even new articles, he refers to the "Indochina War" when talking about the conflict we usually call the "Vietnam War." At first I thought he was using the antiquated term that people used back in the Fifties, maybe because he has been trying to set the record straight since the Fifties, long before the anti-war movement really built up steam. But after reading about the Vietnamese trying to break free from the French, US manipulations behind the scenes since long before Dien Bien Phu, US support for dictators in Thailand and Cambodia as well as our string of puppets in South Vietnam, and the bombing and military actions all through Laos and Cambodia, I believe Chomsky doesn't talk about a "Vietnam War" because he wants to keep it in the context of all the wars (declared or undeclared) throughout the region of Indochina and across almost half of the Twentieth Century. To talk about the US war in Vietnam without considering the two decades of French war in the area supported by the US, and without considering the direct wars and proxy wars waged by the US throughout nearly all of Indochina, is to ignore the bigger picture. It would be like standing in front of the Statue of Liberty and calling it the "Statue of the Copper Foot."



In another section, Chomsky quotes Prof. Ithiel Pool (then Chairman of the Dept of Political Science at MIT and a Defense Dept consultant):

"...Our worst mistake in Vietnam clearly was to initiate the bombing of the north.... Before that started, it was my view that the United States as a democracy could not stand the moral protest that would arise if we rained death from the skies upon an area where there was no war. After the bombing started, I decided I had been in error. For a while there seemed to be no outcry of protest, but time brought it on. Now I would return to my original view with an important modification, namely, time. Public reactions do not come immediately. Many actions that public opinion would otherwise make impossible are possible if they are short-term. I believe we can fairly say that unless it is severely provoked or unless the war succeeds fast, a democracy cannot choose war as an instrument of policy."

I'm skipping half a page of other quotes and discussion about Pool, but Chomsky really hits the nail on the head with typical sarcasm when he writes: "It would seem to follow, then, that our failure in Vietnam is traceable to a serious inadequacy in our own political system: its inability to contain the moral outrage that resulted when we began to rain death on a country where there was no war."

"In short, a democratic community is incapable of waging aggressive war in a brutal manner, and this is a failure of democracy. What is wrong is not the policy of raining death on an area where there is no war, still less the far more intensive bombardment of South Vietnam, which goes unmentioned. What is wrong is the inability of a democratic system to contain the inevitable dissent and moral outrage."

Later Chomsky drops the sarcasm and resumes seriously: "The plain fact is that a democracy cannot fight a brutal, drawn-out war of aggression. Most people are not gangsters. Unless public concern can be deflected, unless intervention is discreet and covert, there will be protest, disaffection, and resistance. Either the war will have to go, or the democracy." (My emphasis.)

In spite of LBJ and Nixon's best efforts, democracy won out about five or six years after that was written, when US withdrew from Nam.

To make the modern parallel again, what about brutal, drawn-out occupations after a war of aggression? Iraq, anyone? Not sure if that will work the same way. Let's ask the Israelis.