Vietnam War Thoughts, Part II
Dean
Last week I noted that historically, those who had opposed the Vietnam war fell into five basic camps:
1) Isolationists of the "this is none of our business" variety.
2) People who just didn't want themselves or their brothers, husbands, and sons drafted.
3) Liberals who thought it was a lost, doomed cause.
4) Pacifists of the "all war is bad" variety.
5) Communists, communist apologists, and generally anti-American dips***s.
To group #3 I should have added "conservatives and moderates" since there were people of all political stripes in the "lost cause" camp. Other than that, I think I gave a pretty fair historical assessment.
What amused me was that at least two people took umbrage at #5. As if I had done something wrong to note the simple historical fact that...
Face it people: they just were. I didn't make it up; these people all said as much. To my knowledge, only Jane Fonda has ever denied being a communist sympathizer, but this is belied by her documented words and deeds. All the rest have either personally owned up to it or, in the case of guys like Huey Newton, were always open about and proud of it. (Huey Newton called Marxism his "hustle" and spouted Marx and Engels in numerous interviews.)
Despite all this undeniable history, a couple of wags accused me of basically making up the charge that there were communists in the anti-war movement. One of them claimed that this was "scare tactics and rhetorical wind breaking" on my part. Another blogger actually suggested that anti-communism was a "religion" and that I was scaremongering.
When I provided evidence that yes, indeed, there were actual admitted communists in the anti-war movement, the answer was silence and obfuscation.
So, in case anyone is interested, here are three references you can easily check for yourself. These are books written by former communists. Admitted former communists. All of whom were committed anti-vietnam war activists. All three books are worth reading in their own right:
Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left by Ron Radosh. Radosh having been (a) an anti-Vietnam war actvist, (b) very well known in the movement, and (c) a self-admitted communist.
Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the '60s by historian Peter Collier & his friend David Horowitz--Collier and Horowitz both having been (a) anti-Vietnam war activists, (b) well known and respected in the movement, and (c) self-admitted communist sympathizers.
Collier and Horowitz are particularly notable, for they were the editors and publishers for many years of Ramparts, the New Left's most popular and influential political publication during the Vietnam War years.
Also very, very worth reading, although it's the longest and most difficult by far, is Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz. This is a stunning and compelling book, really one of the great autobiographies of the 20th century. It will be remembered long after Horowitz (who's turned into a right-wing firebreather in recent years) is gone. For whatever you think of the man, it's searingly honest, and lays waste many, many of the myths of the Vietnam era.
Note that neither Radosh, nor Horowitz, nor Collier are communists now. Nor do they say that everyone who was against the war was communist. But they all own up to the fact that many of them were back then.
Yes, there were communists in the anti-Vietnam war movement, just as there are communists in today's anti-Iraq war movement. And please, let's not be tedious--if you were unaware of the fact that some anti-war types today are communists and communist apologists, you have no right to get your nose bent out of shape just because I'm the first to tell you. It's just a fact, and it's not even news. If you want references, ask, but lose the attitude--it's not my fault if you don't know these things. The evidence is easy to find with less than five minutes of work in Google. Start with investigating "International A.N.S.W.E.R.," a group that can be found at almost all major anti-war rallies today.
Anti-war people have no right to look askance at those of us who document the fact that these people are out there. If you're anti-war and you don't like communists and communist apologists, do the honorable thing and separate yourself from them and condemn them. Don't get mad at the rest of us if we wonder why you seem blissfully unaware of (or in denial about) these scumbags.
Anyway: The whole point in assigning those people their own category was to show that not everyone on that side of the argument was a communist, a communist apologist, or an anti-american jerk. Just some of them were. But it would be the height of dishonesty to pretend those people had no part in it.
* Update * It occurs to me that I should also note, in regards to Ho Chi Minh, that it is a documented fact that he was never "the George Washington of his people," that he was always a committed communist, that he was a KGB agent for a long time and was a committed member of the Comintern long before America entered that war. The opened KGB and Comintern archives in the former Soviet Union revealed that fact many years ago, and the Russians do not deny a word of it. For documentation of this and many other things, an indispensible reference is The Black Book of Communism, which everyone ought to own. You also might want to pick up Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, which documents much related material from opened archives in both the former Soviet Union and in America.
None of this means that the anti-war movement was inherently communist. But as the saying goes, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The fact is that many in the anti-war movement were either admitted communists or acted as their unwitting tools by helping to spread communist propaganda. That doesn't mean they were wrong to oppose the war, but it should serve as a warning sign about believing everything you hear just because it comes from someone who seems to be on your side of an argument.
To their embarassment, people who favored the war found themselves on the same side as the lunatic-fringe John Birch Society. No one would take umbrage if I pointed this out, would they?
There's much about the history of that era that we can learn from. One is that not everyone on either side was good, and not everyone on either sad was bad. But if we don't take a hard look at what history really tells us, we're being foolish indeed.
I've said and believed many things in my life that I regret now. In my view the only thing that's dishonorable is refusing to admit the truth when the undeniable proof is put before you. That's when pride becomes foolish and destructive.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Vietnam War Thoughts, Part II
- Vietnam Thoughts
The Communist Party USA was financed and directed by the Kremlin to these ends.
Read OPERATION SOLO for more.
I'll take is a step further and note that every single person who participated in an anti-war demonstration during the Vietnam war at the least acted the part of traitor. This would include isolationist conservatives.
I used the words with great care, and I'm sure you get my meaning, but I'll expand for anyone who wishes to believe that I'm stating that all anti-war demonstrators were overt traitors.
I'm not a criminal gang member; but if I were to dress and act like a gang member and fail to inform the police of the meth lab in the house next door, then I am acting the part of a gangmember...I might as well be a gang member, even though I've never sold drugs, or participated in a drive-by shooting.
We all have to choose our actions with great care; nothing happens in a vacuum. Two things have to be taken into consideration, and there is no hard-and-fast rule as to which of the two will prove most important in any given situation: 1. We have to consider our intent: what are we trying to accomplish? 2. We have to consider the possible outcomes: will our action have effects which tend to negate our intended affect?
For the person circa 1968 who is contemplating joining the anti-war movement, this breaks down this way:
1. Am I intending to end the war, or am I intent upon something else like, say, the defeat of the United States?
2. If my intent is, indeed, the honorable ending of a war I consider wrong, then will my actions in furthering this cause have other, unintended and baleful outcomes?
Lots of reasons can be brought forward in 1968 to desire the cessation of American hostilities in Vietnam, but I defy anyone to come up with a series of anti-war actions which would bring the United States out of Vietnam, honor intact (and, remember, our honor also requires that we keep our pledged word). Anyone who was not an overt traitor in the anti-war movement, in my view, failed to think things through to their conclusion. With the evidence available at the time (no 20/20 hindsight here), it was clear that the only likely result of an American withdrawl from Vietnam would be a communist victory, and by 1968 everyone knew precisely what communist victory meant to every non-communist in the defeated population.
So, I say that everyone in the anti-war movement at the least acted the part of traitor; in and amongs the actors were the actual traitors, but everyone who participated in the anti-war movement is tarred with the same brush...and as it went in 1968, so it goes today; There is no conceivable set of circumstances which can get the United States out of the War on Terrorism short of victory which would be a treasonous betrayal of the United States. We have to fight this out to the finish, and seek only absolute victory. Anyone who is not 100% on board with the war effort is, then, at least acting the part of traitor.
So you'd have to tell me what "joining the anti-war movement" means to you. If you mean reasoned discourse suggesting that we would be better off ceasing hostilities and leaving, well, I can't call that treason, "acting the part" or for real.
That said, I would agree that anyone who actually wants us to win would refrain from jumping on every bit of bad news as proof of failure and doom, and would certainly stop with the snarling and the sneering.
Then you're a much more generous man than I; if ever accused, I want you on my jury.
:o)
As for me, I guess that I'm just a bit fed-up with the so-called "anti-war" movement; both the committed ideologues who run it, and the dimwits who fellow-travel. We're at war; we were attacked; the enemy must be defeated...and any dissent from complete and crushing victory just makes the enemy fight that much harder and longer. The anti-war people keep their bogus running tallies of the number of alleged civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan...but I wonder if we can figure out how many people have died because of the "peace" movement....
If you slam your country, her troops, and her democratically elected government as evil monsters, you've gone way past dissent or criticism.
Mind you, people have a right to be unpatriotic. That's what the first amendment's all about. But, you know, you don't get to whine about it if someone says, "man, you're an unpatriotic jerk." Because that's the first amendment in action too.
(Just correcting myself.)
Rest In Peace, soldier
I think agree with you more often than not, but I really think you jumped the shark with this one.
First we have real and legal definition of treason, as defined in the Constitution. It would be very difficult to form charges which followed that definition.
Second, we have the fact that we not, legally, at war; and (after all) that basically what the fuss was all about. What's legal, and what's not; and what's right, and what's not. Recall that the Johnson administration (as opposed to the current administration) did deceive Congress in order to gain the Tonkin Resolution.
After that we have to remember that every war which America has ever fought faced some sort of opposition at home? World War II came the closest to no opposition, but it's also nearly a perfect example of pure self-defense. And even then Jeannette Rankin cast the single "no" vote in December 1941.
(an aside about Representative Rankin: not only did she cast the single "no" vote in 1941, she was the only member of Congress who voted against American participation in both wars. At least she was true to her principles.
When I first read about her vote, I was outraged. How could any loyal American oppose our self-defense against Japan and Germany!?
Later I found out why she voted no (paraphrased): "A true democracy would not vote unanimously for war." She knew she wasn't going to stop the war one iota, and would most certainly get a lot of abuse for her stand, but I decided she did the right thing. A true democracy wouldn't vote unanimously for war, and she spoke for that tiny minority (not the Nazy sympathizers, mind you) who said "no." end of aside)
In any case, there has been a healthy anti-war faction for every war in which we have engaged. Add the fact that opposition to a war is not de facto treason, and we see that an anti-war stance can be politically, ethically, and legally acceptable.
Your example of joining a gang is a poor one. Most external behaviors related to gang membership are demonstrably socially unacceptable, if not illegal. This is not -as I have shown- generically true of an anti-war stance; unless you can show that any opposition any given war, even writing a letter to your Representative, is treasonable activity.
In other words, please demonstrate the truth of the general case, instead of analogies designed to favor your position.
In your following example of 1-intent, and 2-outcome, you slip in an extra word the second time around. At first, you merely say "Am I intending to end the war, or am I intent upon something else...?" That's a reasonable question.
However, in the following graf you change the meaning of that question by changing the question to an "honorable ending of [the] war," something quite different.
That, my friend is an entirely different matter. In fact, one of the major points of the anti-war movement (as I'm sure you well recall) is that the war was, in and of itself, an immoral enterprise on many levels. I'm sure I don't have to rehearse all the charges and claims levelled against both Washington and the troops themselves.
Please recall I'm merely following your paradigm of examining intent here.
By that model, one of the major anti-war arguments was that the United States had already lost its honor in Vietnam, hence there could be no honorable exit, in the same way that a deflowered virgin cannot return to his/her original state of innocence.
The alternate argument was that America was supporting an illegitimate regime that not only didn't represent the people of South Vietnam, but actively oppresed them as well. And yes, hindsight is wonderful, but what was actually going on in South Vietnam wasn't clear at all. Point being that normal citizens in the US could find the above claim reasonable. The press just didn't do a very good job providing context to reported events.
(another aside: One wonders how things would have turned out if we had the equivalent of blogs back then? How many links to subversive Communist fronts would have been outed? How many CIA-fronted pro-war groups have been outed? Would South Vietnamese and US milbloggers have managed to paint a comprehensible picture of the changes and challenges South Vietnam faced?)
Your clarity regarding a Northern success is faulty. No, I'm not saying it couldn't be predicted; I'm just saying it wasn't that clear. Recall that there were a fair number of non-communist groups working with the Viet Cong against the South, and that quite a few Vietnamese really did think Ho was a patriot son. After all, the threw out the French, didn't he?
It was, in fact, possible to conclude that new compromise coalition government for South Vietnam that included communists was not per se unreasonable. Please recall examples in Europe (Italy especially) in the 40s and 50s where communists did function peacefully within a multi-party coalition.
In conclusion, I hope to have shown that:
-anti-war activity in American has a long history.
-that this activity is not by definition treasonous.
-that normal citizens could reasonably conclude the US could withdraw, and allow a new compromise coalition government to form (as we have recently in Iraq).
This does not address certain problems, including the fact that the American media never did do a good job explaining why we were in Vietnam, what the Johnson administrations objectives were, and how they were going about achieving them. To be fair, the historical record shows that the administration itself didn't know either, so it would be challenging for the media to clarify.
In fact, I'll say that not only did the media do a bloody poor job reporting on the war, they never realized their problem at the time, nor have they done so today. I'm not talking about that hoary old chestnut that "we won the war on the battlefied, but lost it in the press." Hell, the Johnson (apt name if there ever was one!) administration never had a real strategy, except for "stop. please..." The war was lost because the men and women in charge in DC blew it. They didn't have an overall strategic objective, they didn't have a coherent strategy flowing from that, and they sure as hell didn't have a valid end-game in mind. Just "stop. please..."
So the administration was screwing the pooch, the press didn't understand what was going on, worse yet never realized that they didn't understand, and (worst of all) this collective cluster-fuck left the typical citizen in the dark, at the mercy of everyone with an axe to grind.
Bottom line: the typical American thought hard; real hard, about the war and decided by 1968 that we weren't winning, we couldn't win (not unreasonable with LBJ &Mac in charge), and that 15,000 dead boys a year wasn't getting us anywhere.
One of the worst parts came when Westmoreland (right after Tet '68) asked for another 200,000 troops a year after he said the previous 200k would win the war. What, the first quarter-million wasn't enough!? Come on...
Now you know, and I know why he asked for the troops, but (as I have pointed out) the media just didn't have a clue. Oh, I'm sure there was that small minority of fellow travellers who conciously worked to help Hanoi (Jane {heh}), but most journalists just have any idea what was going on.
What really pulled the rug out from under any chance of victory was Johnson's bombing halt in early '68, combined with the announcement of negotiations. That completely scuttled any chance for the US to militarily win the war in its own right. After that Kerry could say (with some justification) "who wants to be the last to die?" since the US was already haggling over withdrawal terms in Paris...
It is, therefore, hard to justify generically calling anti-war protestors "traitors," merely because they opposed the war.
What people didn't know, and the media never explained (since after the American soldiers left the demographics were bad) is that Tet '68 finally awakened a sense of national pride not only in the ARVN, but the South Vietnamese people as well. And most Americans never knew (Lord knows it took even an amateur historian like me long enough to find out) that three other major invasions of South Vietnam were repulsed with great loss to the North each time, until the last one in 1975.
And it certainly was never explained to US citizens that the an effort equivalent to eight years enforcement of the "no fly" zones in Iraq would have guaranteed South Vietnamese independance. But by then US voters had grown tired of Vietnam, the media was all over Watergate, and it was fun to punish Republicans...
Well, that's a bit of taking me to task...lets see if I can extricate myself.
First off, I am not interested for the purposes of this argument in the legal definition of treason; as I said, the people condemned were acting the part of traitor. This implies that they fell short of the legal definition of traitor (although most of the leaders of the anti-war movement, especially in its later stages, did stray into overt, legal-defined treason). The point being made here is that what a person chooses to do has an effect, and often the effect is not that which was intended...great care needs to be taken in chosing a course of action.
We have had all manner of anti-war sentiment in all of our wars (very muted in WWI and WWII, but it did exist); the most famous, other than the Vietnam-era movement, was during our Civil War. The "Copperheads" were, at the very least, acting the part of traitor...they were advocating draft resistence and an immediate cessation of hostilities prepatory to what they held would be a negotiated settlement of the war. Sound familiar? Of course it does - it is the same position held by the Vietnam anti-war movement. Such a course of action would, as anyone at the time could see, have lead to Southern independence, the permanent break-up of the Union and the perpetuation of slavery. If this isn't treason, then what is? Anyone in 1968 could see that a US withdrawl would lead to South Vietnamese defeat (no one was calling for a cessation of Sino-Soviet military aid to North Vietnam, now were they?); that some people failed to take heed of easily ascertainable facts does not excuse them from their guilt for advocating such a baleful course of action.
I hold with Churchill that we can only condemn actors in the past based upon information available to them at the time...there was sufficient evidence available during the Vietnam war to convince anyone who looked into the matter that a US defeat in South Vietnam would be the worst possible outcome of the war (unless, of course, one was an outright, pro-communist traitor who eagerly worked for American defeat...then such an outcome would be welcomed....but such a desire on the part of an American was outright treason, wasn't it?).
I did add an adjective, and I shouldn't have; I should have had it in both places...my excuse is simply poor writing. I shall try to do better in future; but national honor is always first and foremost. If we are a nation without honor, then we are a worthless people deserving of defeat...and as only a traitor would want us to deserve defeat... Getting out of the war, however accomplished, must be done with US honor intact.
We made an absolute and open-ended commitment to the people of South Vietnam...not to a corrupt and inefficient government, but to the people; this is important. We didn't say "we'll fight on your side until we get tired of it and domestic US political considerations start to trump winning the war". No, we said we'd stand with them through thick and thin...there was no honorable way out other than by victory.
Given this, anyone horrified by the war, but wishing to remain a patriot in act as well as in mind had to think carefully about his options during the war. The proper course of action, which was once again available at the time and easily discovered by anyone who took the time to look, was to insist upon the government getting it's act together and prosecuting the war to victory by the swiftest means available. US political and military leadership was often a crock of sh** during the Vietnam war, but people get the political and military leadership they want in a democratic government...Johnson was a cretin, and McNamara should still be shot for what he did...but part of what they did was in response to perceived pressure from the American people on the subject. We don't get to be citizens in a republic but be separated from our government...what they do morally involves each and every one of us from start to finish. Good, bad or indifferent, our government is us, writ large.
The time to oppose the Vietnam war was before we got involved in it...a bit more "hell no, we wont go" in 1964 would have saved a lot of trouble in 1968...but once 1968 was in, only a traitor or someone acting the part of traitor would say "hell now, we won't go". That the masses of the anti-war movement missed the bus in 1964 doesn't get them off the hook for what they did in 1968; by then, we were in and any manifestation of a lack of will to win only encouraged the enemy and, in the end, resulted in more death and destruction than there otherwise would have been. To put it into modern context, the people ticked off at the liberation of Iraq should have made their anti-Iraq liberation point at the polls prior to 9/11...demanded a government which would pledge absolutely to never liberate Iraq under any circumstances whatsoever. Of course, they wouldn't get that...but the point is that you have to act before things are in train, not halfway down the tracks. Additionally, if defeated at the polls, your duty as an American is to accept the will of your fellow citizens in the matter (with the proviso that at next election time you are free to argue for a different course; understanding that the course must still live up to all American agreements and pledges unless by mutual consent those whom we have agreed with/pledged to release us from our sworn word)...just as you would expect them to respect your will if you wound up on the winning political side. We got a government which in the circumstances of the day decided to wage war in Iraq in 2003...and that government was the collective expression of both Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Moore and both of them are equally morally responsible for what goes on at the behest of the US government.
If all 300 million-odd of us were to face our enemies and say "surrender, or we will surely kill you", then the war we are currently in would be over fairly soon. No one can withstand a united America, and everyone knows this, even our terrorist enemies. Just as in Vietnam, our current crop of enemies are counting upon domestic treason to hand them a victory in war which their military power cannot secure. I know this, you know this, the enemy knows this...heck, even the anti-war movement knows this; what else am I to call people who play into the enemies hands like that? Patriots? I think not.