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There is no evidence that the South Vietnamese would ever have been able to accomplish on their own what they failed to achieve with massive American assistance. The level of congressional funding was irrelevant … The Nixon administration, like the Johnson administration before it, could not give the South Vietnamese the essential ingredient for success: genuine indigenous political legitimacy.
Robert McNamara
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While it seems odd to be criticizing Bush’s speech before he even gives it, the pre-released comments about tonight’s speech to the VFW are enough to make my blood boil. He is reportedly planning to make analogies to the Viet Nam War. I remember back in 2003 feeling sort of lame about saying that Bush’s upcoming invasion of Iraq was a repeat of the Viet Nam War. It was such an obvious analogy – everyone was making it. We were saying "don’t make the same mistake by jumping into an ill-conceived war we can’t get out of." As I recall, the Bush Administration dismissed these criticisms out of hand.
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Nixon had campaigned in the 1968 presidential election under the slogan that he would end the war in Vietnam and bring "peace with honor". However, no such plan existed and the American commitment would continue for another five years. The goal of the American military effort was now to buy time, gradually build up the strength of the South Vietnamese armed forces, and to re-equip them with modern weapons so that they could defend their nation on their own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called "Nixon Doctrine". As applied to Vietnam, it was labeled "Vietnamization".
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Bush is apparently going to argue that pulling out of Viet Nam was a mistake that lead to a "bloodbath" and weakened our reputation in the world. What weakened our reputation in the world was that we were in Viet Nam in the first place, or worse, that we stayed there long after any fool could see that it was a lost cause – or even a wrong cause. That was a war in which some 50,000 Americans died [some of them my friends and classmates]. What can he possibly be talking about? If staying and fighting in Viet Nam were such a fine idea, why didn’t Bush, Cheney, and Rove go fight themselves?
Brief interruption while 1boringoldman gets a cup of coffee and calms down.
The sentiment that sent us to Iraq in the first place had its origins in those Viet Nam days. The era haunts us. Back then, we were in ludicrous camps – Hawks and Doves. Hawks were accused of being war-mongers itching for a fight. Doves were accused of being cowards, or naive fools with a blind eye to the true nature of the world. We were Good Guys and Bad Guys, like in the old westerns. We just differed on who was wearing the white hat. Dick Cheney typified one side of that argument. He was Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff when Saigon finally fell. He then served five terms in the House of Representatives and later became George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense – masterminding the first Gulf War. And he was certainly a major force advocating for for our more recent Iraq misadventure. It is no reach to say that Cheney never got over the fall of President Nixon, or the defeat of Gerald Ford, or George H.W. Bush’s unwillingness to occupy Iraq in the first Gulf War. In that sense, it’s understandable why Bush is bringing up Viet Nam in discussing our current situation in Iraq. They’re still there – still pushing the logic of 30 years ago.
I know that the Civil Rights era and the Viet Nam era solidified my own political leanings for all times. I can’t fault Dick Cheney for also being heavily influenced by the agonies of those days. We all were. And although I know it’s George W. Bush that’s making the speech tonight, I hear Dick Cheney all over what he’s going to say. I think I’ve heard Dick Cheney all over everything George W. Bush has had to say as President.
We learned something in the Viet Nam War – something big. In World War I, we learned that war can make people crazy. Back then, it was called Shell Shock. But we never really got to the persisting effects of the condition. Shell Shock was a problem because it took soldiers out of the fight and we ignored it’s lasting effects. By World War II, we’d renamed it Combat Fatigue, and had the delusion that giving soldiers a rest would take care of the problem. But in Viet Nam, we finally had to face the fact that traumatic experiences of wartime can leave a lasting imprint on the personality – sometimes a disasterous imprint. We called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And we learned something that should have been obvious – the advice "put it behind you and move on" is absolutely no help. How can you put the worse thing that ever happened to you out of your mind and live as if it never happened? We learned that traumatized people needed to find a new way of living that incorporates their traumatic experience, otherwise they endlessly repeat their traumas in a failed attempt to undo them.
I suppose that we can say the same thing about society as a whole. The Viet Nam War was a national trauma. It’s still with us [as in Bush’s speech], and it lives on in the current Iraq War and the minds of its architects, just as it lives on in those of us who oppose this War. Bush is apparently bringing it up as an example of why we shouldn’t abandon the cause in Iraq. Better he would bring it up for other reasons. We made a terrible mistake in Viet Nam. Now we’ve made another terrible mistake in part as an attempt to repair our wounded image. We might revise the saying "history repeats itself" to say that "bad history repeats itself trying to fix old wounds."
Didn’t you write something a while ago about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and not learning the lesson not to do it again? I might be wrong about the definition but it seems irrational for Bush to be bringing up Vietnam at a time like this for the very reasons that are facts, because we lost 50,000 soldiers and we spent all those years fighting a war not winnable. Bush always uses our argument and turns it around for his argument. They do that because their afraid that we will have the right answer and that they will lose the argument. It’s the old a good defense is a good offense.
Joy,
Great point – the turning around thing. This has to be Bush’s stupidest Talking Point of all time.