Saturday, August 25, 2007
Lack of Vision at the L.A. Times
Although the author, Andrew J. Bacevich, is a Vietnam Vet and a history professor at Boston University, he's wrong, wrong, wrong about what he calls Vietnam's Real Lessons in today's L.A. Times--they're more like false lessons for the real dumb. Let's just take a few examples with my comments following in red:
The president views the abandonment of our Southeast Asian allies as a disgrace, deploring the fate suffered by the "boat people" and the victims of the Khmer Rouge.
So views any person with a heart and the brain cells to remember what happened 1973-1979. Does Bacevich see it differently? Here's the straight dope on Vietnam history vis a vis Iraq from Max Boot in today's Wall Street Journal Online.
In unconventional wars, body counts don't really count. In the Vietnam War, superior American firepower enabled U.S. forces to prevail in most tactical engagements. We killed plenty of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. But killing didn't produce victory -- the exertions of U.S. troops all too frequently proved to be counterproductive.
Killing the enemy always matters. Even though the war evolved in major ways, we won the Viet Nam War by killing the enemy at enormous rates and winning every major tactical engagement. We destroyed the Viet Cong in 1968 and the rest of the war was waged by North Viet Nam Regulars (the NVA) whom we slaughtered as well. When the last American ground troops left in Spring, 1973, we really had achieved a peace with honor; and, as long as we provided air cover and war material, South Viet Nam was safe from Northern aggression. Then the overwhelmingly Democratic congress, elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal, pulled the plug on air cover and war material and the South went down in an NVA blitzkrieg in 1975. That was the disgraceful abandonment.
Wars like Vietnam and Iraq aren't won militarily; at best, they are settled politically.
Is this guy serious? All wars are either won or lost militarily. It is only when a military power cannot or, more likely, will not prevail, then there has to be a political settlement, which more often than not leads to renewed conflict after a rest and rearmament period. That's why there are so many 'second' wars--failure to win an overwhelming military victory and settling for the political 'solution'.
In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist. Despite an enormous U.S. investment in nation-building, they never did. In the end, South Vietnam proved to be a fiction.
I refute this nonsense with two words--South Korea. The only difference between South Korea and South Viet Nam is that we didn't disgracefully abandon South Korea. Oh, and the suffering of the South Vietnamese, that's a difference. They were more like the North Koreans in their level of suffering after 1975.
From Dwight D. Eisenhower through Richard M. Nixon, a parade of presidents convinced themselves that defending South Vietnam qualified as a vital U.S. interest. For the free world, a communist takeover of that country would imply an unacceptable defeat.
Notice that he names the two Republican Presidents who had little to do with committing massive numbers of American troops to Viet Nam and leaves out the two Democrats who did. Sometimes, to stop the spread of an evil ideology, you have to draw a line--here and no further. Defeating Communism, which is indeed an evil ideology, was of vital U.S. interest and good for the free world. Part of our decades long fight to end Communism was trying to prevent the Communist takeover of South Viet Nam. Would someone tell Professor Bacevich that we won the Cold War by actively opposing Communism and drawing lines (even though the battle of South Korea was a draw and the battle of Viet Nam a legislated loss)? I'm not sure he knows it.
Yet when South Vietnam did fall, the strategic effect proved to be limited. The falling dominoes never did pose a threat to our shores for one simple reason: The communists of North Vietnam were less interested in promoting world revolution than in unifying their country under socialist rule.
No responsible person said we were fighting in Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to America. We were fighting in South Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to South Viet Nam.
We deluded ourselves into thinking that we were defending freedom against totalitarianism.
Is this guy insane? We were fighting in South Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to South Viet Nam, a corrupt, inept but non-totalitarian government. That is precisely defending freedom against totalitarianism. He's the one deluded.
And here's his big humanitarian finish: Once the Americans departed, the Vietnamese began getting their act together. Although not a utopia, Vietnam has become a stable and increasingly prosperous nation. It is a responsible member of the international community. In Hanoi, the communists remain in power.
I have to admit I have no idea what he means by 'getting their act together'. Certainly just after our ground forces left the North began planning an offensive to take South Viet Nam. Is that what he means? Getting their conquering act together? After they conquered South Viet Nam, they murdered thousands of Vietnamese, placed hundreds of thousands of others in what we call concentration camps (they called them re-education camps), drove hundreds of thousands to desperate flight (which killed unknown hundreds of thousands), and they lowered the standard of living for all Vietnamese so that they are a real poor and inconsequential member of the international community, and will remain so as long as the Maoist Communist remain in power. I don't call that getting your act together unless your act is the spreading of misery and death; then I guess it is. Not a utopia, he admits--man, his compassion for the suffering of the Vietnamese must be limitless.
Here are some of the books this guy has published: The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007); American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002); The Imperial Tense: Problems and Prospects of American Empire (2003), and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005). Imperial, Empire, seduced by war. Kind of a one note samba, no?
He seems like a nice enough guy but you really have to be a professor to be this dumb.
The president views the abandonment of our Southeast Asian allies as a disgrace, deploring the fate suffered by the "boat people" and the victims of the Khmer Rouge.
So views any person with a heart and the brain cells to remember what happened 1973-1979. Does Bacevich see it differently? Here's the straight dope on Vietnam history vis a vis Iraq from Max Boot in today's Wall Street Journal Online.
In unconventional wars, body counts don't really count. In the Vietnam War, superior American firepower enabled U.S. forces to prevail in most tactical engagements. We killed plenty of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. But killing didn't produce victory -- the exertions of U.S. troops all too frequently proved to be counterproductive.
Killing the enemy always matters. Even though the war evolved in major ways, we won the Viet Nam War by killing the enemy at enormous rates and winning every major tactical engagement. We destroyed the Viet Cong in 1968 and the rest of the war was waged by North Viet Nam Regulars (the NVA) whom we slaughtered as well. When the last American ground troops left in Spring, 1973, we really had achieved a peace with honor; and, as long as we provided air cover and war material, South Viet Nam was safe from Northern aggression. Then the overwhelmingly Democratic congress, elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal, pulled the plug on air cover and war material and the South went down in an NVA blitzkrieg in 1975. That was the disgraceful abandonment.
Wars like Vietnam and Iraq aren't won militarily; at best, they are settled politically.
Is this guy serious? All wars are either won or lost militarily. It is only when a military power cannot or, more likely, will not prevail, then there has to be a political settlement, which more often than not leads to renewed conflict after a rest and rearmament period. That's why there are so many 'second' wars--failure to win an overwhelming military victory and settling for the political 'solution'.
In the Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States after the partition of French Indochina, such institutions did not exist. Despite an enormous U.S. investment in nation-building, they never did. In the end, South Vietnam proved to be a fiction.
I refute this nonsense with two words--South Korea. The only difference between South Korea and South Viet Nam is that we didn't disgracefully abandon South Korea. Oh, and the suffering of the South Vietnamese, that's a difference. They were more like the North Koreans in their level of suffering after 1975.
From Dwight D. Eisenhower through Richard M. Nixon, a parade of presidents convinced themselves that defending South Vietnam qualified as a vital U.S. interest. For the free world, a communist takeover of that country would imply an unacceptable defeat.
Notice that he names the two Republican Presidents who had little to do with committing massive numbers of American troops to Viet Nam and leaves out the two Democrats who did. Sometimes, to stop the spread of an evil ideology, you have to draw a line--here and no further. Defeating Communism, which is indeed an evil ideology, was of vital U.S. interest and good for the free world. Part of our decades long fight to end Communism was trying to prevent the Communist takeover of South Viet Nam. Would someone tell Professor Bacevich that we won the Cold War by actively opposing Communism and drawing lines (even though the battle of South Korea was a draw and the battle of Viet Nam a legislated loss)? I'm not sure he knows it.
Yet when South Vietnam did fall, the strategic effect proved to be limited. The falling dominoes never did pose a threat to our shores for one simple reason: The communists of North Vietnam were less interested in promoting world revolution than in unifying their country under socialist rule.
No responsible person said we were fighting in Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to America. We were fighting in South Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to South Viet Nam.
We deluded ourselves into thinking that we were defending freedom against totalitarianism.
Is this guy insane? We were fighting in South Viet Nam to prevent Communism from coming to South Viet Nam, a corrupt, inept but non-totalitarian government. That is precisely defending freedom against totalitarianism. He's the one deluded.
And here's his big humanitarian finish: Once the Americans departed, the Vietnamese began getting their act together. Although not a utopia, Vietnam has become a stable and increasingly prosperous nation. It is a responsible member of the international community. In Hanoi, the communists remain in power.
I have to admit I have no idea what he means by 'getting their act together'. Certainly just after our ground forces left the North began planning an offensive to take South Viet Nam. Is that what he means? Getting their conquering act together? After they conquered South Viet Nam, they murdered thousands of Vietnamese, placed hundreds of thousands of others in what we call concentration camps (they called them re-education camps), drove hundreds of thousands to desperate flight (which killed unknown hundreds of thousands), and they lowered the standard of living for all Vietnamese so that they are a real poor and inconsequential member of the international community, and will remain so as long as the Maoist Communist remain in power. I don't call that getting your act together unless your act is the spreading of misery and death; then I guess it is. Not a utopia, he admits--man, his compassion for the suffering of the Vietnamese must be limitless.
Here are some of the books this guy has published: The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007); American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002); The Imperial Tense: Problems and Prospects of American Empire (2003), and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005). Imperial, Empire, seduced by war. Kind of a one note samba, no?
He seems like a nice enough guy but you really have to be a professor to be this dumb.
Labels: False History
