[tomder55]

Don't cheat .

In the first fifteen years or so following Saigon's fall, there was nothing but bad news to report from Vietnam, and those who had made their political and journalistic careers on the wrongfulness of the war bear a culpability for persistently failing to report it. Similarly, during the twentieth anniversary observances these icons and their intellectual progeny persisted in focusing almost solely on the conduct of the war during Mr. McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense, which ended in disgrace in late 1967. It was as if the political, military and even moral issues had been decided in favor of the communists by that point, and the ensuing eight years of fighting and twenty years of suffering were merely an afterthought.

A Disservice to Understanding the War

The result was a startling disservice to a full understanding of the war. Media depictions of the fighting typically showed tired and frustrated American and South Vietnamese soldiers, while often using stock propaganda footage of communist troops marching cheerfully down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The elders who made their names in younger days on such allegations as U.S. troops lying about their "body counts" gave almost no mention of the horrendous communist military casualties, despite the most newsworthy item of those few weeks: the Hanoi government officially admitting it lost 1. 1 million soldiers dead and another 300,000 still missing from the fighting, compared to American losses of 58,000 and South Vietnamese of 254,000. And few discussions recalled the Hanoi pledge in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords that Vietnam would be reunited only by peaceful means, with guarantees of individual freedoms in the South, as well as internationally supervised free elections.

To the contrary, on the heels of Mr. McNamara's comments regarding the "unwinnable" strategy he concocted and failed to adjust during the first four years of war, media air waves were filled with a litany of speeches proclaiming "vindication" by those who otherwise might have been forced to answer hard questions regarding their conduct and beliefs during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For some, such conduct was betrayal. For others, it was only a stupefying naiveté. But for most, there has been a persistent conspiracy of silence that has lasted for decades, accompanied of late by an attempt to leap over the carcasses and the devastation that followed the communist takeover, to simply pretend it did not happen.

When forced to comment, those who opposed our attempt to assist the building of a democracy in the South picked up the debate in its present makeup, pointing to the Hanoi government's efforts in the past few years to liberalize the economy and reach out to the Americans in the wake of the collapse of their Soviet ally and the continuing menacing growth of the Chinese.

As a consequence, the best opportunity of a lifetime was lost for the many who still wish to put a generation's most bitterly divisive period into proper historical perspective.

Few, if any, of the old anti-war luminaries, Stanley Karnow, Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, George McGovern, Peter Arnett, 'Tom Harkin, Bill or Hillary Clinton-the list could fill the page-could find it in themselves to conjure up an apology, or admit they were wrong in judging a communist apparatus that brought Southeast Asia's strongest and most pro-Western culture back into the dark ages, only to haltingly emerge fifteen years later reeking of torture, prison camps, Stalinism and corruption.

The Anti-War Left: Hoping for a Communist Victory

The reason, which remained either unspoken or unreported during the anniversary coverage, was stated most honestly and directly to me by George McGovern, who unfortunately was off-camera at the time. During a break while taping the CNN Crossfire show, after I had made a comment regarding the ability of the U.S. under the right leadership to have adjusted its strategy early on and prevailed in the war, the antiwar candidate who had once promised to go to Hanoi on his knees if he were elected President turned to me and announced in his emotionless monotone,

"What you don't understand is that I didn't want us to win that war."

The people who directed the antiwar movement did not care whether McNamara had a workable strategy, or whether it could have been adapted to circumstances. They did not care whether Nixon's Vietnamization program might have worked. They did not care whether the South Vietnamese should have been given an adequate chance to adjust their strategy after the American withdrawal. And they did not care whether the communists signed a pledge guaranteeing free elections and a peaceful reunification of the country. Quite simply, they wanted the communists to win. Those who were adults during the Vietnam era know this truth full well. Others, however, particularly our children, have seen it glazed over and even denied as the reality of what happened after 1975 became ever more clear.

The failure of the media to show these old luminaries and their younger disciples in this true light is important for reasons beyond anger, finger-pointing and the assignment of blame. Only by understanding their deeper motivations can future generations comprehend the making and ultimate failure of American policy during that period, and the subsequent refusal of our media elites to speak and write honestly after South Vietnam's fall.

Only by comprehending that Vietnam was the first war where a generation's elite not only excused itself from fighting but often openly supported the side that was killing their own countrymen can we understand the persistent defamation of those who served. And only by comprehending that the antiwar movement's dilatory effect was Hanoi's greatest ace in the hole can we understand why the communists had few reasons ever to compromise at the negotiating table.

These are lessons whose omissions from the debate cannot help but affect one's view of the honesty of history as an academic discipline. They have vital implications for the study of policymaking. And they tell us of the divisions that still exist in our society, not only when it comes to discussing the national trauma of Vietnam but in the increasingly visible emergence of the United States as a country whose cultural institutions are dominated by a veneer of protected elites.

Hint ; the author of this has now jumped sides and what is written above could be the critique levelled at him today .

[ETWolverine]

You've been lsitening to Mark Levin, haven't you.

I was going to post this article this morning. You got to it first. Good going.

"Oh... what a tangled Web we weave, when first we practice to decieve." And if the author in question isn't practicing deception, I have no idea what he's doing.

Elliot

[tomder55]

He is one of those trojan horses .

[speechlesstx]

I would guess but Elliot gave it away :D

Webb should just admit what McGovern admitted, "What you don't understand is that I didn't want us to win that war," but he doesn't believe there's a war anyway:

No, I don’t think that there is a war, to start with.

That's ironic considering his statement of last Thursday in which he said "we are seeing the inevitable result" of being mired "in an unnecessary war."

It's interesting that the Democrats will neither tell the truth or offer a solution. Webb is another in a long line of Democrats that, in lieu of a victory in obstructing Bush, are shifting blame and stalling because they have no plan. His statement blamed our presence in Iraq for our inability "to address other strategic requirements, including the global threat of terrorism." And here I thought that's what Bush has been in so much trouble for, actually addressing the threat of terrorism.

I'm beginning to wonder what they'd do if they succeeded in getting the troops out this long before the election, because for all their bluster I think they know what a disaster that would be. Case in point, a little publicized amendment to the Defense bill from Lieberman (it wasn't reported in my paper at all, and a Google news search returned 3 hits), passed unanimously last week.

Republicans and Democrats all lined up to support the White House’s unsubstantiated accusations that Tehran is funding, training and arming Iraqi militias, “who are contributing to the destabilisation of Iraq and are responsible for the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces”.

So what exactly would the Democrats do if their "wish" came true?

[ETWolverine]

Hey, Tom, do you have a link to the article?

[tomder55]

Yup

From Frontpage :

The Triumph of Intellectual Dishonesty

[ETWolverine]

Thanks, bro.

[speechlesstx]

tomder55 agrees: good job . I was going to use the Meet the Press exchange in a follow-up

Didn't mean to steal your thunder... but I left plenty of that exchange still open to discuss :)

[Mario3]

Yeah we have no right funding vietnam in the war (through the money that came from our central banks) and then to go fight against vietnam at the name time. That doesn't make any sense. We also funded the nazi war planes through our central banks and then were fighting them at the same time... I don't understand... is this all about money?

[ETWolverine]

Where do you get your information, Mario?

[tomder55]

Where do you get your information, Mario?

From that Zeitgeist movie I think

[Mario3]

This is the trick. Instead of going to the news and getting all your information, you should go to the source that the news analyzes. For example don't listen to what the news says about 9/11, but go and read the reports on the 9/11 Commission (something that the news analyzed for us). Then look at the things that don't add up and don't make sense. You should also investigate what news stations are not allowed to talk about (they all have a long list of political subjects they are never allowed to mention unless they want to get fired). Go and investigate everything they are not allowed to say to us. The central banks this is factual. Go and apply for a freedom of information act and you will see that the central banks in the united states funded hitler and funded the vietnamese - go and analyze their own reports straight from the horses mouth

[Mario3]

Disney also was pro hitler. This is a known fact

[tomder55]

Yes the internet is a great place to create our own reality

[Mario3]

Yeah you should keep doing that tomder. Create your own reality and ignore the majority of the worlds. You know what? Go out and buy some more clothing and go watch some more movies and go feed your dog. Your dog must be very hungry. It's never nice to keep an animal starving. Dogs deserve food. You know, I've seen some people buy clothing for their dogs these days. That's nice : )

[GoldieMae]

Man, I sure do miss George Allen.

This guy's a twit. If I were Lindsey Graham, I would have set aside my southern charm and put him in his place. And he has a really big head. Can you believe he served in the Reagan administration?