The striking similarities between Vietnam and Iraq: Can you say quagmire?
We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. . . . Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.
In the late 1950s and early ’60s, I was the model American boy. I was an Eagle Scout who made good grades. I was captain of my high school football team who played in an all-American game and earned a full athletic scholarship to the University of Tennessee. I was a regular participant at Sunday school and Methodist Youth Fellowship.
I believed in Mom, apple pie, and the flag. I loved guns and spent a lot of time at Boy Scout camp shooting .22 rifles and earning NRA badges. Audie Murphy, the most decorated American combat soldier in World War II, was a childhood hero of mine. Thus it was natural for me to support President Lyndon Johnson when he said we needed more U.S. troops in Vietnam. “The issue is the future of Southeast Asia as a whole,” Johnson declared. “A threat to any nation in that region is a threat to all, and a threat to us.”
Despite the culture in which I lived and the values I’d taken on, it quickly became obvious to me that something was amiss. Politicians’ promises of a limited conflict morphed into a huge military buildup. While some military leaders claimed we were making Vietnam safe for democracy, a U.S. officer proclaimed that “it became necessary to destroy the village to save it.” We heard reports of atrocities committed against civilians by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers, but there were also reports of Lt. Calley’s massacre of unarmed civilians at My Lai. Our nation’s leaders predicted “light at the end of the tunnel,” yet the war dragged on. Most disturbing of all, of course, were the inflated enemy body counts that were somehow supposed to offset the horror of the thousands of body bags returning to our shores. And no one, including Congress, seemed to have a solution to end the slaughter of Americans and Vietnamese except to increase the U.S. troop and munitions levels. The phrase “credibility gap” entered the lexicon.
I was dismayed, saddened, ashamed and, finally, angry as hell. All my life I’d thought my country could do no wrong. We were, after all, supposed to be the good guys. My loss of innocence was sudden and intense.
But, along with thousands of others, I channeled my anger into action. I worked to end the conflict, participating in demonstrations and supporting political candidates who challenged our sitting president. And I vowed that I would never go to Vietnam to fight in this ill-advised war.
It eventually became obvious that the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call it the American War) would not be won unless we were willing to bomb the little Third World country back to the Stone Age, as some had suggested. But I knew the tide had irreversibly turned against the war on February 27, 1968, when CBS television news anchor Walter Cronkite broadcast his poignant special report:
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . . For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.
The public had had enough. A March 1968 Gallup poll indicated that only 26 percent of Americans supported Johnson’s handling of the conflict. On March 31, 1968, I watched an anguished Johnson address a national television audience. He saved the best for close to the end: “ . . . I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
After being elected to the presidency on a “peace with honor” campaign pledge in 1968, Nixon continued the war for several years more. But finally we declared victory and turned things over to the South Vietnamese. The final body count: more than 50,000 American and one million Vietnamese soldiers killed. In addition, more than 300,000 American and 1,500,000 Vietnamese troops were wounded. The Vietnamese government asserts that four million civilians were killed during the conflict.
Decades later it’s pretty easy to play Monday morning quarterback. We underrated the tenacity and resourcefulness of our foe. We miscalculated the resources it would take to wage such a conflict. We misjudged the amount of time it would take. We misunderstood the recalcitrance of soldiers who lacked a clear mission. We underestimated the lives that would be lost on both sides. Johnson’s doubts about his actions were overshadowed by his flawed perception of manhood and his belief that he could not let a “little pissant country” prevail over the most powerful nation in the world.
Johnson died a broken man on his ranch in Johnson City, Texas in 1973.
Fast-forward thirty years.
While on vacation in Crawford, Texas, Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush must have been drinking from the same well as Lyndon B. Johnson when LBJ got American boots stuck in Southeast Asia’s unforgiving swamps. . . . LBJ consequently lost his job and caused millions of American and Vietnamese casualties. Let’s hope that GWB isn’t leading us down another rocky road.
The tragedy of 9/11 presented us with an immense opportunity. A few days after that horrendous event I wrote that one thing had been accomplished by the appalling actions of the terrorists: We had come together as a nation in support of those in need. And not only that; the world community joined in mourning our loss. Many nations pledged their cooperation in confronting the challenge of terrorism, and we had considerable solidarity in this effort . . . for a while.
When, however, we tried to drum up support for an assault on Iraq, the majority of the people around the world, including millions in this nation, rose up in powerful protest. Massive peace rallies took place prior to the first shot being fired, and members of the UN refused to condone what many regarded as an immoral, if not illegal, action.
The cycle of change continues to accelerate. While it took years to grasp the contradictions in the arguments for the war in Vietnam, in Iraq it has taken only months. President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, and Vice President Cheney told us that we’d be welcomed by the Iraqi people with open arms. We were not. We were told that weapons of mass destruction would be discovered. They were not. We were told that the conflict would end quickly. It has not. We were told that selling Iraqi oil would pay for rebuilding that nation. It will not. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, we’ve already spent $74 billion on the war and Bush has asked our enabling Congress for an additional $87 billion. Is this another example of a huge credibility gap à la LBJ or are these guys utterly incompetent?
In a September 11-12, 2003 Newsweek poll, Bush’s overall approval rating had dropped to 46 percent, down precipitously from the 90 percent approval rating immediately following 9/11. There’s blood in the water, and emboldened politicians are posing serious challenges to the administration’s handling of the Iraq war. I knew a momentous shift had taken place when I heard a National Public Radio commentator reporting that Bush’s claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger was “bogus.” Faux (Fox) News may still have their blinders on, but much of the mainstream media has finally cast off the pseudo-patriotism that consisted primarily of going along with almost everything the current administration said and did that was in any way related to the war. And for Bush and company, there’s no turning back the clock. Wagging the dog will not help. Raising the terror alert level to orange or red won’t do it. Playing on our fears has run its course. You can yell “wolf” only so many times and get away with it. Of course, danger does exist in the world, but we must avoid being manipulated by our fear of these dangers.
So once more, let’s do a little quarterbacking and compare our current dilemma in Iraq with the Vietnam War. Again presidential advisors appear to have underestimated the tenacity and resourcefulness of our foe. Again our political leaders have miscalculated the resources it would take to wage the war in Iraq. Again our military experts have misjudged the amount of time it would take to complete our mission. Again the president has undervalued the importance of a clear mission for our soldiers and for the nation. Again our national leadership has failed to appreciate the significance of the casualties on both sides (so far 311 American troops dead and 1,685 wounded, 53 coalition troops dead, more than 7,000 Iraqi civilians dead and roughly 10,000 Iraqi military dead).
As with President Johnson during the late 1960s, we have begun to see what happens to those who believe they are all-powerful. Inevitably life intercedes. The pretenders are brought down to earth. We are witnessing another presidency being undone by its unwillingness to acknowledge reality and change course accordingly. We are witnessing what happens when someone believes that machismo is a proper way of expressing one’s masculinity. We are witnessing the steady decline of a president who seems to believe he can validate his manhood by risking the lives of others.
As those of you who read this column regularly know, I have opposed this war from the beginning. I do not believe that Iraq posed a threat to us. I do not believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I do not believe that Iraq was in league with al Qaeda (though we may now have helped create such an alliance). I do not think war is a just and moral means for settling political differences. Our armed forces are now in an untenable situation in Iraq. As in Vietnam the only solution to the conflict being discussed in Washington is to throw more troops (ours or someone else’s) into the fray and more money into what may become a bottomless pit. As in Vietnam, there are those who say we can’t cut and run or we’ll lose face. Well, guess what, folks: We’ve already lost face . . . with the millions of people around the world who thought this irresponsible adventure was deadly folly in the first place.
Get the UN in and the U.S. out . . . now. Then turn Iraq over to Iraqis as soon as possible, and let them decide what form they want their government to take. We are not the rulers of the world. In fact, if there’s one lesson we can learn from this misadventure it’s that empire building is not as easy as the armchair warriors have made it out to be.
One more thing: It is imperative that George W. Bush be removed from office in 2004. He has shown himself to be unfit for the job. I personally support Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, for the Democratic presidential nomination. However, I could also get behind current frontrunner Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. Regardless of the candidate you choose to oppose the current occupant of the White House, now is the time to put our money, our sweat, and our energy toward the creation of the kind of nation and world we envision for ourselves and our children. If we’ll stand together in this crucial endeavor, we can send another delusional president back to his ranch in Texas.
Saturday, September 20th, 2003No Comments »
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