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The Vietnam Syndrome, AgainThe mistake Democrats make when they compare Iraq to Vietnam.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Feb. 16, 2004, at 5:23 PM ET
Fighting the good fight in Iraq

One of the stupidest of the many pseudointellectual observations made by Henry Kissinger was his attempted coinage of "the Vietnam syndrome." This supposedly lamentable condition did not do what it was supposed to do: create flashbacks and panic attacks at the very thought of a land war in Asia as the successor power to French colonialism (Kissinger's great cause and the launch of his ugly, unelected career). Instead, it was allegedly responsible for critical "failures of will" when it came to destabilizing Angola or Chile. Speaking prematurely and off the cuff in 1991, President George Bush Sr. declared the Vietnam syndrome to have been cured by the apparent success of the "first" Gulf War, which was actually only the beginning of a long war of maneuver with Saddam Hussein that took more than a decade to conclude.

And now the syndrome is back, having mutated almost beyond recognition. More than a quarter of a century after the collapse of the doomed American intervention in Indochina, we can't get over it. This is, in my opinion, as it should be. There ought to be no forgetting or forgiving of what happened there, nor will there be while any of us are around who remember it. Only this year, Robert McNamara has been groping self-pityingly toward an explanation of what he did and even toward some atonement for it. That's more than can be said for Kissinger, who continues to profit from "memoirs" that are replete with falsification and omission.

A war fought with weapons of indiscriminate slaughter, and accompanied by racist rhetoric, with a conscript Army deployed against a highly evolved revolutionary movement is as different as could possibly be from a campaign of precision-guided munitions, with an all-volunteer Army, directed at the overthrow of a hideous and dangerous tyranny, and then taking the form of a drive for free elections and a constitution. If people say that it's "reminiscent" of Vietnam, it means they don't remember Vietnam.

A huge chance was missed in the election of 1992, when Bill Clinton's record as a draft-dodger (not a draft-resister) became an issue. He lied about the matter from every angle and helped perpetuate the lie that those young Americans opposed to the war had been principally interested in the wholeness of their own skins. Having done this, he was in a weak position to say that, unlike Ronald Reagan, he did not think the Vietnam War had been "a noble cause." The noble cause, rather, had been the movement of resistance to it: almost the only case in history when an unjust war had been stopped largely by civilian dissent. Had he said this, there's every chance that people who disagreed strongly would still have respected him.

But now, those like Terence McAuliffe who defended every piece of Clintonian mendacity have decided to pin the label of "deserter" on George Bush Jr. This is sordid from at least three points of view. First, in respect of the facts it was self-evidently untrue even before the release of the president's records (and before some of his original accusers began to change their minds, or, in one case, to admit that he was losing same because of early onset Alzheimer's disease). Bush evidently did the gentlemanly minimum, which was itself a good deal more than the average for his college generation. The term "AWOL" is a studied insult and a conscious lie. Second, it's been admitted by the president well before now that the pattern of his youth was not entirely creditable. We've already covered all that, from the boozing to the driving. We don't have to take his word for it that he was "saved," but it's plain enough that he has reformed, thanks largely to his wife, and so it's mean and despicable to revisit that period in such a Pharisaic manner. Third, some Democrats really seem to want to act hawkier than thou. Are they so sure that this is a bright idea?

Sooner or later, Sen. John Kerry is going to have to say which he thought was the noble cause: the war or the antiwar movement. In the later movement, he clearly was not numbered among the "moderates." I remember those "Winter Soldier" hearings very well, and as far as I'm aware the charges made against the U.S. Army in Vietnam were substantially true, even if some of them were laid by shady and suspect characters. However, if the average in the field was tolerance for rape, torture, mass killing, and a depraved indifference to human life, what becomes of the "band of brothers"?

It would be easier for Kerry to find his voice on this, perhaps, if he could remove the cluster of frogs that lurk in his throat whenever he is questioned about his position on Iraq. On Sunday night in Milwaukee, asked whether his vote on the war resolution made him feel responsible for American casualties, he didn't even rise to the level of waffle. Sen. John Edwards, I thought, distinguished himself again by saying that Kerry's was "the longest answer I have ever heard to a yes-or-no question." Edwards went on to volunteer that he did accept responsibility. That's a bit more like it. Did Kerry think that he wasn't ever going to be asked? Does he think he isn't going to be challenged about Vietnam as well? He's had plenty of time to think about it, so the evasiveness and butt-covering is double-trouble, and multiplying.

There's something creepy about the Democratic decision to hail the heroes of Vietnam, from Kerry to Clark, and to denigrate the extraordinary effort being made to salvage Iraq and to pursue and kill people who really are, unlike the Viet Cong, the common enemies of humanity. It's trying too hard, and it's inauthentic and hypocritical as well as point-missing. It would be as if the Republicans suddenly started talking, as that great veteran Robert Dole once did, about all the conflicts in American history as "Democrat wars." That didn't fly, if you recall, though it would have been a fair description of Vietnam.

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Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
Photograph of U.S. soldier in Baghdad by Ceerwan Aziz/Reuters.
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Remarks from the Fray:

For Mr. Hitchens' information, the similarities between Viet Nam and the second Iraq War are:

1. The justifications for intervention were, to put it charitably, insecurely based upon fact.

2. The fighting went well. Yes, in Viet Nam, too, where the Viet Cong were being so severely defeated that Hanoi took the risk of invasion with regular forces at the time of Tet. This invasion, too, was, after brutal fighting, also defeated.

3. The failure in Viet Nam was political. No system of governance there was agreeable to both the Vietnamese and the policymakers in Washington. The search for this same "common ground" is currently bedeviling the present American administration in Iraq while American casualties mount and local "collaborators", those willing to attempt stabilization, die in larger numbers.

And just as an aside, the basic situation in Viet Nam, the division into a nativist North and, as it was perceived, a South run by former collaborators with the French, was instituted by the impeccably Republican John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Eisenhower. It is difficult to see how matters would have gone much differently there if Nixon, rather than Kennedy, had gone to the White House in 1960.

--Ossian

(To reply, click here)


…Hitchens does, in fact, present a credible defense of the notion that the invasion of Iraq is both more just in its cause and more honorable in its practice than the indiscriminate slaughter in Indochina. This is a point all of us who oppose the war should concede. And unlike the Viet Cong, the extreme movements of the Middle East actually do pose a tangible threat to the United States and do need to be confronted. Furthermore, knee-jerk comparisons between wars of different eras are rarely productive, and calling Iraq "The Next Vietnam" is no more accurate or useful than references to Saddam as "The Next Hitler."

However, it's difficult to take Hitchens' delicately poised argument seriously, because he so adamantly refuses to cast any semblance of a critical eye on the myriad ways the Bush Administration has repeated the mistakes of their Vietnam-era predecessors.

Yet again, we are led to war by a group of men who are willing to play fast and loose with the facts in order to manipulate the American public into supporting overseas military adventurism. Yet again, we are led by a group of men who launch wars without exit strategies and fail to understand the nature of their enemy. Yet again we have overestimated our military power by attempting to go it alone. Yet again we are failing to win the hearts and minds of the people we are theoretically "liberating." Yet again we find ourselves fighting a shadowy resistance movement in a civil war that threatens to expand far beyond the original scope of our mission.

So while the war in Iraq much more closely resembles, say, the Israeli efforts in Lebanon and the West Bank than it does the Vietnam War, this is hardly a recipe for success. No matter how well-intentioned the invasion of Iraq may have been, it was nonetheless an act of violence and deception that has left many American men dead unnecessarily, and it was a seriously flawed plan of action that is currently running into pitfalls that were foreseen well in advance by more sober analysts. The Bush team made the same fundamental mistake as the Vietnam-era foreign policy villains... they bullied and ignored their critics and failed to heed numerous warnings. They thought themselves infallible…

--ShriekingViolet

(To reply, click here)


"A war fought with weapons of indiscriminate slaughter..." is the critical paragraph in the essay. Mr. Hitchens did not say that we fought to prop up a government that was hardly better than the North Vietnamese on the basis of Domino Theory. Domino theory is distinguishable from the War on Terror because it is not a sure bet that Communist governments will be oppressive and actively seek to violently overthrow the West. The modern version of the Domino Theory would be to combat the spread of Islam. One could question whether Hussein was part of the terror network. I don't because not only did he have Abu Nidal as a resident in Iraq for years, he gave $25K to the families of Palestine suicide bombers.

As a merely rank and file opponent of the Vietnam war, I must agree that it has critical differences from the Iraq war.

--lemonfemale

(To reply, click here)


This is why the Republicans have made such an impact on government over the last ten years. It's not because the GOP is the better party, or because Americans are suddenly embracing conservative politics. It is because the Democrats have become so pathetic that they are attempting to distinguish themselves by focusing on the very real flaws of the GOP.

I don't think it's a waste of time to point out that so many of the hawks in the current administration have little or no military experience. It's worthwile to note that the most ardent flag-wavers didn't have the guts to serve. But for the purposes of a campaign, citizens are going to get very weary of harping on the past. Vietnam is over, and while it shouldn't be forgotten and should serve as a lesson for present and future generations, the average voter is not going to make his or her decision based on what a person did during one of the most trying times in our history.

There are so many problems that need to be addressed in this country. Isn't it enough to put our focus on those, rather than seek out the dusty old skeletons that everyone has? In defense of Kerry, the issue of whether or not we should have gone into Iraq is a moot one. The fact of the matter is that we did go in, we're there, and we have to address the matter as it now stands. It is completely useless to point fingers and make accusations about something that cannot be changed.

If I was any one of these candidates, I would simply refuse to answer the question of whether or not we should have invaded. How you felt about it before the invasion is irrelevant. What you are going to do about the situation now is of utmost importance. If the Democrats dwell on the past without giving a clear picture of what they will do about the present, Bush will win out on this issue.

--anarchisttx

(To reply, click here)

(2/17)

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