Posted on 05/05/2018 8:52:15 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Jim Webb, the decorated Vietnam combat veteran, writer, and former US senator, wrote “Heroes of the Vietnam Generation,”which pairs well with an earlier essay, “Peace? Defeat? What Did the Vietnam War Protesters Want?,” published by the American Enterprise Institute, in 1997. Both are very useful, especially for those who didn’t live through the Vietnam era, for understanding some of that generation’s dynamics.
Webb discusses how it was really the first time in US history when a lot of people argued not going into the military was actually a good thing, and this sentiment has guided how a lot of people look at the Vietnam War. In order to justify not serving in the military at that time, many described the war as unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable. While I can’t read Ken Burns’ mind, if you look at his documentary The Vietnam War, it certainly seems to support this mentality.
We know Burns opposed the war at the time and decided not to go to Vietnam. While producing the documentary, he insisted he would only call balls and strikes to make a neutral, objective production. Anyone familiar with the war should quickly see how Burns overwhelmingly sides with the view that the war was unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable, and how he omits information that contradicts this interpretation. While there are some factual inaccuracies, the biggest problems with the documentary are with what he doesn’t include.
When Vietnam was divided into two in 1954, the Vietnamese Communists and French agreed the country would unify and hold an election in 1956. When the documentary says the South Vietnamese government did not go along with plan, it repeats the old insinuation that Saigon opposed the Vietnamese people’s will. However, Burns omits that most South Vietnamese—as well as the Americans—were convinced that Ho Chi Minh and his Communists would intimidate the Northern Vietnamese, whom they controlled, into voting unanimously for him. Since the North had a bigger population, such coercion would practically make the country Communist. So, the South did not go along.
Not incidentally, by the way, the Saigon government was not even party to the 1954 agreement. But Burns and his co-producer Lynn Novick heap scorn on the young government that took control of the South in 1954. They, as is the traditional anti-war narrative, insist it was a bankrupt government.
Burns later highlights the Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963, in which the South Vietnamese forces did not perform very well, and then he tries to portray that fight as representative of the South’s abilities under President Ngo Dinh Diem. But, in fact, the South Vietnamese government was victorious in almost every other battle in the year before and after Ap Bac.
The Vietnam War doesn’t talk very much about the strategic rationale for the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, which was the so-called domino theory. There’s little mention of the legitimate concern that if South Vietnam fell then other countries in the region would also fall to Communism. The series mentions it at the beginning, but then the whole issue fades from the scene. However, domino theory does play out during this time. The most critical country in Southeast Asia from the American perspective was not Vietnam. It was Indonesia, a huge, strategically located country with massive natural resources. It also happened to have an anti-Communist coup at the end of 1965, which I think was clearly the result of American intervention in Vietnam. But the Burns production mentions nothing about that.
These types of selective omissions continue as the series progresses. Burns and Novick focus on six battles in the episodes covering 1966-67, and in each they go out of their way to highlight errors that the Americans committed as well as American casualties. They produce the impression that this was simply how the war was in 1966-67. Well, as it happens, when the series aired I was working on chapters covering those years in my book on the war. There were actually hundreds of battles then, and if you wanted to cherry-pick the worst six for the Americans, you would have chosen the same half-dozen selected by Burns. In fact, most of the battles in that period were overwhelming victories for the United States.
The series also leaves out the declining support among the Vietnamese for the Communists. In fact, I think the population never really cared about Marxist-Leninist ideology per se. But the Communists sold them a sort of snake oil and told everybody, for instance, that they would get to keep their land when they wouldn’t. Regardless, as the war turned against the Communists by 1967, Communist recruitment of South Vietnamese declined sharply, and that pace of recruitment continued to fall and never really recovered. Ultimately, about 200,000 supposedly die-hard Communists defected to South Vietnam.
The documentary’s narrator also tells us that 250,000 South Vietnamese troops were killed during the war. But we never hear why so many people were in fact willing to die for a government that was as bad as the documentary suggests. Burns and Novick give lots of information about Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, but we don’t really hear anything about the ideas that compelled these South Vietnamese to fight to the death on behalf of their country. In fact, there was a strong, growing sense of nationalism within South Vietnam.
From the very beginning, The Vietnam War has a sense of impending doom. The music is lugubrious, giving the sense that the outcome is foreordained and nothing could be done about it. This again reinforces the idea that the war was always unwinnable, a total lost cause. However, more and more evidence suggests that the war could have been won. American strategic choices, in some respects, account for our inability to take advantage of those opportunities.
One of those choices concerned America deploying ground forces. The US limited troops to South Vietnam, despite a lot of pressure from the military to go into Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. We’ve now heard from the North Vietnamese that General Giáp, one of the People’s Army’s primary leaders, believed that if the Americans had expanded the boundaries of the war, the US could have thwarted him with about 250,000 troops, which is less than half of what we ultimately deployed in the South. We also now know the Chinese were not interested in getting involved. Concern that they would, as they did in Korea, was one of the main arguments for why the US didn’t enter the North. In fact, we know from the Chinese side that the they wanted nothing to do with the war or any other conflict with the United States.
The Kennedy administration’s support for a coup in November 1963 against the Diem government was another catastrophic choice made by the United States. A lot of evidence from the Communist side now suggests this coup sabotaged what in fact had been an effective war effort in the South.
Congress’ decision to slash aid and prohibit American military actions in South Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 was another ill-fated choice. The Easter Offensive of 1972 had shown that the South Vietnamese Army could fend off the North Vietnamese if they had American aid and air support. We took that away.
Burns and Novick make a very conscious effort to say they would not malign Vietnam veterans, as so much of the previous anti-war history had done. To some extent they avoid overt disrespect, but I think they still do a disservice to veterans. The Vietnam War interviews a huge number of anti-war veterans. Also, the Gold Star Mother interviewed happens to be one of the few who opposed the war. Likewise, the prisoner of war whom the documentary focused upon happens to be married to one of the only anti-war POW wives. Clearly, this is a selective effort trying to convince viewers that there was much more anti-war sentiment amongst the military and their families than actually existed. Burns presents very little about American soldiers’ camaraderie and pride. I think this is very much a deliberate attempt to undermine veterans’ experiences. The only times the documentary shows this sort of pride or enthusiasm is when it shows the North Vietnamese, who probably had less to be enthusiastic about since they lost so many times. We don’t hear anything about the 259 Americans who received the Medal of Honor, or the tens of thousands who earned other awards, or the countless others who displayed extraordinary valor but did not receive an award for it. Instead, the series leads viewers to believe that Vietnam veterans were victims of the war, that there was not much redeeming about them, and hence, again, that maybe going to Vietnam wasn’t the right thing to do.
The reason I started studying the Vietnam War 25 years ago was due to my belief that the anti-war left unfairly besmirched America’s Vietnam veterans. Although Burns and Novick don’t besmirch veterans as flagrantly, their misrepresentation of the war and its warriors has reopened old wounds. It’s not just Vietnam veterans’ reputations at stake; how we view this war shapes how we view ourselves as Americans. Burns and his interviewees go out of their way to claim that the Vietnam War debunked the notion of American exceptionalism. They seem to want us to believe that the US, the world’s first modern democracy and principal guardian of the world order since 1945, is on a moral par with North Vietnam, a dictatorship that waged several brutal wars in the name of Marxism-Leninism and slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians before deciding that Marxism-Leninism wasn’t such a good idea.
This aversion to American exceptionalism and patriotism has pervaded too much of our society since the Vietnam War. For those of us who think the US is a force for good in the world, that our country is so good that we’d risk our lives for it, the accurate retelling of the Vietnam War is imperative. That’s why I think it’s important to let the country know just how fallacious the Burns series is.
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Mark Moyar (PhD, Cambridge) is the Director of the Project on Military and Diplomatic History at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. The author of six books and dozens of articles, he has worked in and out of government on national security affairs, international development, foreign aid, and capacity building. His newest book is Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (2017). His other books include Aid for Elites: Building Partners and Ending Poverty with Human Capital (2016), Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (2006), and Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam (1997, revised 2007).
Aha...so you fell for Hanoi Jane's song and dance too.It wasn't a "civil war" any more than Korea was a "civil war".
It wasn’t just Vietnam. The domino theory held sway at the time.
Vietnam itself was of little importance (other than as a domestic political issue, i.e., JFK and LBJ were afraid of a “who lost Vietnam” controversy such as “who lost China” hurt the Democrats a decade before.)
The big prize was Indonesia. And the pro-western Suharto perhaps would not have dared to overthrow the pro-leftist Sukarno in 1965, if it hadn’t been for the US stand in Vietnam. I’m not justifying it; the bloodbath in the 1965 coup in Indonesia was horrendous.
But that was the thinking.
Vietnam should be studied if only to learn how not to fight a war.
I put the loss of this war on politicians and the Leftist media. Throw in Hanoi Jane for good measure. Her passport should have been revoked for even traveling to North Vietnam.
We won the Vietnam War in 1973. It was the Democrats in 1975 who frightened President Ford into abandoning our treaty obligations to South Vietnam. We sat on our hands instead of providing the agreed upon air support while North Vietnam followed the Democrats’ lead and invaded.
I believe Eisenhower did the right thing in supporting a non-Communist government in South Vietnam. And his policy was successful. When he left office, South Vietnam had a stable government. We had only a few hundred troops in Vietnam serving in an advisory role, and they suffered less than ten casualties.
Burns seems to be a serious producer of leftist history. I did watch his Civil War series years ago but nothing since. I definitely dont care to ever see this VN series. It was my generation and i was lucky enough to be there, admittedly as a Maritime Patrol crewmember (no combat), but i was still spit at in the airport in Honolulu on my way home. The lefty view of VN is an insult to those that served.
A large part of the South is/was Catholic - I seem to remember JFK being accused of getting into it because he wanted to help fellow Catholics.
Dominoes did fall after South Vietnam was overrun, but they weren’t all in Southeast Asia. Within year, Communists seized control of Angola, Mozambique and São Tomé e Príncipe.
Vietnam itself was of little importance (other than as a domestic political issue, i.e., JFK and LBJ were afraid of a “who lost Vietnam” controversy such as “who lost China” hurt the Democrats a decade before.)
The big prize was Indonesia. And the pro-western Suharto perhaps would not have dared to overthrow the pro-leftist Sukarno in 1965, if it hadn’t been for the US stand in Vietnam. I’m not justifying it; the bloodbath in the 1965 coup in Indonesia was horrendous.
But that was the thinking.
I know that was the thinking, and I even understand it. At the time I even agreed with it, even though I was just a very young man, and didn't know anything, really.
As I said in my post, in hindsight; I understand the power of the "domino theory."
My point was that it was the received wisdom of the advisors of to the President, like Dean Acheson, and Allen Dulles, and McGeorge Bundy, and Robert McNamara, that Communism was stronger, that Communism would prevail in the long run.
Today, with the benefit of hindsight we can see that Communism is not stronger, is not more efficient, and will not prevail over the long run.
“Vietnam was a propaganda war as well as a physical one and many communists and fellow travelers are still fighting it.”
I loved the Vietnam series. It was a complete waste. McNamara and Kissinger should have been hanged.
That could be. I’m not up on what those advisers thought about Communism as the wave of the future. I don’t think however that McNamara had any particularly strong beliefs on that, because IMO he was a yes-man who just did and said what he thought the president wanted to hear.
Actually Eisenhower, whom I respect, had little concern about Vietnam. When Kennedy came to the White House for his post-election briefing with Eisenhower, Eisenhower didn’t even mention Vietnam. Laos was the topic of conversation with regard to southeast Asia.
It never would’ve gotten to the point it did if Eisenhower had still been in control IMO. He knew the limits of power and the cost/benefit aspect of things.
I didn't "fall for it," that's what it was. Even though China and the USSR were backing and supplying the North. Much of the population of both north and south wanted Communism, and that's the reason they supported Ho Chi Minh.
Look, I know it wasn't right for them, and you know it wasn't right for them, but the problem is that they didn't know it wasn't right for them, or at least enough of them didn't know it, and we were not going to change their minds by blowing the shit out of them.
The basic fact and lesson is this: the President of the United States cannot place hundreds of thousands of young Americans in harm's way for years on end without overwhelming political support from the American population. It's not a matter of justice, it's a matter of politics and public opinion and public sentiment.
We were able to mobilize that kind of effort during WWII because most people could see that Hitler and Japan were actual, physical threats to the United States.
That just wasn't the case in Vietnam, especially when it became obvious that many, many ordinary Vietnamese people wanted us to leave. I well remember the story of the teenaged girl who tossed the grenade at the American soldiers; I heard it from my uncle who had come back from Vietnam (I'm not saying he was present when it happened, but he heard about it). Maybe she was brainwashed, maybe she was even not an actual teenager, but was a NVA soldier disguised as a villager, I don't know, but what does it matter? Incidents like that, and others, are powerful, and the North knew very well how to use incidents like My Lai to their advantage.
War is psychological as well as military, and we lost the psychology before we lost the military war.
Another factor was that Johnson was a genuinely bad man, and the war was to some extent being waged to help his political friends back in Texas make money. As his time to live grew short, I think he realized his mistake and actually felt remorse.
The B-52 brought Hanoi to its knees and to Paris. The left made sure that the military would not win so they cut funding and stopped the bombing. The “war” was winnable. The scumbag left loved POS Commies then and now love the Islamists and everything socialist. I hate the left and always will.
And another thing: my views on Vietnam do not for one second mean that I don't respect and admire the men who went there and fought for America and for freedom. That is not the case at all. They were doing what they thought was right, in many cases, and they did a very good job. They couldn't possibly know how history was going to play out, and within the context of the time they were doing what was right; in any event, they did their duty when they were called upon by the United States, and the deserve tremendous respect for that. They didn't run away, and I love them and admire them for that, and the fact that so many of them paid the ultimate price for it hurts me to this day.
The first hint of conservative thought I ever experienced happened when — as a teenager in high school — I heard the story about how returning American soldiers were spat upon as they made their way through Kennedy Airport in NYC. Even though I was somewhat against the war (like essentially 100% of my classmates and friends) I still thought that wasn't right, couldn't possibly be right. It struck me as wrong, and I knew it with certainty.
That was the beginning of my learning to "go against the crowd."
Tried to watch his Baseball then gave up on him altogether.
Yeah, I feel the same. Baseball started out pretty good, and then turned into one big diatribe about how awful and racist America is. I couldn't take it, he just hammered it and hammered it.
It ticks me off the way these elitists think that baseball gives them the common touch.
Burns, George Will, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Read the Pentagon Papers.
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