The Western Front

WSJ | 24 FEB 03 | Brendan Minter

[dts32041]

An unlikely dispute has broken out between the commonwealth of Virginia and communist Vietnam--and the U.S. State Department is siding with Hanoi.

Throughout Virginia, public school officials often fly various countries' flags in classrooms and at school functions. I saw this firsthand on "International Day" when I was a student at George Mason University in Fairfax. The student union would be decorated with "celebrate diversity" signs and scores of different flags. And on this day the stars and stripes would fly at the same level as all the other banners--in clear violation of flag etiquette.

Northern Virginia is home to some 32,000 Vietnamese-Americans, refugees of communist tyranny. Many are understandably appalled to see the flag of the communist North Vietnamese, with a gold star on a red background, casually hung in their children's public schools. They want the communist flag taken down.

Virginia politicians are happy to oblige. Delegate Bob Hull, a Fairfax County Democrat, asked school officials last year to remove Hanoi's flag, but they refused. So this year he introduced a bill that would bar public school officials from flying the communist flag and allow them to fly the banner of the former republic of South Vietnam (shown nearby). "Unlike any other communist country that still exists in the world, 1,309 Virginians died defending this flag that I want to show in the schools and colleges around this commonwealth," Mr. Hull said on the House floor. The bill quickly gained bipartisan support and--on Jan. 31, the 35th anniversary of the Tet Offensive--easily passed the House of Delegates, 68-27.

Then the State Department got involved. Reacting to pleas by Vietnamese officials in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage fired off a letter to Mr. Hull. "I believe this bill could run afoul of the U.S. Constitution and our federal system which confine the conduct of foreign policy to the national government . . . and send a particularly unfortunate message in these times when it is important that we speak with a single voice in matters relating to the conduct of our international affairs," Mr. Armitage wrote in his Feb. 5 letter.

Word spread quickly in Richmond that the State Department wanted this bill killed. Someone even started a rumor that the White House had called a few state senators to plead Foggy Bottom's case. The diplomatic offensive worked. The bill quietly died last week in the state Senate's rules committee.

Mr. Hull ridicules the State Department's constitutional argument. Virginia's public schools--their curriculum and their conduct--are well within the purview of the state government, he says in a phone interview. And his bill didn't run afoul of freedom of speech because it didn't ban the flag--educators were still free to use textbooks with the communist flag. It simply instructed school officials not to fly it.

What really upset Mr. Hull, however, is that the State Department is siding with an insolent communist government. "It is known to everybody that the gold-starred red flag has been the only flag representing the independent and unified State of Viet Nam since 1945," Hanoi said in a prepared statement responding to Mr. Hull's bill. Of course, 58,000 Americans would disagree if they could, but they died defending South Vietnam's flag--to say nothing of the millions of boat people who fled after the communists took over in 1975.

What has the U.S. government gotten in return from its former enemy? When it comes to the most pressing international issue of the day, Iraq, Hanoi sounds as anti-American as its former colonial master, France: "Vietnam protests against any military action against Iraq to overthrow the Government of President Saddam Hussein," said the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry in August. "Iraq is an independent and sovereign state and a member of the United Nations. The Iraqi Government was elected by the people of Iraq [!]. Interference by force from outside to change the political regime of this country constitutes a gross violation of international law and the United Nation Charter." Hanoi reiterated this position in January, after President Bush's State of the Union address.

That's the same Vietnamese government that "murdered innocent civilians and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese in hundreds of concentration camps all over the country," as Mr. Hull says, reading a letter from a 14-year-old Fairfax student of Vietnamese decent. Some who suffered this fate are now Americans. Why does the State Department insist on treating them with such contempt?

Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.

[dts32041]

Looks Wimp Jr. is ridding rough shod over the states.

Some people find that flag as offesnive as the Stars and Bars and the Stars and Stripes.

Maybe we should fly any flags at all.

[mallardx]

what next, are they going to fly a Nazi flag? What's with the communism endorsement here?

[RonF]

First, let's get our facts straight:

According to the author, And on this day the stars and stripes would fly at the same level as all the other banners--in clear violation of flag etiquette.

Yet, if you look at the relevant section of the U.S. Flag Code, here, which is United States Code Title 4, Chapter 1 (U.S. Flag Code), Section 7, paragraph (g), we'll find:

When flags of two or more nations are displayed, they are to be flown from separate staffs of the same height. The flags should be of approximately equal size. International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another nation in time of peace.

Last time I checked, we're not at war. Yet. So the author has either deliberately lied, or is guilty of very sloppy "journalism" that calls into question any other "facts" he asserts.

As to the rest of it, there's a lot of flags of countries that offend people who love freedom and liberty. But yet these countries exist and their soverignty is internationally recognized. South Vietnam is not one of these. Are we then to start teaching our children different?

[dts32041]

Actually any flag of a state of the united states should fly higher than the stars and stripes as power of the federal government is derived from the states.

Of course, that little piece of flag etiquette is no longer taught.

[RonF]

If you are saying that because you believe that the U.S. Flag Code calls for State flags to be flown above the U.S. Flag, then you are wrong. Check paragraph (e) at the same link as above. And if you think the code has ever been that way, let me know your source for that. I haven't found it as such in any of my collection of old Boy Scout Handbooks.

OTOH, if what you're saying is that it's your opinion that it should be that way, then that's another thing. But it shouldn't be taught as being flag ettiquette unless that's the actual law.