|| INTRODUCTION ||
It is a tremendous achievement to make an entire nation
believe that a devastating error in history is being owned up
to when in actuality it is being rewritten with either precise
sophistication or complete ignorance. Robert McNamara, the
former Secretary of Defense of the United States during the
Vietnam War, refuses to give himself, Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, and Nixon the high praises they clearly deserve in
his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.
This book is considered to be one of harshest publication ever
to come out against the Vietnam War. In it he argues that the
war was fought out of complete ignorance, not sophistication.
Regardless, it is a tremendous achievement that even in
admitting such a flaw – in turn, receiving praises and
criticisms due to the supposed harshness of it – he is
actually rewriting history in a fashion that goes far beyond
anything George Orwell ever envisioned. While Orwell spoke of
mind-control through a barrel of a gun, McNamara displays an
innovation unique only to democracies.
Robert McNamara puts forth four reasons as to why the United
States entered the war:
1. The Geneva Accords gave U.S. responsibility to protect
South Vietnam.
2. Fear of Communism (particularly, China).
3. The Domino Theory – which argues that the fall of Vietnam
would lead to other countries in Asia becoming Communist also
– as a reason for fighting the Vietnam War.
4. The war was fought out of complete ignorance. Simply, they
did not know better.
The fact that the latter arguments are widely accepted today
as something revolutionary is truly perplexing. In light of
the fact that all the pronounced official justifications are
outright absurd, this article will argue that the United
States got involved in Vietnam due to economic reasons and
nothing else.
|| THE DOMINO THEORY, GENEVA ACCORDS AND FEAR OF CHINESE
INTERVENTION ||
Historically, Robert McNamara believes that the United States
"assumed responsibility from France for protecting Vietnam
south of the partition line." In this statement, he is
referring to the 1954 Geneva accords. As normally purported,
the U.S. sought to defend South Vietnam from Communism. He
argues that "At the time, Communism still seemed on the
march." [ Details edited out to decrease length ] ... These
developments appeared to underscore the hostility of Communist
policy. Therefore, losing Vietnam will trigger the fall of the
rest of Southeast Asia to the Communist sphere of influence –
otherwise known as the Domino Theory.
Xiaoming Zhang, a military historian, gives support to this
fear of Communist hegemony. He argues that the U.S. was
justified in its fear because China expressed tremendous
interest in the conflict. What precluded full-scale war
against North Vietnam was the fear of a direct Chinese entry.
[ Details edited out to decrease length ] ... Since the
deterioration of Sino-Vietnamese relations, both Hanoi and
China denies or downplays such a wartime alliance between
them. Thus, comprehension of the Vietnam War and questions
raised "concerning the wisdom of American restraint in
Washington’s conduct of the war" are often distorted.
McNamara’s characterization of the Geneva Accords – in that
they assumed responsibility for the protection of South
Vietnam because of it – does not even merit refutation.
McNamara and the rest of the U.S. administration knew quite
well what the Geneva Accords amounted to. If they did not,
they never would have sought to undermine the accords since
its beginning. The National Liberation Front program of 1960
"reiterates the terms of the 1954 Geneva settlement" in its
call for an election of a national assembly based on universal
suffrage. A national democratic coalition will head the
government and will take gradual steps in the peaceful
unification of the country. As the Pentagon Papers – internal
government documents investigated and published by the New
York Times -- have shown, "the Eisenhower Administration’s
National Security Council decided that the accords were a
‘disaster’ and approved actions to prevent further Communist
expansion in Vietnam." It concludes that the National Security
Council participated directly in the failure of the Geneva
settlement. It was the objective of the Council to prevent
political settlement because it knew that Communist victory
was imminent in an election. According to Fox Butterfield, the
Pentagon study "describes in detail how the Eisenhower
Administration sent a team of agents to carry out clandestine
warfare against North Vietnam from the minute the Geneva
conference closed." For example, the National Security
Council, in early August 1954, committed itself to supporting
Premier Diem already. McNamara further supports this by
mentioning in his book that the U.S. "pumped more than $7
billion in economic and military aid into South Vietnam from
1955 to 1961" in order to fulfill their responsibility.
Intervention was seen as necessary because without American
help it was believed that the French were likely to negotiate
a treaty that would allow them to escape an unpopular war – a
‘sellout’ in the words of the report. Secretary Dulles
"suggested that the United States ought to seek to delay the
elections and to require guarantees that the Communists could
be expected to reject." Without the support of the United
States Diem could not consolidate his rule on the South. The
threat of U.S. intervention gave South Vietnam the leverage it
needed to refuse "to even discuss the elections called for in
1956 under the Geneva settlement without being immediately
overrun by the Vietminh armies." In sum, the government the
United States created in South Vietnam had very little
legitimacy. Particularly, it was created to undermine the
Geneva Accords because they were given no responsibility to
protect South Vietnam – legally or by popular support.
Keeping in mind the simple moral standard of applying to
yourself what you apply to others, rhetoric about the fear of
Communist hegemony is omnipresent in government documents.
While fear of a Chinese and USSR intervention was justified,
North Vietnam could hardly be blamed for seeking a military
alliance with another country – especially after U.S. efforts
to undermine the Geneva Accords were taken. Unless of course
the convenient path of ignoring their independence and status
as a country is taken then people like McNamara can use such a
thing as a justification for invasion – obviously, they do. Of
course, taking this path requires the United States to accept
the logic that China has every right to attack countries
within the U.S. sphere of influence or even the United States
itself. If anything, China has a more serious claim about
fearing U.S. hegemony just by the mere fact that Vietnam is in
close proximity with China. That being said, one can only
imagine what kind of reaction such an argument would incite in
the United States.
While many comprehension of the Vietnam War suffers from the
distortion that China only had a small involvement in the
conflict as Zhang argues, the intense bombing of the south in
the early 1960’s is still left without a reason. Surely one
cannot attribute the bombing due to fear of Communism without
first admitting that there was deep support for the
reunification of Vietnam in the South. If not, one must
attribute it instead to fear of North Vietnamese infiltration.
Regardless, while small-scale infiltration from North Vietnam
began in 1955 – later becoming large-scale in 1959 –
intelligence officers from the United States "learned that
until 1964 almost all the infiltrators were native southerners
who went to the North in 1954." Therefore, it is ridiculous to
use Communist infiltration as an excuse for the bombing of
South Vietnam. Such information leaves one to conclude that
the bombings were aimed at the people the United States
supposedly protected because they feared their political
allegiance.
|| U.S. IGNORANCE OF VIETNAM ||
- The Domino Theory -
McNamara also argues that when the U.S. government formulated
their Vietnam policy they "lacked experts" to consult with to
compensate for their ignorance. As a result, many "ill-founded
judgments were accepted without debate by the Kennedy
administration, as they had been by its Democratic and
Republican predecessors." They failed to analyze their
assumptions critically making the foundations of their
decision-making gravely flawed.
When speaking of the Domino Theory, McNamara argues that they
"received no thoughtful analysis of the problem and no pros
and cons regarding alternative ways to deal with it." They had
to prevent the fall of Southeast Asia at all cost because
there was no other alternative. Despite their ignorance of
Vietnam in their decision-making, the U.S. still created their
policies with "innocence" and good intentions during the early
days of the Kennedy administration. Although, McNamara does
admit that while their ignorance explains their behavior, it
certainly does not excuse it. His book is a testament to his
unrelenting attempt to admit the mistakes of his
administration and his own as well.
In particular, the fact that President Kennedy was shaken by
the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem distresses the former
Secretary of Defense. It "shocks and saddens" McNamara even
"today to realize that action which eventually lead to the
overthrow and murder of Diem began while U.S. officials in
both Washington and Saigon remained deeply divided over the
wisdom of his removal." Most important, "no high-level
approach to Diem – with appropriate carrots and sticks – had
been attempted to persuade him to mend his ways." McNamara
admits "that the problems plaguing South Vietnam and its
embattled leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, were far more complicated
than" they "had initially perceived" when they thought he
would be effective in garnering national support.
Despite the admission of McNamara that ignorance permeated
every aspect of U.S. policy in Vietnam, it is ironic that his
admission in itself is even more ignorant. In fact, what he
admits to is both ridiculous and outright insane. Regardless
of what McNamara says about the lack of intelligence and
thoughtful analysis when it came to the policies during the
war, there was no shortage in neither of these things.
In regards to the Domino Theory, the blame for the lack of
alternative presented, first and foremost, must be laid on the
shoulders of those involved with policy-making. The Pentagon
study concludes that the assumption of this theory was never
seriously questioned during the Eisenhower years. Thus, "the
Government’s internal debate usually centered more on matters
of military feasibility than on questions of basic national
interests." The U.S. government did not seek to question the
theory because they saw it as imperative to prevent the
unification of Vietnam by any means. Therefore, in light of
the unrelated bombing of South Vietnam to the Domino Theory,
it is not difficult to see the latter as a mere tool to
justify an intervention that was already occurring. In sum, it
was accepted as it was because it fit the U.S. government’s
purpose.
- Prospects of the Ngo Dinh Diem Regime -
In further explanation of widespread ignorance, McNamara
claims that before the coup they saw little prospect for any
improvement of the Diem regime. In light of that claim, one
must put into question how long ago they have arrived at this
conclusion. According to McNamara this was only recognized
shortly before the coup happened. In contrast, while Diem’s
assassination occurred during the late-1963, his shortcomings
were already well-known long ago. In fact, "both American
intelligence and Vietcong prisoners attributed the Vietcong’s
rapid success after 1959 to the Diem regime’s mistakes." He
was recognized by Washington as a "remote figure to most
Vietnamese" who is incapable of generating any widespread
support from the population. The Pentagon study reports that
"instead of redistributing land to the poor" Diem took back
"what the peasants had been given by the Vietminh and
returning it to the people." Due to this so-called land reform
program, "75 percent of the land was still owned by 15 percent
of the people." Not to mention the 50,000 to 100,000 people –
many of which were not Communists – and the brutal actions of
Diem’s Self-Defense Corps and Civil Guards.
- The Nationalist Nature of the Revolution -
In the official story, shortly after the realization that the
problems in South Vietnam was more complicated than originally
perceived, the U.S. government also realized the nationalist
nature – both in the North and South -- of the Communist
movement. According to McNamara, this is the epitome of the
ignorance he speaks of. This ignorance was present even until
the overthrow of the Diem regime. At his embarrassment,
McNamara attempted to promote General Khanh to his own people.
Since they "still did not recognize the North Vietnamese and
Vietcong struggle as nationalist in nature" they "never
realized that encouraging public identification between Khanh
and America may have only reinforced in the minds of many
Vietnamese the view that his government drew its support not
from the people but from the United States."
Scott Sigmund Gartner supports the assertion that the U.S. was
truly ignorant in dealing with the whole of Vietnam. He argues
that the "speed of the North Vietnamese conquest left little
doubt that the ARVN [Army of the Republic of Vietnam] and the
government of South Vietnam were weaker than had been
previously perceived." Furthermore, "manifestations of these
weaknesses, which challenged the earlier claims of
effectiveness, are evident in postwar evaluations of
Vietnamization."
As the Pentagon study states, the goal of the U.S. was
military victory because they could not compete politically
against the nationalist nature of the movement. In fact, as
the Pentagon study concludes, "the war began largely as a
rebellion in the South against the increasingly oppressive and
corrupt regime of Ngo Dinh Diem." Douglas Pike, a U.S.
government analyst, argued that the NLF "were organizers much
more than they were warriors" in that they were the only
movement with any real support and influence in the rural
areas. Therefore, the nationalist nature of the movement, the
weaknesses of the ARVN and the Diem regime has always been
evident, not just in hindsight.
- The Tonkin Gulf Incident -
Lastly, the Tonkin Gulf affair is regarded by McNamara as an
important event which ensured U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
War. President Johnson and McNamara "told the American public
there was an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on
American destroyers." In August 1964, Johnson and McNamara
invoked the Tonkin Gulf Resolution "to justify the
constitutionality of the military actions it took in Vietnam
from 1965 on." Based on McNamara’s account, the North
Vietnamese shell fragment that was fired at Maddox was brought
directly to him at his request. He contends that "At the time
of the incident, the Maddox lay in international waters, more
than twenty-five miles off the North Vietnamese coast."
While McNamara claims that the attacks on the U.S. destroyer
Maddox was unprovoked, it was later revealed that this event
was faked. As Howard Zinn argues, "the CIA had engaged in a
secret operation attacking North Vietnamese coastal
installations." In fact, as the Pentagon papers discloses, six
months before the incident "the United States had been
mounting clandestine military attacks against North Vietnam
while planning to obtain a Congressional resolution that the
Administration regarded as equivalent of a declaration of
war." As was later revealed, the Maddox "was on a special
electronic spying mission" on North Vietnam’s territorial
waters and, as McNamara later said, "no torpedoes were fired"
at it. As a result of the Tonkin Resolution, President Johnson
initiated hostilities against another country "without the
declaration of war by Congress that the Constitution
required."
|| REAL REASONS FOR THE VIETNAM WAR ||
Due to the fact that no possible explanation for U.S.
involvement in Vietnam is possible – fear of Communist, domino
theory, ignorance, and so forth – only economic reasons
provide a rational explanation to McNamara’s inanities. In the
1952 Policy Statement by U.S. on Goals in Southeast Asia it
mentions:
"Southeast Asia, especially Malaya and Indonesia, is the
principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a
producer of petroleum and other strategically important
commodities. The rice exports of Burma and Thailand are
critically important to Malaya, Ceylon and Hong Kong and are
of considerable significance to Japan and India … The loss of
Southeast Asia … could result in such economic and political
pressures in Japan as to make it extremely difficult to
prevent Japan’s eventual accommodation to communism."
The mention of Japan is a mere afterthought to the economic
importance of Southeast Asia to give a veil of good
intentions. U. Alexis Johnson, Kennedy’s Undersecretary of
State, explained to the Economic Club of Detroit in early 1963
that the "lush climate, fertile soil, rich natural resources,
a relatively sparse population … and room to expand" in
Southeast Asia are the primary reasons for attracting interest
from the great powers. At the very same time, President
Kennedy was speaking of Communism and freedom with the
American population.
|| CONSEQUENCES OF THE VIETNAM WAR ||
In addition to deaths of some seventy-five thousand during the
first Indochina war with the French, hundreds of thousands
more were added to the casualties after U.S. intervention.
According to Hanoi, "2 million civilians had been killed, the
overwhelming majority in the south, along with 1.1 million
North Vietnamese and southern resistance fighters" and over
300,000 were missing in action. The southern regime also
suffered 225,000 deaths in its army as well. These numbers do
not include the 58,000 killed and 2,000 missing in action’s
from the United States, "5,000 killed from Australia, New
Zealand, South Korea, Thailand" and so forth. Operation
Phoenix, a CIA program, "secretly, without trial, executed at
least twenty thousand civilians in South Vietnam who were
suspected of being members of the Communist underground."
Overall, over "7 million tons of bombs" was dropped on Vietnam
which was twice the amount "dropped on Europe and Asia in
World War II." Lastly, Cambodia and Laos also suffered from
the Vietnam War. According to a CIA estimate, 600,000 in
Cambodia were killed in addition to the tens – perhaps
hundreds -- of thousands killed in Laos "mainly by U.S.
attacks that were in large part unrelated to the war in
Vietnam" which Washington conceded to.
The legacy of the war continues to kill even until today.
According to a British Mines Advisory Group, a huge number of
anti-personnel fragmentation bombs "remain active and explode
when disturbed" in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The chemical
warfare that John F. Kennedy began to undertake also continues
to take its toll on the Vietnamese people and many U.S.
Vietnam veterans. Poisonous chemicals like Agent Orange were
dropped on "an area the size of the state of Massachusetts."
According to recent research, "A substantial leak of over 5000
gallons of Agent Orange occurred underground at the Bien Hoa
air base." According to this research, "Markedly elevated TCDD
levels were found during the 1970s in some Vietnamese nursing
mothers’ milk and also fish from areas heavily sprayed with
Agent Orange." Chemicals within Agent Orange "can cause an
increased risk of cancer, immune deficiencies, reproductive
and developmental changes, nervous system damage, liver
injury, elevated blood lipids, skin damage, and death." The
study concludes that, despite the fact that "the spraying
ended over 3 decades ago, in certain areas of Vietnam food is
clearly a present-day route of intake of dioxin from Agent
Orange, as it might have been since the spraying began in
1962."
|| CONCLUSION ||
U.S. involvement in Vietnam was not the result of fear of
Communism, the Domino Theory, ignorance, or any other
pointless reason that McNamara and many speak of. While it is
true that fear among the U.S. officials were present, it is
fear of a different kind. Instead, the fear he speaks of are
political and psychological in that free and independent
people in the world are taking control of their own lives – an
outrage according to U.S. doctrine. It is impossible to blame
ignorance because of poor intelligence and analysis because
the information was within government reach – especially
McNamara’s. It hard to fathom how the comedic value of his
book can be ignored amidst all the praises it continually
receives.
In the spirit of resistance,
Critical Mood
