What did John Kerry say on April 22, 1971 that was false?

Lets be up front with this.  No one likes it when they are told that the reason they are fat is because they overeat.

The question regarding if that statement is true or false has nothing to do with it.  No one likes to be told something they don't want to hear.  And, if what they are told is false, well that's even worse.  You know, them's fight'n words!

The contention of the Swift Boat Vets for Truth is that:

"Vietnam veterans who had long resented his [John Kerry] false 1971 testimony that American troops routinely committed war crimes."

And....

"Kerry's [testimony presented a] false portrait of American veterans as misfits, drug addicts and baby killers."

When you quote something, you can lose the context, that's why I provide the source.  It is possible that I have misconstrued SBV's statements, but in this case, I don't think so.

I have found a consistency in the absolutists portrayal of the press, Walter Cronkite, Robert Kennedy, and now John Kerry.  To call something false means it is not true.  To call something dishonest, means it is purposely false.  To call something misleading means that the author added or left out required facts.

Did John Kerry testify that "American troops routinely committed war crimes?"  Here is what he said on April 22, 1971 that relates to this charge by the Swift Boat Vets for Truth:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out. 

So, yes, John Kerry accused some of his fellow vets of war crimes in 1971.  Was this a false statement?

According to an August 6, 2006 Los Angeles Times article "Civilian Killings Went Unpunished."

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.

The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.

Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.

Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," says Johns, 78.

Digging through the LA Times website I find this official government letterhead document:

http://latimes.image2.trb.com/lanews/media/acrobat/2006-08/24728196.pdf

Other places for information and records are:

• The War Behind Me
• Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files
• Stolen Honor producer Sherwood falsely claimed Winter Soldier investigation "utterly discredited"

So it looks like John Kerry's statement on April 22, 1971 is not "false" as the Swift Boat Vets for Truth and the author of "To Set The Record Straight" claim.  Surprise, surprise! as Gomer Pyle, USMC, used to say.

Did John Kerry portray "American veterans as misfits, drug addicts and baby killers." Here is what he said on April 22, 1971 that relates to this charge by the Swift Boat Vets for Truth:

Nothing....

It is possible that "baby killer" is implied by these statements John Kerry made:

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

"Baby killer" or killing of babies was not used in the speech.  Kerry does use the term "misfit" - but it is not directed at the veteran:

"And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.."

There were no comments, other than the acknowledgment of atrocities, implying that vets were "misfits" or "drug addicts."

The SBV's may not like the fact that John Kerry told us what the problems were in Vietnam.  Like he said:

"We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."

Argue all you want about whether he should have kept quiet.  Debate on the merits of pulling back the curtain and telling us what really goes on.   But if you are going to claim you are "for truth" you need to, you know, actually be "for truth."  And another thing....you know that statement "the truth will set you free?"  That's what Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran, meant when he said in the LA Times:

"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past,"

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Does opposing the war, wound those who are not opposed to it?

These last few posts have centered on the question of a right to question why I am being demanded to perform a certain act.  And in asking, If I disagree with that reason, do I have a right to refuse without being called a "coward" or "bastard", or "horrible?"

To accept unequivocally what someone else views as right, when it is not right, nor just, makes me what?

That question is difficult to answer when the acceptance is fundamentally offering your blood for something.  I am pretty sure that most people would think it reasonable question why they were being asked to do something with that as its ultimate cost.  And as the cost rose the questions of why would become more and more relevant to making a decision.  So why is questioning one's duty in a war off-limits or taboo?

Heck I know the primary answer to that.  War takes bodies.  Lots and lots of bodies.  More bodies than will come from those who see the effort as something they actually want to do.  You can't go to war without troops and you can't have the troops you require if some question the purpose and refuse to participate.  So it has always been framed as; do your duty for your country.

Vietnam, however, exposed an ugly side of America and that duty.  That is, what we were doing there had more to do with other, less noble reasons, than what we had been told we were spending blood and treasure for.

When I asked the question:

Does my duty include shedding my blood so that Richard Nixon would not be the first president to lose a war, a relevant reason to do so?  

It gets even harder to answer when you ask the question:

Does my duty to shed my blood for my country's honor make it a relevant reason to do so?  

Still harder is to ask the question:

Is it my duty to do whatever it takes to provide honor and dignity to those who have fought and died before me in this effort?

That last one is what I have come to now understand may be the reason why some - I call them absolutists - are still bothered by those who dared to question our effort and specifically towards those who worked towards ending the war without a definitive "win."

Here, once again, is what General Brady said in his commentary that started me down this journey and these many blog posts:

The American soldier was never defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam; our defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard.

Now let's look at what the Swift Boat Vets have to say about John Kerry's 1971 speech to congress:

Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid became the catalyst for an unprecedented political movement by Vietnam veterans who had long resented his false 1971 testimony that American troops routinely committed war crimes.

During the Vietnam War, the original television networks and the leading liberal newspapers were near the peak of their formidable persuasive powers, able to dominate public opinion to an extent difficult to imagine today. In an age without cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet, they were the only game in town. What these organizations chose to cover became news, and what they ignored did not. They used that power to instill Kerry's false portrait of American veterans as misfits, drug addicts and baby killers into the popular culture.

When John Kerry made his service in Vietnam the cornerstone of his presidential campaign during the 2004 election, the wounds he had inflicted on millions of Vietnam veterans were re-opened. Many could no longer be silent while a man who had repeated the propaganda of America's enemies rose to the position of Commander-in-Chief.

Now there was another ulterior motive to this, and that was to smear the guy some did not want for president.  But the criticism directed at him is nonetheless the same vitriol spewed out towards others who took the same tone.  And yes, I chose those words purposely because it pisses me off that some believe I have no right to question the cost in blood and treasure.

Here is what I take issue with:

In an age without cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet, they were the only game in town. What these organizations chose to cover became news, and what they ignored did not.

What that statement postulates is this:  Had they controlled the message, public opinion would have been different and the outcome would have been different as well.  Okay...I'll buy that as a possibility.  Now let me ask four questions:

1. Had the news of Tet and General Loan's execution of Nguyen Van Lem been reported by conservative reporters, would there have been a different story reported?
2. Would the way conservative outlets have reported that news changed public opinion?
3. If all the reporting was "liberal" and that reporting had "formidable persuasive powers" would replacing it with a "conservative" methodology generate the same "formidable persuasive powers" "to dominate public opinion?"
4. Had the media and message been controlled and dominated by conservative media, and public opinion come to the same conclusion, would Walter Cronkite, Robert Kennedy, and John Kerry still be seen as pariahs by the right?

Basically, does manipulation of public opinion meet with approval if the end result is to my liking?  To assume that one side manipulated public opinion presenting a "false" impression also requires one to assume that the other side would manipulate public opinion by presenting what it deems as the truth.  That is, once again, had we shown the film of General Loan shooting Nguyen Van Lem and told the viewers, as Rollins contends:

Rollins: Television's Vietnam - The visual language of  Television News

What would have changed if we had been told the statement that was more than likely designed to convey a context more forgiving of the General? (see blog post).

"Many Americans have been killed these last few days and many of my best Vietnamese friends.  Now do you understand?  Buddha will understand."

 After all, we had been told what the General had said the day before in most major newspapers:

"They killed many Americans and many of our people."

How would that have changed the picture and made it "more complex?"  Well I think I may understand why folks like Rollins and Culbert think so.  Look at this statement from Rollins:

"No one noted at the time - and few noted later - that, at that very moment General Loan was shooting a single ununiformed soldier, North Vietnamese soldiers were systematically executing 2800 South Vietnamese civilian government and public school teachers outside the city of Hue."

Now look at Culbert's paper:

Culbert: Television's Visual Impact on Decision Making in the US, 1968

Now look at General Brady's San Antonio Express News article:

"And it was unlikely that the civilians would rise up for a party that massacred 3,000 innocent men, women, children and religious in Hue; some who were buried alive and clubbed to death to save ammunition. Who saw that in our media?"

Here is what I see.  Had the "conservative" side of the story been reported, that is, had we been told about the atrocities of the other side we would have concluded that they paled in comparison to what General Loan did.

If they killed 3000 citizens and we killed 2000, would that context change how we should view what we did?

Look at the context the New York Times did to try and blunt the force of the Eddie Adams photo:

NY Times Feb 2, 1968

Context was there.  It's just that people are a bit smarter than the absolutists, Culbert & Rollins, and the Swift Boat Vets against John Kerry think we are.  Look at how Culbert sees the Loan Execution affecting those that share a different view for our continued involvement in the war:

Culbert: Television's Visual Impact on Decision Making in the US, 1968

Really?  Is that what was shown to us?  Was what we saw manipulated so that it "purported to show the actual practice of justice?"  Was it "misleading" or did it show factually what it was - an actual execution, that in General Loan's view was not just necessary but demanded?

"I respect the Vietcong in uniform.  They are fighting men like me.  People know when they are wounded I take care of them.  I see they get to to the hospital.  But when they are not in uniform, they are criminals and the rule of war is death." (Harper's April  1972 article "Portrait of an Aging Despot" page 72)

Which begs the question: why were people: "looking for a reason to change their views on a matter of policy?"

Maybe the context was there all the time.  Maybe what was said, what we were told to believe, what we held as sacred and honorable, was not taking place.  Maybe all the "elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard" did was show us what we suspected, but hoped wasn't the case.

Which begs one more question: what would the "cable news networks, conservative talk radio or the Internet" have done differently?

Was the press "misleading" on the General Loan shooting?  Would the conservative press present it differently. or, recognizing its potential impact, suppress it?  Is the public better served seeing flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in combat or should that be off limits?

Which brings me to the question posed in the title of this blog.  Did John Kerry inflict wounds on millions of vets because of what he said on April 22, 1971?  Culbert believes the General Loan footage and photograph were misleading.  General Brady contends that the media and and "professors from Berkeley to Harvard" were "dishonest."  The swift boat vets claim that what John Kerry said to Congress was a "false portrait of American veterans."

"Misleading", "dishonest", and "false".  Which taken together would seem to indicate that the truth has not been told.  I think I have presented enough information on what was actually said about General Loan and what the CIA and Jonson knew about the situation in Vietnam.  What I have not addressed is Swift Boat Vets for Truth's contention that John Kerry was a big fat liar on April 22, 1971.

Next post: What did John Kerry say on April 22, 1971 that was false?

Vacation over...again

Took a little bit of time off since my last post.  I'm going to finish up with a couple of drafts I started way back then.  The next two posts will be pending so as to keep things in a bit of an order.

Do I have a choice?

In my last post I asked:

And if I do have a duty, is that duty sacrosanct?  Do I have a say in how much effort should be put in for that honor?

What if honor was taken out of the question?  What if honor is only there because of the effort itself?  A gift with purchase kind of arrangement?  Start a war, honor comes forward.  Can't stop the war in any other way but to preserve honor.  The war must continue for the honor or end with honor.  Chicken or the egg...

So here is the real kicker, the one thing I can't seem to rectify or come to a nice clean feeling about.  I can't be objective about it, because it pisses me off.  But I know I am being objective about it.  There is no other way for me to look at it.  I must accept it for what it is or ignore it for what it shows.

Had the war and draft continued, here would have been my choices:

• Go, if my number was called.
• Get a college deferment, and allow someone else to go and fight in my place.
• Go to Canada, and let someone else go and fight in my place.
• Say "no" and go to jail, and let someone else go and fight in my place.
• Pretend something is wrong with me, and let someone else fight in my place.
• Enlist in one of the branches that has little chance of seeing combat, and let someone else go and fight in my place.

Those would have been my choices.  Only one - the first bullet - is fair.  All the others put my needs ahead of someone else who was not as smart or savvy or willing to choose another way.  It sucks to be you is not something I can live with.

This, by the way, does not condemn nor condone what anyone else did.  Regardless of which choice someone picked who actually had to choose, bullet number was to only fair choice to pick.  If x number of men were needed, those that did not show up when called were replace by someone else.  Fundamentally, there is no difference between dodging and joining the Texas Air National Guard.  Not going required someone else to go in your place.  A legal way to get one's self out of combat is no different than burning a draft card.  If 150,000 troops are needed, someone else would be in the 150K.  It sucks to be you.

That's the pisser in all of this.  Maybe that's what they want with a draft.  Can you live with the guilt if you don''t do your duty or you allow some other lesser educated or less connected sap to take your place?  Well...can you punk?

Which bring me back to my question?  If I do have a duty, is that duty sacrosanct?  Do I have a say in how much effort I should put in to fulfill my duty and/or expunge my guilt?

At some point the ones who are drafted must have the ability to say: stop!  They are the ones that not only shed their blood, limbs, and sanity, but are also the ones put in a situation where the choice is not simple duty and honor, but one of fairness.

There was no choice for those drafted who began to understand that the Vietnam war was not a war we should be fighting.  For me, as I look at it now, to do anything other than go would bring about a profound sense of guilt, especially when I would come to realize that I had passed the buck onto someone else.  It sucks to be them, like I said, does not work for me.

So yeah, I think I have a right to question my country's motives.  I think I have a right to go against her wishes for my blood.  Even if I am wrong regarding the 'worthiness' of the war, I have that right to do so - since I will be the one asked to be the blood and treasure required to do her bidding.

And therein lies the problem.  Had I concluded that the war should stop, it would have been counter to those in charge who said it should continue.  To stop it, I must not participate and must get others to not participate as well.  I must now actively be involved in sedition.  Hell no I won't go requires many others to get the damn thing to stop.

But hell no I won't go places me at odds with those, like my father, who think duty is what matters.  It puts me at odds with those who think America's honor is at stake.  It puts me at odds with my government's requirement of me as one of its citizens.  And worst of all, it places the burden on another young man who simply does what their country has asked them to do.

So the path of least resistance would have been to take my chances with the draft.  That would have been the most fair way to go about it.  To accept it, do it, and hope for the best.  To be a sheep, so to speak.  Go where they tell me, do what they tell me.  No questions asked, simply do what you have been asked to do.

As I look at it now, it kind of pisses me off.  Mainly because I would not have seen it back then.  I would have been a sheep because that's what they want and need their citizens to be.  It's not that I don't want to die in war - hell, I don't want to die period.  It's the inability to have a say in whether I should, or should not participate.  That's the pisser.  There is no choice at the time but to fulfill their request for blood and treasure until someone in power stops it.  They knew in 1967 that it was not working.  They ended it 1973.

But even to this day, 38 years later, stopping it has never set right with the absolutists who never got their peace with honor or a check mark in the 'win" column.  They didn't lose the war for us.  It was those that questioned why we were there and if we should continue.  And in asking that question, they conclude, our will to win was diminished.

So if I don't have a choice, is it appropriate to ask: what exactly should doing my duty demand from me when it is demanded of me?


Next Post: Does opposing the war wound those who are not opposed to it?


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My Country Right or Wrong

Antipathetic: Opposed in nature or character; antagonistic.

I have been struggling to understand how I should feel about the Vietnam war.  As you can see by the number of posts on the topic of Eddie Adams, General Loan, and Tet,  I find this topic interesting.  But there is something else driving it, and it's only been in this last week that I am coming to terms with it.

I have been reading Michael Sandel's book: Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? and was fascinated by his chapter on John Rawl's "veil of ignorance" theory on how to come up with a fair and impartial point of view.

The veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. (1)

To be objective, which is what I strive for, I need to put aside the fact that it could have been me over there.  The fact that it wasn't does not remove that fact.  And with that fact, I know that how I feel about the war is not objective, even if my conclusion is valid.

I have gone back in time.  I am back at my childhood home, eating dinner with my family.  I am driving from Garden Grove California to Carpinteria Beach near Santa Barbara with my family.  I am young - but old enough to understand.

I don't recall ever getting into a discussion with my folks regarding the war.  We must have talked about it, we talked a lot during dinners.  My folks, especially my father, share very black and white views of the world.  I remember their disgust for hippies, and one of our relatives who dodged the draft, if I recall.  I don't recall anything else except my dad stating a number of times that the reason you do your duty is because your country asked you to.  Your country right or wrong he would say.

Now that I am older, I understand a bit better why my dad and others feel that this premise is the guiding reason you do your duty.  It's not your place to question when called on.  He did it in Korea, his father did it in World War I, my mom's uncles did it.  And if the time came for me in Vietnam, the expectation would be that I would do my duty too.

My dad never saw combat, something he regrets, especially when he is with his friends who were called over before the Korean war ended.  Maybe had he seen combat he would have had a different opinion.  Most likely not.  My great uncle Joe lost an arm in D-day.  He never spoke about the war and forbid my aunt, who came form Nazi occupied Germany, to speak about the war as well.  I am sure if I had talked to him about Vietnam he might have told me something. Most likely not.

Had the war not ended in 1973 and continued on, when I turned 18, I would have been of draft age.  And that's the angst I feel right now when I ask my 54 year old self, what would you do now, without your 18 year old veil of ignorance on? (yes, I know that's not what that term means).  Hindsight is 20/20.  So let me put a figurative veil of ignorance back on and try to look at it objectively.

The problem with the premise of "my country right or wrong" is that it assumes that the "wrong" is an honest mistake or miscalculation.  It does not assume manipulation by people to further their own gains and egos.

I am faced with this knowledge of what it was, as I struggle to form my opinion:  Should my duty to my country be based on a real need or the need expressed by those who hold power and sway over me?  Did Richard Nixon prolong the war because he did not want to be "the first President to lose a war?" (2)  Was the desire for "peace with honor" a reason to continue throwing more blood and treasure at it till that objective was achieved? (3)

Did I owe it to Nixon, or any other president, to shed my blood?  Was our honor worth giving up my life?  Was this what my dad wanted for me?  No, I don't think so.  What he, and so many others wanted, was for me to concentrate on the duty part.  The reason you went was irrelevant when your country called you.  That's what young men did.  My country, right or wrong!

But that's a romantic notion of war and duty.  It assumes nobility, purpose, rationality.  Vietnam, as we know now, and started to figure out as it became more and more a cluster, was not a traditional war.  And this is where the dynamics in play become antipathetic.

• If I am to perform my duty for my country, shouldn't my effort be for a worthy and rational cause?
• And if it turns out that the premise for the cause was miscalculated, should that miscalculation be rectified?
• And if rectifying it, we choose to end it, does that make the effort up to that point a waste?
• Does my country's need for honor require of me the same effort as for her defense?

Where it became antipathetic was the requirement to rectify it was pitted against the honor of those who had fought, died, and suffered.  Should it be called a mistake, as John Kerry did: in 1971?

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doen'st have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say they we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations... (4)

It can only become antipathetic because guys like General Brady honestly and truly need to believe::

The American soldier was never defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam; our defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard. (5)

General Brady has no choice but to voice his displeasure of having his honor taken from him.  Honor that is important to him and others.  Honor worth dying for.  Honor worth perusing, regardless the cost.  To call the war a mistake, makes the nullifies the effort.  There is no honor in a lost cause, in a mistake.  "We were never defeated" General Brady states, but those bastards that looked behind the curtain took from him something he was willing to die for: his country right, or wrong.  Duty...honor.

And now it becomes personal once again.  Do I have a duty to my country to give my life for something that is no longer rational?  Do I have a duty to others who have fulfilled their duty, regardless of that rational?  Do I have a duty to uphold the honor of those who did fight?  Do I have a duty to them?

And if I do have a duty, is that duty sacrosanct?  Do I have a say in how much effort should be put in for that honor?  Does honor and duty trump the reality in play?  What if the needs of those who hold power and sway or nothing more than a want?  What if it is ego, pride, profit, or promotion dictating what my country wants from me?

Can I question it?  Can I disagree without being called cowardly, horrible, or bastards?  Can I admit it was a mistake without taking honor from those who fought and those who need purpose attached to their effort?

I think I can.  I think it can be done without it being antipathetic with the views of General Brady.  For this to be done, however, requires us to lose the romantic notion of war, and to see duty as just that; duty.  I am called and I answer.  And if it turns out you mislead me, manipulated me, or made a terrible miscalculation, my duty is no less noble than anyone else s effort.  And that duty goes above and beyond the battle field.  We have a duty to point out the mistakes of this country when it has the power to call on its sons and daughters to give up their life for it.

My country right or wrong?  No...I don't think it's that simplistic.

There but for the grace of God go I....

Come on mothers throughout the land,

Pack your boys off to Vietnam.

Come on fathers, and don't hesitate

To send your sons off before it's too late.

And you can be the first ones in your block

To have your boy come home in a box. 

Country Joe And The Fish, wrote that and made the Vietnam Song famous during Woodstock.  Gimme and "F"...Gimme a "U"...

I thought about that song when I started writing these posts on if our effort was worth the cost.  Was the condemnation of  Kitt, Cronkite, Kennedy, King, the hippies justified?  Were they the one's who "lost" the war for us, or, like I believe now, the war was never ours to win since South Vietnam had nothing to offer its people other than being not-communists, which for a peasant, means very little.

I want to go back to Carl von Clausewitz understanding of war:

[T]he use of power involves two factors. The first is the strength of available means, which may be measured somewhat by numbers (although not entirely). The second factor is the strength of the will which can not be specifically measured (only estimated) as it is intangible.  Once a state has gained an approximation of the enemy's strength of resistance it can review its own means and adjust them upwards accordingly in an effort to gain the advantage. As the enemy will also be doing this, it too becomes reciprocal. [third reciprocal action] (1)

We had the strength, no doubt about that.  But in Vietnam, it really did not matter how strong our military was, without the other factor needed to meet our objectives - a stable south Vietnam government - all our military could do is keep the bad guys at bay, which Tet showed in 1968, was not going to be easy.

Now that we knew, and by "we" I mean the people of the US, Carl von Clausewitz's second factor kicks in:

The second factor is the strength of the will which can not be specifically measured (only estimated) as it is intangible.  Once a state has gained an approximation of the enemy's strength of resistance it can review its own means and adjust them upwards accordingly in an effort to gain the advantage.

Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy saw what it was going to take, and understood how difficult, or most likely saw it as impossible, for the United States to "win" this conflict.  Which is why Robert Kennedy said in his February 1968 speech:

For years we have been told that the measure of our success and progress in Vietnam was
increasing security and control for the population. Now we have seen that none of the population
is secure and no area is under sure control.

Four years ago when we only had about 30,000 troops in Vietnam, the Vietcong were unable to mount the assaults on cities they have now conducted against our enormous forces. At one time a suggestion that we protect enclaves was derided. Now there are no protected enclaves. 

This has not happened because our men are not brave or effective, because they are. It is because we have misconceived the nature of the war: It is because we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people. It is like sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot. (2)

I think that was a reasonable and fair analogy.  It is also an accurate understanding of what was happening in Vietnam.  So if we can't "win" with our military alone, how much "means" should we put into it as we "adjust upwards accordingly?"

This is where it hits close to home for me.  I could have been the "means" had we continued.  Without fully understanding my reasoning for taking exception to General Patrick Brady's San Antonio Express News article, I understood when I read it that he was incorrect in his premise:

[O]ur defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard.

General Brady is an absolutist (in addition to being delusional).  Had we pressed on; "Unbelievably, there was no military follow-up." would that have changed anything?  I can't say, but neither can he.  But the fact still remains that we could not achieve our objectives with the military alone.  Unless you don't want to believe the CIA's analysis in May, 1968:

"The situation thereafter will largely depend, as it has in the past, on the question of the will to persist of either side rather than on the attainment of an overwhelming military victory."

General Brady, as an absolutist, thinks the lion can cure jungle rot.  Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy, as realists, understand that the lion cannot.

General Brady is one of "those who said that we could win and must" and Cronkite, Kennedy, Kitt, and "the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard (3)" are "those who said that even if we could win we should not and that the military considerations were a complete obfuscation of the basic issues." (4 page 2)

General Brady is free to express his reasons as to why he thinks we could win and should have continued on, something he has not done other than denigrate those who share the other view and make up stories in an effort to right a wrong that is there but not there to the degree he thinks it is.  How he feels about what took place is uniquely his own, and. like for me, his objectivity can be compromised by factors that fall close to home.

Without a crystal ball there is no way to determine what course taken - or not taken - would have resulted in a better outcome.  What we do know for sure is that the enemy had the capability of making us work for that victory.  That's where Carl von Clausewitz's "it can review its own means and adjust them upwards accordingly in an effort to gain the advantage" comes in.  Evaluate and re-evaluate.  Left to General Brady, Kid Rock, Hawks, and absolutists, the means is "whatever it takes."

In 1968 I was 11 years old.  When I was 12, Country Joe was telling me what could await me.  When I was 16, Richard Nixon finally put an end to "whatever it takes."

There but for the grace of God go I.


Next Post: My Country Right or Wrong

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In case you don't understand the lingo, that's marijuana."

Continuing on with the theme of two sides to a coin.....

A colleague of David Culbert wrote this to him in July 1978, regarding an essay he wrote on the Adam's photo as well as a proposal for a grant he and Peter Rollins were submitting for the film they were working on.

You seem to be deliberately ignoring the ways in which government press releases, especially the releases from the  Saigon  government, but from  Washington as well, were propagandistic in their insistence upon the corner being imminently turned, the tunnel-end being imminently reached, the democracy of southeast Asia being imminently saved  (as though it had ever existed in the first place).

In short, the government was doing what you and Peter [Rollins]  seem to be doing: acting as though the military truth were the determining context, and, Dave, I swear that readers  and  viewers will remember that the context was one in which the traumatic divisions that tore the country apart was not one in which there was a division between those who thought we were winning and could win on the one hand and  those who thought we weren' t winning and couldn't win on the other, but between those who said that we could win and must and those who said that even if we could win we should not and that the military considerations were a complete obfuscation of the basic issues.  

What I like about this paragraph is the author's contention that the division in the country over the Vietnam war was between "those who said that we could win and must and those who said that even if we could win we should not."

What happens, as far as I can see, is that this Highlander - there can be only one - reality pits one against the other.  How do we handle a situation like that?  How about democratically, you know, put it to a vote?  We don't vote on war.  Our elected officials - who we did voted for - decide, and they decided that blood and treasure should be spent trying to meet our objectives in Vietnam. And, as was pointed out:

"[i]f we stick to it long enough - and this is not a short term proposition - [we were] confident that we shall have reasonable success in achieving our objectives."

See that word "reasonable" in that sentence?  Lets look at how that's defined:

"Having modest or moderate expectations; not making unfair demands"

In other words, based on what we set out to do, and what we knew about the enemy (see post), sticking with it should bring about the success of those objectives.

And then came Tet, the Eddie Adam's photo, and a reevaluation of the cost associated with achieving that reasonable success.  You know that saying "freedom isn't free?"  Well that's a tacit way of telling you it is going to cost blood and treasure.

Did "Uncle Walt" and the use of the Eddie Adam's change the hearts and minds of Americans to go against the war, or was it simply more a realization by more and more people that "even if we could win we should not?"

Here is what George Bailey told Rollins in an interview for the film (Lichty also talks about Walter Cronkite's impact) :

Rollins interview with Prof Lawrence Lichty and George Bailey

This assessment on the cost - and to whom it is applied to - had been going on way before Tet.  Case in point was a confrontation between the actress Eartha Kitt and Lady Bird Johnson (from: Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson By Jan Jarboe Russell):

Before Tet we weren't quite ready to hear about what the cost of the war was doing to those who were the "blood" part of the blood and treasure commitment to achieve our objectives, and Eartha Kitt paid the price - a la the Dixie Chicks - for being "ill-mannered negro."

I guess what I am struggling with in all of this is how should I feel about it now, compared with how I felt about it before I started doing my research on this?  It's not as easy as it should be because I am also troubled by my ignorance as a teenager heading into draft age who really was clueless about what it was all about.  That's where this is heading for me now.  I was, back in 1973, while the war was still going on, sixteen.  Had it continued I would have been that "blood" my fellow Americans were willing to spend to meet our objectives.

It hits close to home now, and that makes my objectivity towards the war, Tet, General Loan, and the absolutists tainted.

Should my near-miss play into how I see the war? Should it dictate how I feel about our effort, my government, my military, and General Loan?

It can't help but not affect my view of the war, which is exactly the same situation General Loan was put in on February 1st, 1968 when Nguyen Van Lem was brought to him with hands tied behind his back and wearing civilian clothes.

How one sees a situation is uniquely their own.  How dare we punish Eartha Kitt for voicing how she saw the conflict in Vietnam.  How dare we criticize Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy for speaking what they saw as the truth. How dare we degrade the men and woman who willingly and unwillingly offered their blood to give us "reasonable success in achieving our objectives."  And how dare we condemn General Loan for this one particular act - committed during a war, during an invasion - elevating ii up to a classification of "moral turpitude."

Condemnation is deserved for those who ignore the cost and reality that comes in to play when you go to war.

As Charles Heston said in Plant of the Apes: Damn them!  Damn them to hell!

Next Post: There but for the grace of God go I....
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