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roachboy · 08-26-2004, 01:06 PM

vietnam--an immoral, unnecessary, disatrous colonial war fought under the pretext of the cold war but in fact for no good reason. notable problems include the fabrication of the tonkin gulf incident, the tonkin gulf act, which transferred an obcene level of power the the president, a campaign of domestic disinformation deisgned to prop up support for the ridiculous war, many many many civilian casualties, war crimes abounding but curiously never prosecuted...up through now, sounds like iraq, doesnt it? formally, i mean. with any luck, the present war will follow in the tradition of vietnam and bring down the president who prompted it (see "the fog of war" (for example) which gives a snapshot of johnson's role in accelerating the war, reversing the withdrawal course that kennedy had decided to take).

among the more thoroughly repellent factors in contemporary politics is the right's revisionist history of the war (a noble cause stabbed in the back by outside agitators, a recycling of the fascist revisionist story of world war 1). this revisionist history has much to do with such delights as the pool of press lackies "covering" the iraq war, increased censorship and the demonization of dissent as "anti-american". and more.

obviously, there are many many particularities of vietnam that do not map onto iraq, and i am aware of them (no need for a lecture on the matter)....like kissinger torpedoing a 1968 agreement with the north that could have ended the war, only to sign almost the same agreement in 1975 with massive additional casualties.

the war is a good lesson in the american attitude toward national sovereignty when applied to poorer nations as well: no hesitation to bomb laos, no hesitation to bomb then invade then destablise cambodia. no hesitation to blame other forces for pol pot coming to power as a function of that destabilization. no problem. they are just poor folk far away. this is the united states of america. we are nice people.

now the americans do it economically. the label is "globalization" the effects the total economic and social devastation of "third-world" countries in the name of "free trade," following "structural adjustment" policies implemented by the imf, world bank etc. but here too the victims are far away and rarely turn up on tv, so they do not matter.

of course when it comes to the states itself, sovereignty is an important category--central to the hyper-nationalism of such Important Intellectuals as george w bush and his cadre of mayberry machiavellians. it is typical of such Important Intellectuals, it seems, that they prefer the revisionist line on vietnam. maybe this is one reason why they seem to have so blindly repeated many of the formal errors that led the americans into it.

as for kerry's record: he seems to have acted with individual courage in a shitty situation. good--i do not know if i would have been able to do it--do you know if you would be able to?
what i respect is kerry's willingness to criticize the war, publicly, after the fact. it take more courage to oppose such a thing than it does to cheerlead. it take more courage to oppose than it does to hide in the national guard units for the wealthy (though you cant do that any more---pace ronald reagan--national guard and reserve units are deployed in combat areas, hi ho) or to accumulate deferrals in the cheney mode.

08-26-2004, 01:06 PM	#23 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	vietnam--an immoral, unnecessary, disatrous colonial war fought under the pretext of the cold war but in fact for no good reason. notable problems include the fabrication of the tonkin gulf incident, the tonkin gulf act, which transferred an obcene level of power the the president, a campaign of domestic disinformation deisgned to prop up support for the ridiculous war, many many many civilian casualties, war crimes abounding but curiously never prosecuted...up through now, sounds like iraq, doesnt it? formally, i mean. with any luck, the present war will follow in the tradition of vietnam and bring down the president who prompted it (see "the fog of war" (for example) which gives a snapshot of johnson's role in accelerating the war, reversing the withdrawal course that kennedy had decided to take). among the more thoroughly repellent factors in contemporary politics is the right's revisionist history of the war (a noble cause stabbed in the back by outside agitators, a recycling of the fascist revisionist story of world war 1). this revisionist history has much to do with such delights as the pool of press lackies "covering" the iraq war, increased censorship and the demonization of dissent as "anti-american". and more. obviously, there are many many particularities of vietnam that do not map onto iraq, and i am aware of them (no need for a lecture on the matter)....like kissinger torpedoing a 1968 agreement with the north that could have ended the war, only to sign almost the same agreement in 1975 with massive additional casualties. the war is a good lesson in the american attitude toward national sovereignty when applied to poorer nations as well: no hesitation to bomb laos, no hesitation to bomb then invade then destablise cambodia. no hesitation to blame other forces for pol pot coming to power as a function of that destabilization. no problem. they are just poor folk far away. this is the united states of america. we are nice people. now the americans do it economically. the label is "globalization" the effects the total economic and social devastation of "third-world" countries in the name of "free trade," following "structural adjustment" policies implemented by the imf, world bank etc. but here too the victims are far away and rarely turn up on tv, so they do not matter. of course when it comes to the states itself, sovereignty is an important category--central to the hyper-nationalism of such Important Intellectuals as george w bush and his cadre of mayberry machiavellians. it is typical of such Important Intellectuals, it seems, that they prefer the revisionist line on vietnam. maybe this is one reason why they seem to have so blindly repeated many of the formal errors that led the americans into it. as for kerry's record: he seems to have acted with individual courage in a shitty situation. good--i do not know if i would have been able to do it--do you know if you would be able to? what i respect is kerry's willingness to criticize the war, publicly, after the fact. it take more courage to oppose such a thing than it does to cheerlead. it take more courage to oppose than it does to hide in the national guard units for the wealthy (though you cant do that any more---pace ronald reagan--national guard and reserve units are deployed in combat areas, hi ho) or to accumulate deferrals in the cheney mode. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-26-2004 at 01:29 PM..