The Vietnam Debate

I think I (and others) have actually been too easy on Bush's unhinged analogies speech yesterday. He'd like us to believe, I guess, that the crux of the debate about the Vietnam War was that hawks warned that after the war America's collaborators in South Vietnam would suffer, whereas doves naively said the Viet Cong were going to offer flowers and sweets.

Back in the real world, though, the essence of the matter was that hawks were warning that the survival of political democracy around the world quite literally depended on South Vietnam staying in non-Communist hands. A Communist victory in Vietnam was said to be destined to lead to the rest of Indochina going Communist, from which the Reds -- emboldened -- were going to march into Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Our allies in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would prove incapable of resisting the onrushing tide. With Communism triumphant in Asian, Western Europe would turn to Finlandization to stave off direct Soviet domination, and next thing you know the New World would be crushed beneath the vast economic might of the Old.

It sounds crazy, yes, and the reason it sounds crazy is that it was crazy and when we eventually left Vietnam it turned out that while hawks and doves alike all made some bad forecasts, the hawkish point of view on the big strategic question was completely wrong whereas the dovish view was completely correct. The application to Iraq should be clear enough, but in case it isn't here's Justin Logan's argument from February that the extent to which simply giving up in Iraq would damage our "vital interests" is vastly overstated.

Comments

whereas the dovish view was completely correct.

Correct. Incorrect.

The question is which is to be master. That's all.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 23, 2007 9:12 AM

argu ment
depar ture
vic tory

Is Yglesias now a copy editor at Cato? Or is it just that if cato says anything that isn't batshit insane they've got to make up the stupidity deficit in proofreading?

Posted by MikeJ | August 23, 2007 9:16 AM

In addition, Bush is blaming the horrors in Cambodia, as well as the large number of Vietnamese casualties, on the fact that the US pulled out. This is the most blatant and obnoxious case of up-is-downism I've yet seen by these people.

Posted by Jim W | August 23, 2007 9:19 AM

Jim W., I think Matthew is mostly correct in this post, in that the domino theory people were wrong, and Bush probably is too. It's not exactly harsh criticism to say someone can't accurately predict the future, although that is one reason why politicians are so obnoxious when they try to do so in an unqualified fashion.

However, regarding Cambodia especially, I think Matthew is a little too easy on the (to use a term I dislike) doves. Yes, Nixon and Kissinger made things much worse in regards to Cambodia, but still, for the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate to stand in the well of the Senate, in 1975 and proclaim that if the Lon Nol government were to fall, what would most likely succeed it would be the among the best and most progressive elements of Cambodian society, and thus warnings of a coming bloodbath were hysterical, was remarkably stupid, every bit as much as anything George W. Bush has ever said. I've always assumed that McGovern simply was too dim to grasp the nature of the Khmer Rouge, but I've recently had Democrats attempt to defend McGovern by saying that he meant that it would not be the Khmer Rouge, but some form of Sihanouk-led government that would take power. It does not occur to such Democrats that this assertion portrays McGovern as even more of a dolt.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 9:37 AM

If memory serves correctly, McGovern called for the US to intervene in Cambodia sometime in the late 1970s, after the Khmer Rouge had begun their genocidal policy. Of course, there was absolutely no chance of this happening at that point in history.

This is not to deny that he may have been stupid about the nature of the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

Posted by Jim W | August 23, 2007 9:45 AM

As a side note, one thing that studying athletic performance through advanced statistical means drives home is how much of human performance evaluation generally is done with such tiny sample sizes that nearly nothing we attribute to wisdom or incompetence can't be better explained by pure random chance. I thus will adopt more humility, and retract my insults tossed in Senator McGovern's direction. We don't know nearly as much as we presume.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 9:47 AM

Iraq is not Viet Nam. 2007 is not 1973.

Posted by James Gary | August 23, 2007 9:47 AM

Whatever McGovern may or may not have said, I knew few of my fellow Vietnam war protestors (except the late comers whose analysis was basically Hell no we won't go) was naive about General Giap and his boys. The thrust was always more that our presence (and sometimes our policies) were destroying any sort of centrist alternative and backing a series of losers (General Ky actually turned out to be among the best) which process would lead to disaster. It's probably fair to say of VietNam (not Cambodia, of course) that the postwar period produced less recrimination than might have been expected.

And of course the other point, completely valid, was that Westmoreland was a terrible general, and the civilian planners in the Pentagon were incompetent, or at best fighting the wrong war. It's interesting, but not really relevant, to ask what might have happened had the apparently far more capable General Abrams been in charge in 1965.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | August 23, 2007 9:49 AM

It's well worth noting that things didn't turn out so bad for Finland in the end (and not such a long term) either. It's hard to see that they would have been better off by taking a more aggressive line to the Soviet Union.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | August 23, 2007 9:49 AM

Will-

The events of the genocide were set in motion by the US-engineered revolution just a few years prior. There's blame to go around, but misrecognizing the effects of destabilizing Cambodia falls several orders of magnitude short of actually destabilizing Cambodia in terms of blame assignment.

Posted by DivGuy | August 23, 2007 9:50 AM

Oh no, Jim, I've never attributed malice to McGovern. He admitted he was wrong, which is a lot more than what most of our policymakers, or people like Noam Chomsky, to pick one especially noxious member of the chattering class who has a history pertaining to Cambodia, has done.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 9:51 AM

Yes, and thank God that Indonesia and the Philipenes (and others) never went commie on us anyway and remained awesome, benevelent democracies.

Posted by ed | August 23, 2007 9:52 AM

Actually, I think Matt is still too kind when he implies that stay-in-Iraq-ism is only as stupid as stay-in-Vietnam-ism--at least where supposed consequences are concerned.

However people might have blown things out of proportion in the mid-late 20th Century, I don't think anyone would argue that the Cold War was serious business, on a world-historical scale. It was pretty stupid to suggest that the emergence of one or two communist states in Indochina was going to shake the world, but at least there was something out there at the time (global communism--though then as now, the problem wasn't monolithic) which could. One could kinda-sorta be forgiven for perceiving existential threats to the free world in the Cold War environment.

There's simply no comparison between that state of affairs and this one. Only the truly unhinged believe this nonsense about a handful of paramilitary criminals (occasionally aided and abetted by a couple Third World despots) establishing a global caliphate and imposing Sharia Law. The very idea makes General Jack D. Ripper seem like a reasonable guy.

Posted by Jake H. | August 23, 2007 9:54 AM

Will Allen

Cambodia was doing just fine when Nixon and Kissinger came onto the scene. They ignored US and International Law and invaded, bombed and destabilized the government. Whether McGovern was or was not "dim", its clear that you're not the brightest light in the room.

Posted by JustMe | August 23, 2007 10:04 AM

Will Allen,

Where is your precise source for the supposed McGovern comment about Cambodia? I have never read any comment of the sort.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:05 AM

Yes, DivGuy, which is why I stated that Nixon and Kissinger made things much worse in Cambodia. That still doesn't mitigate not recognizing what the nature of the Khmar Rouge was in 1975, or that it would be the Khmer Rouge that would take power.

If somebody had said, "Yep, a huge percenatge of the Cambodian population is gonna be murdered, but we still aren't going materially support anybody in the region anymore.", at least it would have been more accurate or honest. I guess what has always galled me was that by 1975 the U.S. really didn't have much skin in the game anymore, in terms of risking American lives, and what was mostly being talked about was money. Yes, money is damned important, but compared to attempting to stave off a tremendous genocide, not so much.

I agree, Gene, Abrams in command by 1964 or 1965 is an interesting counterfactual, as counterfactuals go. I can't say much for the decision to quietly accede to Diem's assasination, either.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 10:05 AM

Will Allen,

If you are going to make such claims about perspective policy on Cambodia then show the precise reference? I have read much on Cambodia and found nothing of what you are claiming.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:08 AM

Jennifer, it is in the Congressional Record, which doesn't records going back that far on-line. Here is the best reproduction I could find on-line...

``The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia,'' declared Senator George McGovern, ``seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of the existing government in Phnom Penh would actually mean. . . . We should be able to see that the kind of government which would succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a government . . . run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in Cambodia.''

....I guess he was off by just a little.....

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 10:12 AM

Oh, please we're not going into that chestnut about Lon Nol being the whole source of the Cambodian problem. If anything, Prince Sihanouk
"that happy sax playing prince" as Spaulding Gray referred to him; was really at fault. He gave sanctuary to the North Vietnamese Army forces; which ultimately prompted the interdiction bombings on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Then came the
coup by Lon Nol; aided by the Khmer Serai (the people Kerry said he was supplying arms to in the
winter of '68) while he was out of the country in France.Then came the invasion, to do what should have been done years before; which the media blew
out all proportion as it never does today; with the greater paroxysm ending in Kent State. Then
the Cooper/Church Amendments; prompted in part by Seymour Hersh's dispatches. Meanwhile, thanks to the 'brilliant' Nixon rapprochement with China;
we were now partner to the umbrella govt that Sihanouk provided for the Khmer Rouge. Whose year
Zero antics (which Noam Chomsky did a great deal to deny and dispel)occurred unlike the prognosis
that Sidney Schamberg gave in the Spring of '75.
Years later after the Vietnamese invasion; they
put Prince Sihanouk back on the thrown with Hung Sen the puppet prime minister. This has to be the
most blinkered royal since thaT Afghan prince who presided over the pandora's box culminating in the
Soviet invasion. So Scamberg was wrong; Richard Falk was wrong about the Shah; Matthews was wrong about Fidel; Duranty about Stalin.

Posted by narciso | August 23, 2007 10:12 AM

JustMe, learn to read a thread before being a wiseass, won't you? Few things are as silly as illiterate ad hominem invective.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 10:16 AM

Jennifer, I must say that if you've read a lot regarding Cambodia, and gave never come across McGovern's rhetoric in 1975, it is quite remarkable.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 10:19 AM

Will Allen,

The ... quote ... is completely meaningless. Where is the precise reference rather than just the calumny? Where is your precise source? Where is the date and complete quote? Otherwise, there is no reason to believe the quote has any meaning such as you ascribe.

Where is the reference?

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:24 AM

Will Allen

He's "dim" and I'm a "wiseass". Like I said, you're not exactly a bright light.

Posted by JustMe | August 23, 2007 10:26 AM

Will Allen,

The more your protest, the more I think you are simply faking and smearing. Where is your precise source? I will take this all as a simply a typical McCarthy-like smear until I see the precise source.

Where is your precise source? Show us the source. The complete quote and date. No ... ... ... .

Where is the precise Will Allen source?

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:29 AM

Sihanouk was an opportunist, but his course in the early seventies was still right: Neutrality at almost all costs.
The support for Lon Nol was wrong, it did destroy Cambodia without really helping the american fight in Vietnam.
And people who really believe that Congress deciding to spend 500 Million instead of 750 million dollars changed anything significant are obviously wrong.

Posted by IM | August 23, 2007 10:29 AM

Will Allen,

Why is it that Yale's Cambodia scholar Ben Kiernan never mentions such a supposed quote from George McGovern?

Where is the precise reference? I think you are faking and have never read the full text and have no idea where it may be. I think you are faking. Prove me wrong.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:33 AM

Will Allen,

The longer I wait, the more I think you are a liar, just to be clear. Where is the precise quote. What is the date and complete quote? I think you are a liar.

Where is the precise complete, dated reference? I think you are a liar.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:36 AM

Sihanouk was forced to play both sides between the North Vietnamese and the U.S. because he knew both could destroy his country. It was an impossible choice. What was his alternative to "granting" sanctuary to the North Vietnamese? They would have taken it anyway. The U.S. response which followed was critical in leading to the disastrous ascent of the Khmer Rouge. If we hadn't been there fighting a stupid war in the first place, none of this would have happened.

Also, to Jake H., I think that Vietnam was at least as dumb, perhaps dumber, than the current situation in Iraq. Underlying everything in Iraq is the strategic significance of Persian Gulf oil. Vietnam had no such strategic significance.

Posted by mq | August 23, 2007 10:39 AM

Will Allen,

Where is the precise reference to your accusing smearing quote? Show us the entire quote with date and exact source, or we will know you are lying.

Where is the source?

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:40 AM

Jennifer, just give it a rest already. You're becoming really annoying.

Posted by mq | August 23, 2007 10:42 AM

Mr. Allen,

McGovern said this in a senate debate? When in 1975? If you can give us a month or at least a season, perhaps somebody can look it up. (Because context is important)

Posted by IM | August 23, 2007 10:44 AM

Will Allen,

Where is the precise original reference? Are you lying?

Among other things, America dropped more tonnage of bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War than all the tonnage of bombs dropped in the World War including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print/history-bombs-over-cambodia/

February 25, 2007

Bombs Over Cambodia: New information reveals that Cambodia was bombed far more heavily than previously believed.
By Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:47 AM

Jennifer,

I really think we get your point now. And saying someone isn't answering after half an hour is a bit overdemanding.

Posted by IM | August 23, 2007 10:49 AM

When there is a statement made that is highly insulting to a person, then there needs to be a show that the statement is other than a lie. I am prepared to believe that statement, but in the absence of a precise reference dated an quoted in full, I have to assume the only purpose was a political smear.

Will Allen,

Where is the precise reference? I am tired of constant political smears. I am tired of lying.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:53 AM

jennifer, i've had many a disagreement with will allen over the years, but he's not a liar or a fantasist.

as for the essence of matthew's remarks, "unhinged" only begins to hint at the derangement of bush's remarks: he lives in a complete fantasy world. and because of a number of factors (misplaced respect for the office of the presidency, stupid reporters who dont know history, the substitution by many americans of movie knowledge for historic knowledge), his remarks are treated with some degree of seriousness rather than the withering contempt they deserve.

happily, bush has been failing to rally support for any cause for years now; this speech ain't gonna change that.

Posted by howard | August 23, 2007 10:54 AM

IM, the best I can tell you, from memory, is 1975, in the debates leading up to the vote which resulted in cutting off aid to the Lon Nol government, and the complete quote should be found in the Congressional Record.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 10:57 AM

Will Allen,

What I am saying is that you know nothing of the supposed quote and were simply faking for your political ends. Why should we let such a statement go with no challenge? This is the way Swift Boaters tried to destroy John Kerry.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:58 AM

The remarks were deranged, and further evidence that Bush is great at PR soundbites and appalling at strategy and foreign policy. The guy is dramatically wrong about everything of consequence, but he is great at delivering platitudes that have no connection to objective reality. Look at this:

March 6, 2003:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20030306- 8.html

"Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi, and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in the 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in order to disarm, it would mean regime change. I'm confident we'll be able to achieve that objective, in a way that minimizes the loss of life. No doubt there's risks in any military operation; I know that. But it's very clear what we intend to do. And our mission won't change. Our mission is precisely what I just stated. We have got a plan that will achieve that mission, should we need to send forces in."

And even earlier, in 2002 before he was openly banging the drums on Iraq:

March, 2002:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20020313- 8.html

Q I wanted to ask about the second phase of the [War on Terror]. As a member of the Vietnam generation, do you worry as you send these military advisors all over the world, typically to chaotic places, that they may get involved in direct conflict and the situation could escalate? And are you prepared to do that?

THE PRESIDENT: Interesting question. Hutch, let me tell you something, I believe this war is more akin to World War II than it is to Vietnam. This is a war in which we fight for the liberties and freedom of our country.

Secondly, I understand there's going to be loss of life...It breaks my heart....

And, Hutch, the idea of denying sanctuary is vital to protect America. And we're going to be, obviously, judicious and wise about how we deploy troops. I learned some good lessons from Vietnam. First, there must be a clear mission. Secondly, the politics ought to stay out of fighting a war. There was too much politics during the Vietnam War. There was too much concern in the White House about political standing. And I've got great confidence in General Tommy Franks, and great confidence in how this war is being conducted. And I rely on Tommy, just like the Secretary of Defense relies upon Tommy and his judgment -- whether or not we ought to deploy and how we ought to deploy.

Tommy knows the lessons of Vietnam just as well as I do. Both of us -- he was a, he graduated from high school in '63, and you and I graduated in '64. We're of the same vintage. We paid attention to what was going on.

(pls note that this is the very same press conference where he said about Osama bin Laden "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you...again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.")

Posted by anonymous | August 23, 2007 11:07 AM

Jennifer, the more hysterical you get, the more I'm convinced McGovern did say it. Are you sitting in front of the computer hitting 'refresh'? Calm down, please. The problem with the neocons (well, one among many) is they refuse to recognize the mistakes of the past. There's a lot of wrongheadedness in policy toward Cambodia-- though I can't say anything has utterly infuriated me as much as Bush's words did last night. I was sputtering and incoherent for a bit-- and it takes a lot to get me to that state. (The next step, of course, was yelling at the TV about Pol Pot's UN seat.)

Posted by Persia | August 23, 2007 11:08 AM

Well, thanks to a tool called Google, I searched for the opening phrase of Will Allen's quote: "hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia." I got exactly three hits: an op-ed by Jeff Jacoby, an unattributed quote on some blog, and a blog comment left by Mr. Allen himself. Each instance of the quote contains the exact same ellipses and editing, so it's not clear if any of these people actually worked from the original source. I agree that the lack of a context is highly suspicious. But more to the point, this is just a case of people whose Southeast Asia policy was utterly wrong searching in desperation for something they can say liberals were wrong about, too.

The real myth here is that all the horrors in Cambodia could have been avoided if only Congress had cut just one more check. Recall that Nixon had long since withdrawn the troops at this point. Rick Perlstein ably documents the lies conservatives tried to tell about what kind of money it would take to prop up the Saigon regime; there's no reason to think the state of affairs in Cambodia would have been any different. The real answer, just like in Iraq, is that if you don't want to undertake an endless commitment to propping up a weak regime, you shouldn't destabilize the country in the first place. The rise of the Khmer Rouge is entirely on Nixon.

Posted by Steve | August 23, 2007 11:17 AM

By the way, this is what the prescient Ben Kiernan once said about the Khmer Rouge....

"the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be.''

...to his credit, he, like McGovern, later recanted, but let's not go overboard regarding Kiernan's wisdom.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:18 AM

By the way, this is what the prescient Ben Kiernan once said about the Khmer Rouge....

"the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be.''

...to his credit, he, like McGovern, later recanted, but let's not go overboard regarding Kiernan's wisdom.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:18 AM

By the way, this is what the prescient Ben Kiernan once said about the Khmer Rouge....

"the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be.''

...to his credit, he, like McGovern, later recanted, but let's not go overboard regarding Kiernan's wisdom.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:19 AM

Also worth mentioning is the predictions of a bloodbath after a North Vietnamese victory in Vietnam. (Not saying what did happen was all peaches and cream or that there weren't some left wingers who had naively high hopes.) Cambodia was always, in Kissinger's words, a sideshow. Lots of people pro- and ant-war got it wrong. A question I wish someone more knowledgeable would address. Granted that Bush 'revisionism', which would pin the blame for what happened in Cambodia on those Americans who opposed the war in Vietnam is nuts & that US meddling in Cambodia created the conditions in which Pol Pot could collect an army of diplaced peasant boys around him, to what extent did our long 'tilt' towards China involve supporting/looking the other way or whatever it was toward the Khmer Rouge?

Posted by J | August 23, 2007 11:31 AM

Sorry about the repeat posts. Yeah, Steve, I re-posted it from Jacoby's column, but I had read it years earlier in the Congressional Record. Now, I would certainly think that if Jacoby had created it out of thin air, without a source, Senator McGovern would have demanded a retraction. Don't you agree?

Maybe you are right about the futility of giving any more aid to the Thieu or Lon Nol government, but in my opinion it would have been money well worth wasting in making certain of that outcome, and I suspect that if people had not been so darned eager to convince themselves of the benign nature of the Khmer Rouge, it is money that would have been risked for that purpose.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:31 AM

Gee, J, I'm glad to hear you say it wasn't all "peaches and cream" in the wake of the Communist victory in Vietnam, it kinds reminds me of George C. Scott saying, as Buck Turgidson, about the prospect of war with the Soviet Union, in "Dr. Strangelove", "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed up...."

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:36 AM

Here's a short summation of what wasn't "peaches and cream"...

http://www.vietka.com/DeathCasualty.htm

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 11:42 AM

The dovish view was correct? The doves predicted no problems. What we got was millions of boat people in Vietnam, re-education camps, and hundreds of thousands of dead. Cambodia fell to genocide - somewhere between 2 and 3 million dead. Laos fell to the communists. Soviet politicians and generals told us after 1991 that part of their rationale for invading Afghanistan was that post Vietnam, they thought they could "get away" with it without Western (US) interference.

That last one alone has, via unintended consequences, cost us dearly.

The doves were not only wrong, they continue to be delusional. You might want to expand your reading beyond Chomsky.

Posted by James Robertson | August 23, 2007 11:47 AM

So, the source is Jeff Jacoby? Good grief. In an article entitled "American Leftists Were Pol Pot's Cheerleaders", no less.

Posted by ajay | August 23, 2007 11:53 AM

unlike will allen, with whom i disagree but who is no delusional fantasist, james robertson completely lives in fantasy land. completely. the degree of willful ignorance contained in james robertson's 11:47 post is actually contemptible.

indeed, as mary mccarthy said of lillian hellman, everything robertson wrote here is a lie, including the word "the." it's no wonder bush thinks he can get away with a speech of that surpassing dishonesty yesterday: the james robertsons of the world live to endorse surpassing dishonesty.

now, to return to will: what, exactly, after more than a decade of active US involvement in Vietnam (and Cambodia) that had cost tens of thousands of american lives, hundreds of thousands of vietnamese lives, billiions of dollars, fragging, and much else bad, would you have liked to be "sure of" in 1975?

Posted by howard | August 23, 2007 12:13 PM

Will Allen,

You are false, you are a liar, both about George McGovern and about Ben Kiernan. In both cases, you are using and reusing supposed quotes of a few words meant to defame. There is in each case no original reference. You are the person intent on spreading the quotes and you expect not to be challenged. I do not for a moment believe you read the Congressional Record, only forgot what and where and when, and found the supposed McGovern quote there in the Record.

Where was the Kiernan quote? Where is the precise reference?

All you are trying to do is defame.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 12:19 PM

That spending a few billion more could not have prevented total victory by the North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge, howard. By the time the tanks were rolling into DaNang, for goodness sakes, ARVN was running low on ammo. A country that can afford to make sure sugar beet farmers don't have to compete with cane sugar farmers from Latin America should have been able to waste a few billion more to find out with absolute certainty that the non-communist forces were unable to hold off the communists even with continued material support.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 12:20 PM

Republicans lost Vietnam.

Posted by Jalmari | August 23, 2007 12:23 PM

No, Jennifer, you are mindless twit, so intent on defending your ideological allies that you cannot bear to think that they were in error, to the point that you believe that somebody like Jacoby could create a quote like that out of thin air, have it printed in a major American newspaper, and Senator McGovern would not demand a retraction. You are are as pathetic as the sort of lackwits who for years used to insist that Alger Hiss was not a Stalinist, or, ironically, the sort of lackwit who denies that George W. Bush has made grave errors in regards to Iraq.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 12:28 PM

James Robertson is just a monster, but the reason I am so angry with Will Allen is he thinks he can get away with defaming people forever and he can't. At least be an honest conservative. Why defame and lie?

Will Allen, enough with your lying.

....

Lon Nol's government was only active in the capital by 1975 and fell in early spring as I remember.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 12:32 PM

Now, I would certainly think that if Jacoby had created it out of thin air, without a source, Senator McGovern would have demanded a retraction. Don't you agree?

I think there are other possibilities, such as there being an important context, or Jacoby's convenient ellipses obscuring something that significantly impacts the meaning of the quote. In any event, the quote is a sideshow.

Maybe you are right about the futility of giving any more aid to the Thieu or Lon Nol government, but in my opinion it would have been money well worth wasting in making certain of that outcome...

But you're postulating that we would have spent the money and then we know, one way or the other. In reality, you're postulating a monetary Friedman Unit, where the most likely scenario is that we prop up the regime with monetary aid for a few months at which point we find ourselves in the exact same position. Gosh, we can send them even more money or there might be a genocide, what should we do? And the process repeats itself endlessly, because there is no path towards an end state.

It's the same place we find ourselves regarding Iraq. Gosh, if we leave, terrible things might happen! But if we stay, all we do is forestall those terrible things for a little while. We don't have any sort of clear path towards a place where those terrible things can be guaranteed not to happen, and we keep getting told "six more months, and let's see where we are." It's a sucker's game.

Posted by Steve | August 23, 2007 12:33 PM

Will Allen,

The mad liar is you. Where is your reference? You are a mad liar, who was caught and continues to lies in trying to cover your lie.

Will Allen is a liar. Go back to reading the Congressional Record for 1975 liar.

When was the Congressional debate in 1975, liar?

Where is the reference, liar?

Will Allen is a liar.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 12:37 PM

Have you considered that the nightmare domino scenario didn't come true because we fought so long in Vietnam, draining Communist resources they were planning to use to destabilize other countries?

Posted by Harry | August 23, 2007 12:51 PM

Jennifer, I'm not a conservative, and you are a very silly child. Sip some more kool-aid.

Steve, if you think that Senator McGovern would not demand a correction if a major American newspaper had completely, or even substantially, changed the meaning of a quote, by deceptive means, on a matter as important as whether one made benign remarks about what was to ensue in Cambodia after the fall of the Lon Nol government, I'm afraid we'll have to diasagree again.

I would have been quite willing
to spend many, many, billions of dollars more, as long as the communists never won total victory. In other words, if, by 1976 or 1977, the communists still had not won, I would have been willing to devote more money to the cause. We certainly wasted money in less productive ways.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 12:54 PM

Harry, that's asking for too much imagination for some people in this forum; they need to have their historical examinations simple and brimming with certitude. I don't mean to say that everyone is like that here, but to a substantial degree, a forum like this neatly mirrors the groups which are held in contempt by many folks here. The prevailing sentiment is one of a certainty untethered from any acknowledgement of the complexity of what is being examined, all the better to smugly feel good about oneself.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 1:02 PM

Matt--

I don't think your comments go far enough. It's not just the immediate situation and speculation about the consequences of imagined alternatives faced by policymakers in 1975 that's relevant to the question of the Decider's latest ahistorical historical analogy. Our misadventure in Vietnam was characterized by continually shifting rationalizations for our involvement, and in that sense resembles (at one level, at least) the situation we face now.

At the end of WWII, the U.S. became involved diplomatically by deciding to allow the French to resume colonial control over Indochina. This was due to the unsuccessful attempt by the U.S. to create a diplomatic construct (the EDC) as part of the effort to rebuild postwar Europe.

The U.S. shifted in the wake of Dien Bien Phu (by which time we were funding 80% of the French war effort) to containment of Communism, as part of which we created the nation of South Vietnam out of whole cloth (paper, actually--the first mention of such a country is in the preamble to the 1954 SEATO Treaty).

Containment of communism continued to be the rationale as we became ever more involved in Vietnam, eventually leading to the presence of 550,000 U.S. troops in that country, 58,000 U.S. dead (millions of Vietnamese, too) and untold millions of injured. By the time LBJ and Nixon got involved, the rationale had become one of saving our supposed "credibility."

We hear echoes of these excuses today (along with the idiotic argument that the only way to honor the sacrifices of our troops who gave their lives for a failed policy is to continue it & further increase the damage).

Please note, btw, that none of the reasons used to justify our involvement in Vietnam had anything to do with Vietnam as such. Our policymakers then, as now, were completely ignorant of the history and culture of the people whose country we'd invaded.

Also, for more honest reasons for our involvement in Iraq, see the PNAC document. I don't have the link handy. Sorry...

There are many more points to be made here but I have to get back to work.

Peace.

Posted by dolphy | August 23, 2007 1:21 PM

will, since your key word is "waste" some more money, i think your comment answers itself: after all, one can "waste" some more money indefinitely if you're looking for 100% certainty. as a market guy, i'm surprised at you.

(as a side note, i was part of a dot com, and as we liked to say, we were the only dot com to close in 2001 with money still in the till. sure, we could have "wasted" the last pennies - we returned 11 cents on the dollar to our investors - looking for 100% certainty that our take on internet radio wasn't going to sell enough ads at that moment to be a viable business, but as warren buffett says, i'd rather be approximately right than exactly wrong.)

jennifer, really, grow up: there are lots of reasons to critique will allen, and lord knows i've done my share, but he is an honest guy, and the notion that it's impossible that george mcgovern might have said something naive about cambodia in 1975 hardly beggars the imagination. (plus, really, life is short: don't make me spend it defending will allen!)

Posted by howard | August 23, 2007 1:38 PM

George McGovern might have said many stupid things, but I expect a legitimate reference when so harshly criticizing him. Same for Kiernan. The United States supported the Lon Nol government in every possible way, but the support was not enough. The fall of the government resulted in untold nightmares, but it was not the fault of an American Senator or a Yale Professor who are supposed to have made comments there is no evidence they made.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 1:59 PM

Well, howard, I guess my point is that until the communists won, I wouldn't have considered it wasted. Now, maybe they would have won their victories by 1976, or 1978, or later, anyways. My point is that is would have been worth the money to find out. Business failures really aren't tragic events, unless it's your business, of course (and yes, I speak from experience).

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 2:00 PM

"to what extent did our long 'tilt' towards China involve supporting/looking the other way or whatever it was toward the Khmer Rouge?"

From Zbigniew Brzezinski's Wikipedia page used to have a page saying that we decided to informally ally ourselves with the KR to make Beijing happy and less paranoid (still, it's Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt), which is also why we didn't protect too loudly about Beijing's meddling in Burma. In the 1980's, as Samantha Power and others have outlined, it was the policy of the US, the PRC and Thailand to help out the KR guerrillas after the Vietnamese invasion as a way to get back at the Vietnamese communists.

Posted by Reality Man | August 23, 2007 2:03 PM

Jennifer, try to read what will actually wrote instead of substituting your version of what will actually wrote.

will, we can now resume normally scheduled programming, where i don't have to defend you! but neither is it worth getting locked into a spiral, so let me say that there was plenty of evidence available to anyone in 1975 on a cost-benefit basis that further investment of US blood and treasure was pointless. the american public itself had been voting for an end to the war since 1968 because it recognized the futility of the endeavor and its irrelvancy to national security.

but, of course, the very serious people of the day (let's call them nixon and kissinger, shall we?) knew that we couldn't just "leave:" we had to expand the war, kill tens of thousands more, and flush billiions of dollars more down the toilet before we left.

only if you set a new paradigm - essentially, cheney's "1%" - in place in lieu of cost-benefit analysis does it suggest there is any argument. after all, nixon's excuse for expanding the war to cambodia was that it would make a difference. there were an infinite number of ways to potentially "make a difference" (hell, we had people urging us to bomb north vietnam back to the stone age and implying nuclear weapons were justified) if that's the standard.

Posted by howard | August 23, 2007 2:10 PM

An historical note about the Vietnam War: Only rarely did U.S. policymakers and defenders of the war state that the war aim was "preserving" (or, more realistically, creating) democracy in South Vietnam [sic--it wasn't a real country--policymakers in Washington and Saigon both called it the Government of Vietnam or the Republic of Vietnam, since the Saigon regime actually claimed sovereignty over all of Vietnam, not just from the 17th parallel south]. Occasionally a liberal did say that democracy had something to do with it, but usually the value and goal at stake was said to be "freedom" in South Vietnam or Southeast Asia or Asia or the world. Most Americans who participated in public debate over foreign policy during the cold war seemed to understand pretty well that the U.S. was willing to support undemocratic regimes and that democracy itself was not the controlling value in our foreign policy, and this was virtually never questioned within what we now would call "the foreign policy community." "Freedom," the master term in cold war rhetoric, was alternately understood to refer to capitalism (by conservatives) or to civil freedoms (by liberals). The term's ambiguity "did a lot of work," as my colleagues in cultural studies would say. But "democracy"? It rarely was mentioned, and when it was, it probably elicited knowing smiles all over Washington. I think the debate, certainly behind the scenes, was a bit more sophisticated then than now.

Posted by Doug Rossinow | August 23, 2007 2:27 PM

Well, howard, by 1975, the blood being risked was really quite minimal, and the amount of treasure being shoved into the middle of the table, 250 million, wasn't much, even by 1975 standards. If you've alread pushed 10 grand into the pot, you may as well put in another hundred bucks to find out whether your opponent actually does have a full house, instead of a pair, especially if you earn 250k a year, and the result of losing the hand is that the people down the street, who you have made promises to, are going to be lined up and shot.

Now, far be it for me to defend Nixon and Kissinger, for it was my research in this area for a project in the mid '80s which lead me to write a pretty blistering critique of that dynamic duo. However, one must recognize how damnably difficult the situation was in 1968. People talk about the difficulty of extracting U.S. forces in Iraq. HA! Imagine Iraq without the U.S. ability to deliver munitions with pinpoint accuracy on a moment's notice, where an enemy largely devoid of internal divisions can obscure it's movements because of the vegetation and a vast tunnel network, and the enemy receives material resupply from a global power which, in combination with terrain, largely negates any technological advantage the U.S. military has. The situation in 1968 presented nothing but awful alternatives.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 2:36 PM

Good point, Doug. What has most frustrated me about the last 6 years is the lack of frank discussion regarding geopolitical and economic realities. In particular, there has been very little open acknowledgement that the demand of the American consumer/voter for the economic benefits associated with the uninterrupted flow of oil into the fungible global supply which inevitably forces the U.S. to choose sides in the Persian Gulf. This means that the U.S. is inevitably drawn into war with entities in the Persian Gulf, entities which may be of very limited abilities in conventional military terms, but have nontrivial wealth to access, and are manichean in outlook and tactics, in an environment in which the technology of mass destruction becomes increasingly ubiquitous.

Instead, we get nonsense about how corn in Iowa is going to reduce the importance of Persian Gulf oil, or how we can be non-interventionist in regards to the Persian Gulf, or like some, we can pretend that changing the political culture in that region is a simple matter, although we don't hear as much from that crowd as we did a couple of years ago. Of course, this doesn't begin to address all the nonsense spewed, but there is damned little of what I would call true realism regarding what is faced.

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 2:55 PM

By 1975, capitalism looked like a much better economic system relative to communism to Asians than it had in, say, 1965. Japan was an economic superpower, and the four "tigers" had emerged to show it wasn't a fluke: Asians and capitalism were a good mix. That's a big reason that the dominos stopped at 3 in Southeast Asia, and didn't extend into Thailand and beyond.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 23, 2007 2:55 PM

I was at the speech and the Vietnam piece was actually a small part of the overall talk. He spent more time discussing the evolution of Japan into a highly functioning democracy even though most "experts", to include the former ambassador, didn't think it was possible.

BTW - the "impeach Bush" crowd outside the hall was pretty lame. No more than about 15 overall. I particulary liked the "Impeach Them All" sign that one protestor had. The "End the War Now" group was about 15 also. Pretty poor turn out overall.

Posted by danceswithgoats | August 23, 2007 4:39 PM

Will Allen lied and lied and lied. The only problem is he got caught and liars like Will Allen like to attack and destroy others never thinking anyone will call them the liars they are.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 4:52 PM

Jennifer, what's your favorite nursery rhyme?

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 5:23 PM

Where is the reference, lying Will Allen?

Where is the reference? I can just see you now reaing through the 1975 Congressional Record. What you preferred to do is steal a lie and post the lie in comments. Where is the reference, lying Will Allen? You smeared two people. Where is the reference? Liar.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 5:46 PM

Will Allen smeared two people, at different Internet sites for whatever war mongering reason. Where is the reference, lying Will Allen? I gave you the chance to apologize, but you were too dishonest to take the chance. You have spread the lie elsewhere, as liars do, but I found you out. What bother me is lying to harm another person's reputation. Enough smearing and lying.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 5:53 PM

I suggest Ritalin, Jennifer. Really, though, it is wrong for me to be amused by those suffering from a neuro-chemical imbalance. I apologize, sorta'.

O.K., not really. HA!

Posted by Will Allen | August 23, 2007 5:55 PM

Even if the right wing and liberal hawks' most fevered fantasies were true -- that U.S. leftists had 'cheerled' for Pol Pot, had millions of U.S. leftists lined the streets jumping up and down with pom-poms chanting "Pol Pot! Pol Pot! He's So Hot, He's So Hot!"...

...it STILL wouldn't have helped one single solitary bit in granting power to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

However, the US' intensive village and carpet bombing of Cambodia from 1965 - 1973 did in fact clear the path to power for the Khmer Rouge.

So what's funny about this is that you take the most fevered nightmare stereotypes of the right wing and liberal hawks as Khmer Rouge 'apologists', and you find that in reality all the 'apologists' in the world didn't matter as much as a few U.S. hawks, whose maniacal and genocidal bombing campaign did in fact help the Khmer Rouge.

It wasn't Noam Chomsky arguing about the causes and numbers of Cambodian deaths which, post facto, gave power to the Khmer Rouge lunatic guerrillas.

No, no, that award goes to those awesome, incredible, insightful liberal hawks who don't possess the amount of brain matter that tells them that, hey, if you bomb a people into a moonscape, it's very possible that their next leaders may be nasty people.

But then, they would go on to do the same thing in Afghanistan, hiring armies of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists and warlords and drug runners and assorted thugs, and they never once conceived that funding, arming, paying, training, and protecting such a vast army of scoundrels would ever lead to anything bad.

Their awesome super insight in Afghanistan built a terrorist army which launched the terrorist career of Osama bin Laden, and which gave Afghanistan a miserable warlord chaos hell such that the Pakistan / CIA-backed Taliban easily took over, making 'guests' of Al Qa'ida, who -- unlike the Soviet Union -- actually attacked the domestic U.S.

Posted by El Cid | August 23, 2007 10:17 PM

Where the reference, lying Will Allen? Still reading the Congressional Record, lying Will Allen? Always lie to cover a lie, lying Will Allen. Where's the reference, Will Allen? Destroy by lying and then lie some more. Sure.

Posted by Jennifer | August 23, 2007 10:20 PM

"Have you considered that the nightmare domino scenario didn't come true because we fought so long in Vietnam, draining Communist resources they were planning to use to destabilize other countries?"

Harry, this is probably the best argument I've seen put forward in defense of the classical cold war rationale for Vietnam. But that doesn't quite make it a "good" argument. Only the least lame one.

What I find most far-fetched about it is that it treats "Communist resources" as some global reserve slush-fund when the vast majority of the "resources" involved came from peasants fighting to defend their homes against a foreign invader. We always had the best gear and the best "training" (allowing for the absurd mismatch in our conceptions of war fighting), etc. The Vietnamese didn't beat us because of some overwhelming "investment" of "Communist resources" but because of the moral bankruptcy of sending lots of American kids into a jungle to conquer the local peasantry because some of their leaders had been reading the wrong sort of books.

Posted by STS | August 24, 2007 12:51 AM

STS,

Actually, the North Vietnamese received massive amounts of expensive, high-tech armaments (and training) from the Soviets -- fighter planes, anti-aircraft missiles, tanks, etc. And it wasn't peasants in pointy hats that defeated South Vietnam, it was a mechanized invasion force.

Posted by Harry | August 24, 2007 1:37 AM

Actually, the North Vietnamese received massive amounts of expensive, high-tech armaments (and training) from the Soviets -- fighter planes, anti-aircraft missiles, tanks, etc. And it wasn't peasants in pointy hats that defeated South Vietnam, it was a mechanized invasion force.

Posted by Harry | August 24, 2007 1:37 AM

That is truly unfortunate that a national independence movement had to turn for armament and protection from a hideous, murderous totalitarian dictatorship like the Soviet Union to defend them from external attackers and conquerors such as the French and then the U.S.

Unfortunately, there was no extraterrestrial democracy to whom the Vietnamese could appeal for assistance, and the U.S. was being led by the advice of murderous right wingers and 'liberal' hawks who aimed to kill their drive toward independence, so I'm not sure what other choice the independence movement had other than surrender and continued miserable subjugation.

Posted by El Cid | August 24, 2007 11:06 AM

Harry,

Yep, go right ahead and believe it was all about the materiel. Just like Great Britain beat the pants off those feeble Yankees because of their vast superiority in armaments, discipline, etc. Morale, motivation, human spirit, willingness to sacrifice life and limb are irrelevant.

Typical of the chicken-hawk view of war: push the fancy high tech buttons and all those annoying "peasants in pointy hats" will die or run away.

Sorry, reality is more complex.

Posted by STS | August 24, 2007 2:17 PM