I think people tend to forget that Vietnam was a "just war".

[LadyLeigh]

It had all the markers of a "just war".

It was waged "in defense" of "democracy" against "dictatorship". The people "wanted us there" and "asked for our help". It was "international consensus" (at least among the countries that mattered...) that it was "necessary". It had support by a large part of the "great generation who defeated Hitler". It was quite obvious to anyone who "supported freedom" that the anti-war activists were "supporting dictatorship".

It still turned clusterfuck, and today, after it has sunken into pop culture that it was clusterfuck, pretty much anyone you ask who isn't potentially an evolution denying civil war reenactor will claim to have been "against it from the very beginning".

Ironic how such things go, in a way.

[valerief]

1. There are no just wars. They're all rackets. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

48. The Vietnamese refer to the period fo 1954-74 as the 'American War'. I'm

sure in the average Vietnamese citizen's eyes, the war of liberation against American imperialism was a 'just war.'

[Leopolds Ghost]

84. The War Of Earthly Agression n/t

[LWolf]

64. +1

[BOG PERSON]

73. war isnt inherently bad

the american civil war was a just war, for example. as was the vietnam war (from the POV of the "north" vietnamese). as was the great patriotic war (aka WWII from the POV of the soviet union).

[valerief]

77. War IS inherently bad. All war is inherently bad. The trick is to prevent conditions

from becoming so bad that war is an option. Using war to do that is obviously not an option. It requires sharing and warmongers don't want to do that.

[BOG PERSON]

89. i'm not sure how "sharing" is supposed to prevent war

not all political problems can be resolved by sharing?

[MicaelS]

91. And just precisely HOW would you have stopped Hitler, or Imperial Japan?

I really want to read this.

[brooklynite]

2. I didn't make decisions on Libya based on NATO and US Government pronouncements...

I made it based on international media reports on conditions in Libya and historical knowledge of the behaviour of the Gaddafi regime. I don't think the average American had any exposure to the actual situation in Vietnam.

[GodlessBiker]

3. The war was waged both against a dictatorship and on behalf of one.

With the CIA authorizing the murder of Diem and promising not to cut off aid to those who planned to kill him. The successor military regimes were US puppets.

[jaxx]

4. The draft was a huge part of it.

[Octafish]

5. LBJ had to lie America into sending combat forces.

Gulf of Tonkin was that time's WMDs.

[Obamanaut]

7. Way back in the Truman administration, when the US started paying for

most of the French expense of the war, and sending materiel, supplies, and money, the first advisors were being sent along with the materiel, supplies, and money.

And it continued through Eisenhower and Kennedy before the serious escalation by LBJ.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html

"Viet nam war timeline"

[oldlib]

13. The French tried to help.

They were involved, long before the USA, and ultimately gave up. We should have learned from their experience.

[dtexdem]

19. The French "tried to help"? Tried to help themselves to Vietnam, again.

To carry on with their colonial rule of Vietnam, which had been disrupted by the Japanese in WWII. Ho Chi Minh's forces fought the Japanese invaders, and then defeated the attempted return of French colonialism.

[Javaman]

92. On top of that, The reason we got into Vietnam in the first place is because

that bastard de gaulle blackmailed the US into helping them.

communism was becoming a real threat in france. de gaulle basically told truman, "if you want communism out of france then help us in vietnam".

and since the house of unamerican activities was all hot and bothered over the commies, the US had to help deckle.

what followed in france is a rarely reported crush of communist support that made the repukes in the US green with jealousy.

I'm no communist, but it was horrible what was done to the activists in france.

[Octafish]

14. Kennedy tried to keep us out of Vietnam.

But elements in his administration seemed to work against him:

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

PS: Thank you for the link, Obamanaut. You may enjoy: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VietnamWar.htm .

[hifiguy]

41. Correct as usual, Octafish

Anyone who as done ANY serious reading about the Kennedy Administration knows that JFK repeatedly stated, time and again, that he would bring every last American home from Vietnam after the 1964 election. He saw Vietnam as a problem for the Vietnamese and a fool's errand for the US. So did Bob.

The Joint Chiefs, MIC and CIA thought otherwise. So Kennedy had to go.

[Octafish]

51. Nixon wasn't good enough for the MIC.

Remember the Moorer-Radford Affair?

EXCERPT...

In a scenario that seems straight from the pages of a Hollywood screenplay, the events that played out during seven days in December 1971 revealed that the Pentagon had poised itself against the White House. The Pentagon's Chief Investigator W. Donald Stewart remarked: "When we broke (Yeoman Charles E.) Radford that night, that's where I got the Seven Days in May idea. I said Jesus Christ, here's the military actually spying on the President of the United States . . . this is a hanging offense."

Gosh. It was "Seven Days in May Meets Checkers."

PS: Thanks for the kind words, hifiguy, and thank you for all you do in the good fight. Time goes by too durn fast...

[coalition_unwilling]

53. Actually, I don't believe the archival and documentary record supports your assertion.

The most that can be said, based on the available records, is that JFK wanted to keep his options open on Vietnam until after the 1964 election. Both Robert Mann (in 'A Grand Delusion') and David Kaiser (in 'American Tragedy') seem to subscribe to the idea that JFK was being lied to by McNamara and the Pentagon and so, at least in his public utterances, remained committed to staying the course. For example, on September 2, 1963, JFK told Walter Cronkite that he disagreed with those who supported withdrawal of American advisors:

"I don't think we should withdraw," he (JFK) said. "That would be a great mistake." Cited in Mann, p. 289.

Likewise, on September 9, JFK told Huntley and Brinkley much the same. "We should," JFK said, "use our influence in as effective a way as we can, but we should not withdraw." Cited in Mann, p. 291.

Of course, privately, JFK was far more pessimistic about the chances for a successful outcome in Vietnam. But JFK was a Cold Warrior par excellence and firmly committed to the domino theory. So, again, I think the most that can be said is that JFK wished to keep his options open regarding U.S. policy after the November 1964 elections. Keeping options open, I should note, is not a bad thing at all. But it's different from saying JFK had decided upon a post-1964 policy change.

[Octafish]

63. The record shows In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam

Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith's son, James, makes the case JFK would not have committed the U.S. to an unwinnable civil war in Vietnam.

Exit Strategy

In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam

James K. Galbraith

Forty years have passed since November 22, 1963, yet painful mysteries remain. What, at the moment of his death, was John F. Kennedy’s policy toward Vietnam?

It’s one of the big questions, alternately evaded and disputed over four decades of historical writing. It bears on Kennedy’s reputation, of course, though not in an unambiguous way.

And today, larger issues are at stake as the United States faces another indefinite military commitment that might have been avoided and that, perhaps, also cannot be won. The story of Vietnam in 1963 illustrates for us the struggle with policy failure. More deeply, appreciating those distant events tests our capacity as a country to look the reality of our own history in the eye.

One may usefully introduce the issue by recalling the furor over Robert McNamara’s 1995 memoir In Retrospect. Reaction then focused mainly on McNamara’s assumption of personal responsibility for the war, notably his declaration that his own actions as the Secretary of Defense responsible for it were “terribly, terribly wrong.” Reviewers paid little attention to the book’s contribution to history. In an editorial on April 12, 1995, the New York Times delivered a harsh judgment: “Perhaps the only value of “In Retrospect” is to remind us never to forget that these were men who in the full hubristic glow of their power would not listen to logical warning or ethical appeal.” And in the New York Times Book Review four days later, Max Frankel wrote that

David Halberstam, who applied that ironic phrase to his rendering of the tale 23 years ago, told it better in many ways than Mr. McNamara does now. So too, did the Pentagon Papers, that huge trove of documents assembled at Mr. McNamara’s behest when he first recognized a debt to history.

In view of these criticisms, readers who actually pick up McNamara’s book may experience a shock when they scan the table of contents and sees this summary of Chapter 3, titled “The Fateful Fall of 1963: August 24–November 22, 1963”:

A pivotal period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, punctuated by three important events: the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem; President Kennedy’s decision on October 2 to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces; and his assassination fifty days later. (Emphasis added.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.5/galbraith.html

Who disregarded Kennedy's orders and went ahead with an assassination?

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest?

From The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph Trento

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Saigon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

SOURCE:

“The Secret History of the CIA.” Joseph Trento. 2001, Prima Publishing. pp. 334-335.

Background on Vietnam from a peacemonger's perspective:

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

More on JFK and his work for a peaceful withdrawal:

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

More on the subject of JFK and peace as his policy priority:

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

And from today's paper:

Bay of Pigs Report Shows Extent of CIA's Power, Subterfuge in 1960s

[coalition_unwilling]

71. I agree with you that JFK would not have committed the U.S. to

an unwinnable war in Vietnam. But that's not the question at hand, which is whether JFK would have ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. personnel following his presumptive re-election in 1964 or whether he would have maintained the status quo (with thousands of 'advisors' actually performing combat missions in country). It is on this question, and this question alone, that I think the documentary record remains ambiguous at best. George Ball said that he didn't think JFK wanted to be viewed as a 'coward' with all the 'Who lost China' bullshit that a withdrawal from Vietnam would have entailed. Against Ball's opinion, though, we have JFK's manifest courage on multiple occasions (most prominently when he called Coretta Scott King during the 1960 nominating campaign at great political risk to his candidacy or when he almost single-handedly gave the middle finger to the war mongers in the Pentagon who wanted to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis).

Thanks for the links. Bookmarking for later perusal. Hope you get a chance to read the two titles I mentioned earlier.

[11 Bravo]

46. Ike used our SEATO obligation as a pretense to increase US involvement.

[Octafish]

52. All the while, we were supplying and re-supplying the French colonialist warmongers.

That's pure Dulles Brothers.

[B Calm]

12. The first US soldier to be killed in Vietnam was under Eisenhower

[Octafish]

20. True about the advisor in an official capacity...A US Army officer was killed in Saigon in 1945...

Something I learned for the first time today, from the Vietnam History Timeline supplied by Obamanaut:

September 26, 1945 - The first American death in Vietnam occurs, during the unrest in Saigon, as OSS officer Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey is killed by Viet Minh guerrillas who mistook him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey had filed a report on the deepening crisis in Vietnam, stating his opinion that the U.S. "ought to clear out of Southeast Asia."

Heartbreaking. The whole thing. War and violence and those who chose those paths over peace and understanding.

[Obamanaut]

37. Actually, no. It was way before Ike ->

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1945.html


September 26, 1945 - The first American death in Vietnam occurs, during the unrest in Saigon, as OSS officer Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey is killed by Viet Minh guerrillas who mistook him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey had filed a report on the deepening crisis in Vietnam, stating his opinion that the U.S. "ought to clear out of Southeast Asia."


July 26, 1950 - United States military involvement in Vietnam begins as President Harry Truman authorizes $15 million in military aid to the French.

American military advisors will accompany the flow of U.S. tanks, planes, artillery and other supplies to Vietnam. Over the next four years, the U.S. will spend $3 Billion on the French war and by 1954 will provide 80 percent of all war supplies used by the French.

[Romulox]

33. Um, "weeks not months" ring any bells?????

:hi:

[Octafish]

54. Very much rings a bell.

Crude Analysis of Libyan Liberation (by Chris Floyd)



In order to keep the MIC cash cow going, it's incredible not to think these killers abroad wouldn't apply their,eh, talents at home.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. All the sides in any war consider their participation "just".

And, that all the brutality and murders are justified.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi

[Leopolds Ghost]

85. Yes, Name one war where the people fighting did not think they had the "right" to take life.

[MadHound]

8. Please tell me you are being sarcastic,

Because I don't want to unroll reams and reams of historical evidence to show you that Vietnam was in no way a just war unless I really, really have to.

[LadyLeigh]

10. I wouldn't define it as "sarcasm", but

yes, if you like, the post is aimed at casting doubt on the notion of "just war".

[Bragi]

67. I don't think you succeeded

If you're intention was to bring into question the very concept of a just war, then I think you should have done that more directly.

Instead, your OP is clearly all about Vietnam, and whether it was a just war. In it, you posit a bunch of things that are historically inaccurate about the war, none of which bring into question the principles of just war theory.

Anyway, no harm done.

[LadyLeigh]

82. My post is about how things look different when looking back.

Today everyone knows that Vietnam wasn't "just". In fact, several people have lectured me in detail about it. It is much harder to see the injustice though when one is in the process of starting a new war. That is my point.

[Bandit]

9. You had to have forgotten your sarcasm thingy.

The Dictator was the guy we put into place there...Ho Chi Minh was not ever considered a Dictator by anyone....A Communist, yes, but he was not considered a dictator by anyone I ever heard speak. What "Just cause" was delivered anyway?

[LadyLeigh]

11. Se posts #8 and #10.

[rms013]

15. Just War My Ass

Same lies different place. Oh and by the way, today in VietNam they call it the "American War".

[EFerrari]

17. OP has "just war" in quotation marks. Irony alert. n/t

[Bragi]

21. Maybe the OP knows about "Just War Theory"

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War

However, I doubt the OP does know about Just War Theory because it not likely that not many scholars would consider the Vietnam war a Just War under the theory.

[Romulox]

35. Oh for fuck's sake! She's LAMPOONING the idea of a "just war"

She's not asserting that Vietnam was a just war! Just the opposite.

[Bragi]

65. Except there is actually a thing called a "just war"

I'm antiwar, but I'm not a pacifist, and don't buy the idea that there can be no "just wars" ever.

I'll go out on a limb and say that WWII was a "just war" from the perspective of the allies. It met all the "just war" criteria.

(WWI, not at all.)

[coalition_unwilling]

72. WWI was a just war, if you were a Belgian, for God's sake. The

Belgians never agreed to let the Germans violate their borders, borders to which Germany had itself been a guarantor.

[coalition_unwilling]

75. Technically speaking, Vietnam was not a 'war,' as there never was

a Congressional Declaration of War. Of course, semantics like this mean little to the civilian or military casualties of the conflict.

N.B. I suspect that many Vietnamese considered "The American War" a 'just war,' even if they had little familiarity with the concept of 'Just War'. Actually, the puppets in the South may have had some familiarity with it, since it comes out of Roman Catholicism.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. In what respect Charlie? In fact

it was seen pretty as a farce early on... you might want to find "Go Tell the Spartains" one of the earliest anti nam war movies.

The closest we have ever come to a just war, as set in the doctrine... I happen to understand it. and purely accidental... was WW II... Kosovo also got close. And that it is a harder case to make...

[coalition_unwilling]

56. Um, the U.S. Civil War wa a just war for the North. The South fired first. - n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. hmm no, the US Civil War is not considered a just war

it is considered a civil war... you even know what the theory implies?

[coalition_unwilling]

61. The million soldiers ini the Army of the Potomac certainly thought

it was a just war. I am well aware of the medieval theory of 'just war' from Aquinas. I was speaking off the cuff in response to a post that said the only just war we had was World War II.

But, if you're interested, here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on the subject as of today:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power as well as the precision of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War

By the four standards articulated above, the North had every reason to consider itself engaged in a Just War against the Southern traitors. Sorry could not get bullets to copy over.

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. Under the theory WW II is the one that comes the closests

while in reality no war has met all the standards ever.

[coalition_unwilling]

70. The Belgians might disagree with you about that one, when it comes

to World War I, as might well the French :)

Sorry I had to run to an appointment so could not respond sooner.

[nadinbrzezinski]

99. They may, but the theory is quite specific

and the ones that come the closest, per the doctrine are WW II and Kosovo...

Of course this is not an easy argument to make, nor a popular one since people involved in a war like to say... look at us... just war.

Well very rarely does a war, any war, even come close... and none fit the definition either fully.

[dtexdem]

18. Yeah, waged to protect democracy, after Ho Chi Minh won an election.

The Vietnam war was an imperialist war from day one, under Eisenhower -- after the people of Vietnam had defeated their former French colonial masters.

It was LBJ who escalated it into a major conflict, but Eisenhower started it and Kennedy continued the effort.

It was NEVER about supporting "freedom" or "democracy" -- it was always about supporting our puppet regimes established in the South to forestall the triumph of the Communist movement that had defeated the French. The U.S. supported an unpopular dictatorship over a popular dictatorship. Freedom and democracy never entered the equation.

[kentuck]

22. After we assassinated Diem or before?

After Ho Chi Minh defeated the French or before?

After the lies at Tonkin or before?

After 58,000+ dead young men or before?

I'm not sure I understand your post?

[GliderGuider]

23. Vietnam was spun to appear to be a "just war".

That facade was painted by the MIC and the CIA using statements from true believers and puppets in positions of authority. The discovery of the flim-flam involved was why the anti-war backlash was so strong.

Read "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he died, and why it matters" by James Douglass. Kennedy knew it wasn't a "just war", and his decision to try and do something about it cost him his life.

[Mojorabbit]

34. I had this discussion with my BIL

last year. He was there and he is still a true believer and has turned into a wingnut too by the way.

[coalition_unwilling]

57. Don't know what kind of terms you are on with him, but Neil Sheehan's

"A Bright Shining Lie" or David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" should end his 'true believer' status. That is, if he knows how to read.

[hifiguy]

42. The Douglass book and Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"

are the two books that do more to explain the current state of the US than any others. Period. Read them and understand everything.

[GliderGuider]

44. Absolutely! Toss in the Powell Memo on top of those two and the whole cluster&#@% is obvious.

:thumbsup:

[Bragi]

66. I intend to read that book

I'm reading "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years" by David Talbot. It seems quite consistent with what is apparently in the Douglass book, and with other recent assessments of the Kennedy years.

[BOG PERSON]

95. vietnam was and still is a just war if you were an anticommunist

so if vietnam was believed to be a just war i'm sure there was little if any spinning required. do you know why? because anticommunism is the default ideological predisposition of the average american.

[War Horse]

24. People sure are trigger happy here...

How can the OP be interpreted as pro the Vietnam war?

[EFerrari]

28. It's Monday?

:)

[War Horse]

40. Point taken

:)

[dmosh42]

25. They justified it with their "Domino theory" about SE Asia.....

I was already in the Navy when it was escalated big time in 1962. Eisenhower had kept it as an "advisory" role, but when Kennedy and his "whiz kids" came in, they took the bait big time, thinking we could clean it up in no time.(sound familiar?) I know most Dems don't like to believe Kennedy was involved, but he had the ball rolling before his assassination in 1963.

[coalition_unwilling]

58. Hope you have read David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest". Halberstam's

title is ironic, as his book completely unmasks the 'whiz kids' for anyone who still had any doubts.

[dmosh42]

86. No, but I did read some of MacNamara's book....but I reached

my own conclusions back then, that that war wasn't necessary, just like Iraq. And like Iraq, nobody was held accountable for the deaths and injuries to our servicemen in a useless war. The point being our country doesn't learn, or maybe doesn't want to know, because a small amount of people are taking on the burden of frontline fighting.

[coalition_unwilling]

98. HIghly rec Halberstam or Neil Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie," if you

have time and are so inclined.

In your original post, you say you were there when JFK and his 'whiz kids' decided to 'ramp it up.' Your first-hand recollections seem at odds with the rose-colored glasses with which some DUers like to view JFK, as some kind of covert peacenik bound and determined to extricate us from Vietnam as soon as it was politically safe to do so. I'd like to believe that about JFK but, unfortunately, from what I've read, the most that can be said is that JFK had grown pessimistic about whether the situation there could be salvaged. But JFK had made no hard and fast decisions about what to do, preferring instead to keep his options open.

Thanks for your service, btw. I hope you have been able to find some peace in the years since.

[dmosh42]

102. Thanks for the kind words, and I would make one more point...

If you saw that movie "JFK", by Oliver Stone, he brought out something I think he made up for the movie. Somewhere during the movie one of the characters said that JFK had passed a memo where he suggested that we might think about changing course, and backing off from Vietnam. Since then I have looked to see where he got that info, because I never saw anything about that, although it would satisfy a lot of our ideological comerades. Anyway, I'll make a note about your book, and maybe locate a copy somewhere.

[coalition_unwilling]

103. That National Security Action Memorandum 263, approved by JFK, and

then countermanded by LBJ in NSAM 273 (signed November 26, 1963) has become the lynchpin of many assassination conspiracy theories and the centerpiece of the monologue of the character played by Donald Sutherland in Stone's "JFK".

Problems are many though with using these two memoranda to support the thesis that JFK was committed to fully withdrawing from Vietnam post-1964.

First, NSAM 263 (dated October 6, 1963) calls only for withdrawing 1,000 advisors by the end of 1963. At the point it was signed, there were some 54,000 advisors in country. Thus, NSAM 263 does not offer any kind of definitive evidence that JFK was committed to a full withdrawal.

Second, LBJ's NSAM 273 was actually a later draft of a memorandum drafted while JFK was still alive (originally drafted on November 21, 1963).

So the implication that JFK intended a full withdrawal from Vietnam, only to have his intentions thwarted by his assassination and (depending on the theory) LBJ's connivance with those in the military industrial complex who desired a wider war, when they rest on these two NSAMs, seem to me to be stretching the record a bit in pursuit of a certain ideology of JFK as covert peacenik and, by extension, LBJ as bloodthirsty warmonger.

This link is a good place to get started and the links within this link will take you in some surprising directions:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/viet15.htm

[dmosh42]

104. I wish I knew of those 'memos' years ago...

when I had some heated discussions with so many JFK admirers. You must have had the same thought process I went through. Yes, JFK's memo doesn't reflect any doubt to me that he was having second thoughts about Vietnam military intervention. Hard to explain to people how the country was very security conscience about the communist takeover efforts during those years of post WW2. That was the first time that I realized how the news media was able to 'shape' our views, and has lead to what we have now after all the merges and consolidations of Networks, radios stations and print media. Thanks for the details!

[coalition_unwilling]

105. The JFK admirers forget that JFK was a 'Cold War liberal' and not

some sort of hippie peacenik. Among other problems with the Cold War ideology was a pronounced tendency to view all Communists as alike, so that the USSR, China, Vietnam (historically an enemy of China), Cuba all got lumped together into one giant bogeyman monolith. JFK was fully on board with this Cold War mentality. While it is possible that the Cuban missile crisis and the crazies at the Pentagon who wanted a first strike on the USSR may have begun to open JFK's eyes to questioning some of those Cold War assumptions, the process was still-born as of November 22, 1963. We have only self-serving after-the fact memories of Kenneth O'Donnell and the like (that JFK wanted to pull out of Vietnam after 1964), against which must be balanced the mass of JFK's public and private utterances, all of which showed him to be firmly committed to stay the course in Vietnam.

I wish it were not so. The JFK I would like to have had as Prez would have been a hippie peacenik. But that's wishful thinking on my part. Now RFK might have indeed been a hippie peacenik had he been elected in 1968. But that's material for another thread, I guess.

[dmosh42]

106. Not meaning to get off track on JFK, but you juggled some memories...

from those years. I was an 18 yr old kid during JFKs campaign, and I do remember how he brought up the idea that those two islands of Quemoy and Matsu, part of Formosa(at that time) would not be defended by him as president, and Nixon disagreed. Well, I thought he just shot himself in the foot! But it did open my eyes, that maybe we need to be 'strategic' in our thinking. But somehow most of our presidents get overcome once they get in office, and let the 'experts' guide them.(MacNamara & Rusk) Ok, nice trading ideas and info with you, Coalition. Talk again sometime.

[coalition_unwilling]

107. It's been a real pleasure on many levels. One final thought to send

you off with. During the 1960 campaign, JFK came across as the 'hard ass' with his attack on Eisenhower's supposed allowing a missile gap with the USSR to develop. The missile gap was all horseshit and known as such fairly soon after the 1960 campaign was in the history books. But any time someone tries out the hippie peacenik JFK line on me, I come back at them with the 'missile gap' JFK line :)

[timtom]

26. Absolutely nothing "just" about the Vietnam desolation.

Just another American money-making scheme.

[Peace Patriot]

27. I'm glad you've acknowledged your post as sarcasm because every one of your points

about Vietnam as a "just war" is not just wrong, it is VERY wrong.

I just want to mention one of them, because it is so important: The U.S. nixed UN-sponsored elections in Vietnam in 1954 because Ho Chi Minh would have been elected, hands down. He was THE anti-colonial war hero and would have been an elected communist, but not one who opposed the U.S.--the most tragic irony of all. Ho Chi Minh had written to Eisenhower, quoting Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, to ask for U.S. support of Vietnam's just revolution! They would have been the only U.S. ally in the communist world! Further, the Vietnamese had been devoted to their independence for 5,000 years. They had fought off the Chinese and everybody else who had ever tried to dominate them, and would likely have repelled any Chinese or Russian effort to do so. The U.S. threw away all this good will and this potential alliance in order to create their own, extremely corrupt oligarchy in South Vietnam--a 'country' in effect created by the CIA. Far, FAR from "defending democracy," the U.S. threw away over 55,000 U.S. soldiers' lives and murdered some TWO MILLION Southeast Asians, to destroy Vietnam's democracy.

-----

And just a word about JFK, who is often blamed for the first escalations in Vietnam, as if that is all there was to the story. James Douglass, in his excellent book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," lays out what really happened: First of all, the CIA was in Vietnam supporting the French in their bloody war to retain their colony at the end of WW II, and began escalating with U.S. "military advisers" under Eisenhower. Kennedy inherited this situation--much like he inherited Cuba and other situations--and came into this situation AT FIRST as a typical "Cold Warrior." He agreed to sending more troops. Then the "Bay of Pigs" happened, the CIA lied to him about it (told him Cubans would rise up and support the invasion, and tried to blackmail him into involving the U.S. military) and he, at that point, vowed to "break the CIA into a thousand pieces" after the 1964 election. So he KNEW that the CIA was lying to him and trying to trick him and--in Vietnam--the CIA was disobeying his orders. Then, after the Cuban Missile Crisis--during which the MIC/CIA demanded that he use that excuse to nuke Russia while the U.S. had missile superiority, and JFK refused--the train of events that led to his assassination by the CIA began. JFK opened backchannels to Krushchev to propose nuke disarmament and world peace. Krushchev was amenable (he, too, feared nuke war and was in a struggle with his own MIC to prevent it). These contacts led to the first nuke treaty--the "Nuclear Test Ban Treaty"--the U.S./Russia "wheat deal' (unheard of), and JFK's plans to de-escalate all over the world, including in Vietnam. The CIA was undermining his policy and disobeying his orders in Vietnam (in collusion with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican with presidential aspirations). One of his last executive orders, before he was killed, was to start withdrawing troops from Vietnam. He intended to present a peace platform to the American people in 1964--a genuine one--and he would have won that election overwhelmingly (as LBJ did, on a false peace platform). Bang-bang, shoot-shoot.

Three days later, LBJ* stated the following: "Now they can have their war." He was talking about the CIA/MIC and Vietnam.

If JFK would have lived, there would have been no Vietnam War, and we would be a very, VERY different and much better country today. And that--laid out by Douglass in scrupulous research and heartbreaking detail--is WHY IT MATTERS.

-----------------------

*(Douglass does not believe that LBJ was involved in the assassination but that he was involved in the coverup and this is why: The CIA had laid a trail to Russia, intending to force LBJ to nuke Russia in retaliation. J. Edgar Hoover is the one who apprized LBJ that the CIA had committed the assassination. LBJ did not want to nuke Russia (and suffer millions of deaths here, when Russia retaliated) for something they didn't do. So the misdirection to Russia had to be covered up. That's why the record of the assassination is so confused. (Douglass puts it all back together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.) Also, JFK had gone through a deep personal and spiritual transformation as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis (facing Armageddon)--meticulously documented by Douglass. His final speech--to the UN about world peace--is where he was heading at the time of his death. He had abandoned the "Cold War." But LBJ was not such a person--capable of envisioning a peaceful world. He was very much in-the-pocket of the MIC. He wanted them to "have their war." And it was of course MIC policy to cover up anything so awful as the CIA killing the president. The American people were utterly traumatized by this assassination and would have risen up and carried out JFK's intention to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces." That had to be prevented. Thus, LBJ's involvement in the coverup.)

[Bryn]

76. Very interesting. Thank you for your post.

I lost my beloved brother to Vietnam war. I've always wanted to understand why we went to war with Vietnam exactly. I see the picture clearly now.

[county worker]

29. A little personal insight. One day while we were waiting on transportation

in Vietnam in 1967, a reporter from my home town news came around. When I first went to Vietnam I had to sign two papers, one saying that if you were injured by not critical did you want your family notified and if a reporter from your home town news came, would you want to talk to them.

I said no to the first one and yes to the second, that's how the reporter found me. He asked me if I wanted to say something to the folks at home and I said that I did. I was anti war by then and I wanted to say that to the reporter but instead he turned on a tape recorder and handed me a statement to read out loud. The statement was in support of President Johnson and the war. I refused to read it and did not make it into the home town news.

In a just war I don't think they have to do things like that.

[coalition_unwilling]

60. Wow, that is some story and captures in a microcosm the Vietnam War in

all its glory.

Thanks for your service, btw. I hope you have been able to find some peace in the years since.

[county worker]

96. I don't think we ever find "peace" we just learn to live with things that were.

It is not only war but most unpleasant things in life are like that I think. What always amazes me is that I remember so many things from that time and have forgotten so most things that happened between then and now. Why your memory is like that I don't know.

[indepat]

30. Barbara Tuchman correctly pegged Vietnam, as she did so many others: The March of

Folly. :patriot:

[thereismore]

31. No. We were not attacked. So not a just war. nt

[Romulox]

36. Neither were we attacked by Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya...

:shrug:

[ItNerd4life]

38. Actually, Afghanistan was directly involved, they supported the training camps.

I never had a problem with us going into Afghanistan, it's going into Iraq that made Afghanistan turn into a clusterf***.

[EFerrari]

50. Not really. The Taliban offered to turn OBL over to a third party

and the chimp refused. Anyway, attacking Afghanistan to get Bin Laden is like invading Chicago to get Al Capone. Good for business, nothing to do with national security.

[thereismore]

68. Exactly. nt

[chrisa]

43. I believe the OP was sarcastic and ironic.

[thereismore]

69. I missed that. nt

[ZombieHorde]

32. That sentiment is the reason I changed my avatar. Recommended. nt

[hifiguy]

39. Hardly.

If honest elections had been held in the 1950s, Ho Chi Minh would have won in a landslide. Ho begged the Truman Administration for help against the French and was given the cold shoulder. He was naive enough to believe that the US actually believed in self-determination for colonialized nations. Ho was a Vietnamese nationalist long before he sought help from the Soviets.

The other interesting thing about this was the outright stupidity in seeing the Communist nations as a solid bloc. The Soviets and the Chinese never trusted each other at all, and the Vietnamese have passionately hated the Chinese since the time of the uprising against the Chinese by the Trung sisters, some 1000 years ago. Marxism-Leninism did absolutely nothing to tamp down those long-standing hatreds.

[LadyLeigh]

80. My post was aimed at commenting on recent developments.

Precicely the wars the US is currently involved in. Should have made that more clear apparently.

[hifiguy]

93. No problem!

:hi:

And welcome to DU!

[johnaries]

45. There is no comparison. Any comparison is dishonest. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

47. Vietnam was not a 'just war' if only b/c there never was any

congresssional declaration of war passed.

If by your post you mean that many people viewed the U.S. military invasion and occupation of Vietnam as 'justified' (different from 'just war theory'), then I would say that opinion started out in March 1965 (date U.S. Marines were first deployed to Da Nang) firmly behind LBJ. As time passed, more and more turned against the involvement.

I agree that it is ironic how history develops. Even more ironic is the fact that a mere 40 years after Vietnam was sold to the U.S. public on the basis of a "big lie" (Gulf of Tonkin), Operation Shocking and Awful was sold to the U.S. public on the basis of two 'big lies' (WMD in Iraq and ties between Iraq and al Quaida).

[Terry in Austin]

49. Not a war. Just empire business as usual

Empires police the periphery, and like civil policing, it's ongoing and endless. We haven't had an actual war since 1945.

Wars have an objective and an outcome, and from that point of view, Vietnam was indeed a clusterfuck, since people were confusing the goings-on there with "war," and it just didn't stack up. We already know that the public rationalizations for it were so much smoke.

The generation that defeated Hitler had a proper war, and as such it makes sense (sort of) to consider whether or not WWII was a "just war."

Once we get the terminology straight, the confusion is vastly reduced!

More here

[cali]

55. that's revisionist history.

[LadyLeigh]

79. My point is that Vietnam was spun to be a just war.

And that the US has done so with ever war since.

Reading the replies here I should have made that more clear apparently.

[BOG PERSON]

74. did you know?

more people were "killed" in the last ten years by hunger and contagious disease than all the wars in the last two hundred years.

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[inna]

88. Are you daft? And belligerent at that?

[LadyLeigh]

81. To everyone here: I do not seriously think Vietnam was "just".

I was commenting on the public perception of the war and how it may or may not relate to the perception of the wars we are currently involved in.

[inna]

No worries; it was completey obvious. I'm amazed at some of the reactions, frankly.

:(

Thank you for your post, and k&r.

[inna]

87. No worries; it was completey obvious. I'm amazed at some of the reactions, frankly.

:(

Thank you for your post, and k&r.

[LadyLeigh]

83. To summarize: My point is that it is easier to spot injustice retroactively.

Everyone questions the justness of the Vietnam war today, decades after the fact. Not so much though when new wars are started.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

97. You still don't get it.

The Vietnam War was massively questioned at the time.

[Javaman]

90. Read up on the michelin rubber plantations. Then think about the "just war" angle.

you can start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin_Rubber_Plantation

http://library.usask.ca/vietnam/index.php?state=browse&descriptor=MICHELIN+RUBBER+PLANTATION

[and-justice-for-all]

94. My dad and several other relatives were there...

it was all politics and my father has nothing nice to say about it.

[malaise]

100. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

One more clusterfuck

[Marnie]

101. Vietnam was not fought in defense of Democarcy.

It was fought in defense of a never ending line of extremely corrupt nominally Cristian dictators who represented a tiny minority of the most wealthy in a none Christian country.

The US first got involved to try to prop up the French control of it "colony." The fact that Vietnam was not a free country but was occupied by the French was the reason for the splitting off of the North and its efforts to reunite Vietnam as a free nation.

Regardless of whose side you take, defending Democracy had nothing to do with our motives.

Incidentally when I was in college in the oil business state of Texas in the 60's there were reoccurring rumors that the war was being fought so the US could get their hands on oil sources off Vietnam's coast. Turns out there is oil off Vietnam's coast.

War's are always about acquiring wealth.

That's why we don't help Palestine. They have nothing worth stealing.
Afghanistan, however, it turns out has a great deal worth stealing.