John Howard, in Vietnam for the first time, refuses to recant on his part in support for the decision to send Australian troops to fight in that disastrous and pointless war. Of course Howard is well aware when he’s asked a question like this that the elephant in the room is the equally disastrous and pointless ongoing war in Iraq. When he says that “nothing has altered my view that, at the time, on the assessments that were made then, I took that view and I took that view properly”, he may as well be talking about the so-called ‘intelligence’ about weapons of mass destruction which was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003. There is no way that John Howard will ever admit that his “view”in either case was founded not on evidence but on the necessity, as he saw it, of aligning Australia with the US.
Nor will Howard ever admit to having any doubts about any policies he’s pursued in all his years in politics, apparently, especially the decisions to go to war, which have cost Australian lives (not to mention hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Iraqi lives). “I think in public life you take a position, and I think particularly of the positions I’ve taken in the time I’ve been Prime Minister, I have to live with the consequences and if I ever develop reservations I hope I would have the grace to keep them to myself.”
Grace … or arrogance? Grace … or stubbornness? Grace … or the absolute will to keep hold of power? Grace … or a complete refusal to be in any way honest with the people who elected him?
Not that I expect anything else from him, but really, the gall of the man! There he is, a guest in a country which is manifestly thriving, though still very much a developing country; a country which is proudly self-governing; a country which is visited by thousands of Australian travellers every year; and he says that he and his party were right to send 500 men – many of them conscripts – to die there. That they were right to send 50,000 troops to wage a horrible war there alongside the hundreds of thousands of Americans. Can he really believe that the withdrawal of Australian troops by the Whitlam government in 1972 was the wrong thing to do? Can he put forward any case at all, in the light of the present day reality which surrounded him on his visit to Vietnam, that it would have been better for the Vietnamese if the US had won that war?
I’m glad to see Bob Brown calling Howard’s bluff on this, it would have been good to see Beazley or Rudd doing the same.
Those who won’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately Howard and Bush are condemning Iraqis to repeat it on their behalf.
Later: Unlike Howard I admit my mistakes – my first sentence was badly worded. As Paulus pointed out in comments, Howard was not a member of the government which took that immediate decision to send troops to Vietnam, but he did hold a Liberal Party state position then and was very much in accord with government policy. Unlike Iraq now, Vietnam was a subject of much foment in Australia in the 60s, an inescapable subject for any politician. In that larger sense Howard did have a role in the unfolding of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam, as I think he acknowledges in his comments.
December 1: Comments on this post are now closed.
nothing wrong in saying the Vietnam war was justified.
Indeed it was. Only a moron of the largest order would say the Vietnamese people are better off under Communist control.
I would be interested if he still believes in the domino principle. A theory that only a person who was completely ignorant of both SE Asian history and politics would subscribe to.
“I think in public life you take a position, and I think particularly of the positions I’ve taken in the time I’ve been Prime Minister, I have to live with the consequences and if I ever develop reservations I hope I would have the grace to keep them to myself.�
One of the “consequences” should be facing the frickin music and admitting you made a bad call. ALL OTHER CONSEQUENCES SHOULD FLOW FROM THAT. Otherwise you will never learn.
By all means, maintain that “given the context at the time, yada yada yada…” but FFS, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a ’statesman’ say. Sure, nearly everybody tries to squirm out of responsibility for bad decisions to some degree, but to actually state that as a virtue is just unbelievable.
Better off than what Homer?
Better off than they were under brutal French colonialism?
Better off than they would have been under an ongoing civil war with foreign troops occupying their country and killing their people?
Better off than the people of Iraq?
If you don’t recant when you’re wrong, you can’t complain when people give you no credit when things go right.
I liked Peter Hartcher’s piece in today’s SMH: it was all unprovoked apparently. No wreath, no invocation of our great and brave and resourceful soldiers at Long Tan, not even any crumbs off the table for veterans. Seems like Long Tan was all about him.
Almost 3,000 Iraqis have been killed in the last month.
3,000
Howard is a man who has his own views but will keep them close to his chest if he stands to lose politically because of them. There is nothing about Vietnam that can harm him politically these days so he is free to speak mind about it.
It is quite an insight into the mind of a man who has a very ordered set of values. Politics comes first, his personal views come second and hence he quite pliable when it comes to current political issues that he doesn’t personally agree with. Does anyone really think he cares about global warming? I’d also argue that if the politics of apologising for the stolen generation changed, he’d most likely do that too. People call him the man of steal but he isn’t really at all. He is little more than a populist who will only throw in a comment that he really believes in if the politics is going to be okay for it.
Did he not also support the apartheid regime is South Africa? I wonder what he’d say if he was ever asked about that. I doubt you’d get the same sort of ‘toughness’.
This is the crucial bit:
This is a very cynical method of formulating public policy.
Howard defends the position that:
1. A decision was taken on the basis of erroneous and/or incomplete information.
2. The decision resulted in failure.
3. Lessons were learned from this failure.
4. However, these lessons cannot be acknowledged.
5. To acknowledge mistakes is the greatest mistake of all because acknowledgement of mistakes raises questions about fitness for government.
6. The central goal of government is to protect claims about the fitness for government.
7. Having protected claims about fitness for government, the government is free to pursue its agenda by other means.
8. This freedom enables the government to continue to make decisions that may be on the basis of erroneous and/or incomplete information.
9. Return to Point 1.
John Howard entered parliament in 1974. His first ministerial appointment (for Business and Consumer Affairs) was in December 1975.
It is laughably ignorant of Australian history to assign Howard a “part” in the decision to send Australian forces to Vietnam.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea, “suz”, to do a little background research before you post, to save you such embarrassment?
Howard is of the view that he is only accountable at the ballot box every three years. The single biggest priority is creating a good impression to the electorate and that will involves not admitting error and not being accountable. Makes for shocking government but so long as the facade remains in tact it won’t be a problem.
Paulus John Howard played no part in the decision to send Australian troops to Vietnam. He did, however, activly support Australia’s involvment in Vietnam during the 1960s as President of the NSW Young Liberal Party.
There was a great deal of brutality surrounding the Communist takeover, and the South Vietnamese showed how delighted they were by fleeing in huge numbers. If I remember correctly, it was the largest refugee flow in the world since the end of WW2.
Why don’t you find one of those refugees, and ask them whether there was a case for defending South Vietnam?
There is every reason to think South Vietnam, if it had survived, might have followed a similar trajectory to South Korea. While initially run by an incompetent and brutal dictatorship, South Korea remained in the Western sphere, traded its way into world markets, vastly improved the standard of living, and eventually democratised. I’d take the South Korean model over Vietnam any day.
Killed by criminals.
Australia has a homicide rate of around 300 per year. Would you agree to make John Howard the leader of an Australian dictatorship if this rate doubled? Tripled?
How many deaths per year would make you want him to be supreme ruler of Australia, until he dies or is deposed?
P.S. In suz’s words, Vietnam is “manifestly thriving, though still very much a developing country”. Contrast with South Korea, which is manifestly thriving, and very much a developed country. The difference is that the West did not shamefully abandon the latter.
Paulus, to be thriving you have to be alive. At some point leaders have to decide to end the death and destruction being felt by both sides.
Rough number on the additional Vietnamese deaths you would have been willing to accept Paulus?
And don’t you also think the West abandoned North Korea in the Korean war?
Paulus, I have made an addition to the post based on your first comment.
Paulus is just cross because he lost to the Commies at Stalingrad.
Oh, the ignorance, not to mention blind arrogance of those who advocate the deaths of others for their own ideological commitment.
Go over there and fight for what you believe in did you Paulus?
I doubt it. I’ve known a few Vietnam vets and they all had nothing but contempt for the war and the deluded politicians who sent them.
Only a politician such as Howard who set up his own alternative reality long ago could ignore the truth of this most futile of wars.
Grace here. You called?
Paulus – bollocks.
“At some point leaders have to decide to end the death and destruction being felt by both sides.”
Indeed. The North Vietnamese leaders could have made the decision at any time to end the conflict by ceasing their attacks on SVN.
“Rough number on the additional Vietnamese deaths you would have been willing to accept Paulus?”
Ask a South Vietnamese that question. Let me ask you: if Australia were ever invaded, how many deaths would it be worth to defend Australia? Or would you just capitulate immediately?
“And don’t you also think the West abandoned North Korea in the Korean war?”
Yeah, but getting into a full-scale war with China was the alternative …
In 1974 South Vietnam had the third biggest Airforce in the world.
More than enough to defend their nation, had they wanted to.
Yet, despite the billions spent by the US on “Vietnamisation”, the government of South Vietnam was never capable of organising a viable defence of their regime.
Could it be that the people of South Vietnam made up their own minds about the relative virtues of defending the South Vietnamese regime and unification of their country under communism?
In Vietnam, the US and its allies attempted to intervene in a civil war that had almost been settled before they intervened.
In Iraq, the US and its allies created the conditions for the outbreak of a civil war.
In both cases, superpower ambitions are vitiated by popular loyalties.
Is it too mcu to expect the US and its allies to learn this lesson?
“Go over there and fight for what you believe in did you Paulus?”
Given that I was not then born, the answer is: no.
However, I do have a father who was energetically involved in the Vietnam moratorium movement. I initally assumed that Vietnam was some sort of evil neo-colonialist war, but the more I read about the conflict, the more I came to sympathise with those who were trying to save SVN.
Keep in mind that it was an aggressive war waged by a dictatorship against a flawed, but still viable, state.
Awful strategic and political mistakes were made by the West during that conflict, but that does not remove its essential legitimacy, in my view.
(Which makes me a Nazi, according to ND. Sorry, mate: you’ve just lost the argument. Godwin’s Law strikes again.)
Yeah Katz, I suppose those Vietnamese boatpeople who came streaming into Australia, were, as your hero Gough Whitlam called them, just ‘f***ing Vietnamese balts’.
Some of you really have double standards on race.
You’ve got an appalling grasp of the basic history, Paulus.
International agreements were reached in 1954 for a unification of the two zones of Vietnam. The US refused to sign. Elections across the country were supposed to be held by 1958. The US ensured that they weren’t because all the evidence suggested that Ho Chi Minh would have won across the South as well as the North.
The Ngo family dictatorship that the US propped up had a disgraceful record for imprisoning and killing its opponents, and its level of “democracy” belied the ridiculous comparisons such as LBJ’s quip that Diem was the “Churchill of South East Asia”. Diem systematically destroyed the middle class and intellegentsia who were dissidents, and ran the country as a fiefdom – and an appallingly corrupt one.
To such a degree that the US had to organise his assassination in 1963.
The rest of the 60s were a story of unstable regimes where Generals would mount coups and counter-coups against each other. Buddhist groups and democratic elements were ruthlessly suppressed for their dissidence.
At all times, and particularly in the wake of Tet and Nixon’s Vietnamisation policy, the South Vietnamese army showed neither organisation nor will to fight. The only surprise was that the regime lasted as long as it did. The US had to discipline and/or remove several of its leaders because they were negotiating with the North for a re-unification of the country.
Most of the refugees were either Catholics and/or those who had benefitted from the regime.
All the studies that the US itself conducted showed that the billions of economic aid mostly disappeared into various networks of criminal activity and the pockets of the regime and its supporters. The economy was grossly distorted and collapsing by the early 70s.
LBJ’s “guns and butter” approach also gave the world the most severe economic downturn in the 70s since the Great Depression.
Your comments would be more credible if they displayed even a rudimentary grasp of the historical realities.
Jason, give it a rest.
Here’s a newsflash – despite what C.L. might like to think, not every leftie regards Whitlam as a hero, and none of us here would support his attitude in the 70s towards Vietnamese refugees.
I debated making ND’s comment, Paulus, and now wish I had. It doesn’t make you a Nazi just shows you lack a sense of humour.
Ahem. Have you ever heard of the 1972 Easter Offensive?
“When North Vietnam launched the offensive in 1972 it had every reason to be confident of victory. … However, it was during this offensive that the North Vietnamese failed as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) put up heavy resistance and inflicted much damage on their opponents, the result was a military disaster for North Vietnam.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Offensive
There were no US ground forces in SVN by this time, although I believe the US did provide a substantial amount of air support. Still, the ARVN deserve credit for fighting off a lavishly-equipped North Vietnamese army — but no one remembers the campaign these days.
“Could it be that the people of South Vietnam made up their own minds about the relative virtues of defending the South Vietnamese regime and unification of their country under communism?”
So why did so many of them flee? Really, Katz, I want to know! Why didn’t they just stay and embrace the wonderful future that awaited them under Communist rule?
I’ve just answered that question for you, Paulus.
Both the Iraq and Vietnam wars were and are entirely just so there’s no conceivable reason why Howard would recant. The people who should apologise are the ageing Western leftists who objectively supported (indeed, cheered on) the South-East Asian communist holocaust. Gough Whitlam, who gave the green light to an invasion of East Timor that cost the lives of 500,000 people over two decades (according to the United Nations), is the Australian political leader who should publicly apologise. He was swept along by the same current of foreign policy “realism” that is still espoused today by those who would have preferred to add to the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by sanctions in the 1990s. Following the conviction of Saddam Hussein for war crimes, these morally detestable cretins should apologise for what they were willing to countenance in the name of “stability” and “containment”.
It was Gorton and McMahon who engineered the Australian withdrawal from Vietnam, by the way. Ignoramus Gough Whitlam completed the formalities and brought home the remaining logistics personnel.
So Gorton and McMahon “cut and run” from an “entirely just” war, C.L.? The sell out of the brave and feisty South Vietnamese was actually the Liberals’ fault?
Your partisanship has exposed the lack of logic in your claims.
Hi C.L.
*yawns*
Calling Paulus (as in the German Field Marshall) a Nazi is a bit of a stretch as he was a rather vocal critic of the Nazis after he was captured and released shortly after the war ended.
I feel Paulus (the blogger) was a little keen to pull out Godwins Law in spite of its tenuous relevence.
Evidence from the Cole enquiry, released yesterday, has revealed that the Howard government (via then UN ambassador John Dauth) tipped off the AWB that Australia would join the US in invading Iraq a year before the actual invasion.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/15781
This is getting big very fast. This goes beyond it’s domestic significance about a wheat scandal. It’s significance has dawned on war critics in the US.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/3344
What is coming to be called the Melbourne Papers gives evidence that predates the Downing Street Memos concerning the planned invasion. This implicates Howard, Downer, etc., as war criminals!
The incoming Democratic chairs of the House and Senate agriculture committees in the U.S. have already committed to investigating the AWB’s bribing of Saddam Hussein’s government.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/US-Democrats-to-launch-second-AWB-probe/2006/11/14/1163266510102.html
Huh?
I suppose you mean that you think the opposite. As do I.
It wasn’t the Left that withdrew from Vietnam. It was the Right. Having raised expectations and invited Vietnamese to commit themselves to the continued existence of South Vietnam, the Right pulled the pin on the south Vietnamese. The wimped it.
Mark,
1. The agreement to hold elections and unify Vietnam was not signed by SVN. SVN was entitled to repudiate it, particularly since it had legitimate concerns about how fair the elections would be in the North. (Do you think Ho would have got 100.0% of the votes, or just 99.9%?)
2. Yeah, SVN was run by a brutal and incompetent regime. That doesn’t mean it deserved to be conquered. Like other Asian dictatorships in the Western sphere (Sth Korea, Taiwan, Suharto’s Indonesia), SVN would probably have achieved economic growth and eventually democratised.
3. Yeah, the US made many mistakes, including the economics of financing the war. I’m not defending every decision taken by the West during the War.
4. “At all times, and particularly in the wake of Tet and Nixon’s Vietnamisation policy, the South Vietnamese army showed neither organisation nor will to fight.” Do a little reading about the 1972 Easter Offensive … you might be surprised.
Gee Mark, I didn’t see that one coming. They withdrew over time (not peremptorily) and their decision reflected the new strategy of working towards an international modus vivendi rather than waiting for some kind of country-wide capitulation. Cutting and running is the Murtha/Latham/Beazley policy of packing up and skedaddling from Dodge in a heartbeat.
Your partisanship has exposed the lack of logic in your claims.
Well nice try but speaking of dodge, you’ve avoided the blood-soaked history of foreign policy “realism” which you continue to support. And very Whitlamesque of you to ridicule the “brave and feisty South Vietnamese”.
If we were to grant they were and are entirely just, we would still be confronted with the fact that neither was or is winnable.
Is it good policy to fight unwinnable wars?
So C.L – how are you these days? What are you listening to music wise?
Do you agree that Jason Soon’s
irrational fan’s lovereasoned appreciation of Dylan almost excuses him anything?And the Bring Back C.L’s Blog thing – is it a grassroots movement as such or an astro turf job sponsored by the a bunch of NCC militants holed up in the Blue Mountains?
Just as well we have iron man Dear Leader at the helm now. Those wishy washy Liberals had a tendency to cut and run before he came along.
And since you brought up the subject of race Jason Soon, it’s always interesting the way in which some people can so casually accept the deaths of hundreds and thousands of their fellow human beings, as long as they live a long way away and are of a different ethnic origin.
The CIA estimated 80% in a fair election in the South.
ND … erm, yes … I get the reference to Stalingrad now! It was dumb of me not to see it immediately. I withdraw the Godwin comment.
I am starting to feel like Field Marshal von Paulus, with the array of hostile commenters that have surrounded me. Fortunately, I see C.L. approaching in the distance with the panzer relief forces.
Is it good policy to fight unwinnable wars?
A question better put to Gough Whitlam who signed off on a “war” that killed half a million people and which ended with John Howard leading the clean-up operation.
The left also believed the Cold War was “unwinnable”. Indeed, the foreign policy “realists” in Bush the Elder’s administration didn’t want to marginalise Gorbechev by dealing with Yeltsin. My, they were so realistic!
Then we won the Cold War.
(Which was “unwinnable”).
Except, Paulus, that the C.L. panzer division seems to think Gough Whitlam is the target to be aimed at.
It was a civil war Paulus. Catholics, professionals, people whose livelihood depended upon living off the billions of dollars expended by the US in South Vietnam ran. So would I.
Here’s a parallel:
About 300,000 out of 3,000,000 residents in the United States fled that country out of loyalty to Britain and/or fear of reprisal and/or actual reprisal.
I won’t ask you why they didn’t stay to embrace the wonderful future awaiting them in the new-minted United States of America.
I won’t ask that question because it is an ignorant, dumb, unimaginative and unempathetic question.
(Oh, gosh. re-reading your post, I notice that you did ask that question. No offence intended Paulus.)
That’s the fate of people who find themselves on the losing side of a civil war, whether it’s against communism, or against American republicanism.
The Paris Peace accords committed North Vietnam to not invading the South (which nobody in the South believed) and the US to defending the South in the event they did so. Predictably, the North invaded, but the US — because the Democrats controlled Congress, and cut off all funding — reneged on its commitment. President Thieu had no doubt what had happened — he bitterly castigated the US for having betrayed South Vietnam, which indeed they had. 25 years of misery and oppression followed, as the socialists sought to replicate in the south the gulag state Ho had created in the North.
On the subject of targets, Mark, how come you’re so implacably critical of a war started by US Democrat presidents (started from the perspective of US involvement, I mean)?
As you must be aware, JFK and LBJ were no far right-wing ideologues, they weren’t playing some grand game to take over the world for capitalism — they were just responding to what they saw as Communist aggression.
Surely you have some sympathy for their predicament? During the Cold War, should the West have cheerfully stood by and done nothing as one Third World state after another was taken over by Communists? (And don’t respond that the West won in the end, because this wasn’t obvious at the time …)
Also, I was under the impression that the majority of refugees were ethnic Chinese, who didn’t flee so much as were expelled, in an early example of ethnic cleansing. (Could be wrong about that, memory being what it is.)
“On the subject of targets, Mark, how come you’re so implacably critical of a war started by US Democrat presidents (started from the perspective of US involvement, I mean)?”
If I might presume to speak for Mr Bahnisch, perhaps it’s because he’s not a craven apologist for anything “his” side of politics has ever done.
They did just that when the tanks rolled into Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
…
The ‘West’ didn’t win the Cold War. The citizens of now-ex Communist countries are the genuine winners, and they’re still winning it—just ask the people who run in elections against Putin.
Spot on, FDB. And thanks.
Paulus – Ho wasn’t a “Moscow line” communist – if you read about the history of the Viet Minh, initially his movement was more nationalist than Marxist – as FDR realised, but subsequent US policy pushed it to a harder line.
South Vietnam was an artificial neo-colonial creation. Have a look at the power structure – only a very small percentage of its population benefitted from its existence. Basically a French speaking bureaucratic elite was swapped for Diem’s mob and the criminal sects.
I would have thought one’s emotion in this situation is entirely immaterial.
Which countries in the Third World went communist mostly because of foreign intervention?
Vietnam is an ambiguous one because the division between North and South had nothing to do with the desires and aspirations of the majority of Vietnamese. If the South had been victorious they would have pressed for anti-communist unification of all of Vietnam.
Every other communist victory in the Third World was overwhelmingly of domestic inspiration, although funded and armed by either China or the USSR, or both.
Gough’s not here, man.
And had nothing to do with the question.
Mark — Ho was an agent of the Comintern from 1921-2 until his return to Vietnam, as Stalin’s agent, in 1941. He assignment was clear: create a Soviet-style socialist republic in whatever bits of Vietnam you can get your hands on.
Despite his celebrated confrontation with Woodrow Wilson at Versailles, the idea that Ho was more of a nationalist than a communist is a myth. He left Vietnam in 1911, at a time when the anti-colonial movement in Vietnam was burgeoning (i.e. he played no part in it) and did not return for 30 years. Most of the time was spent fomenting revolution in Asia for the Comintern.
Rob, the Communist activity in the South only started when it became clear that the terms of the Paris Peace Accords relating to unification wouldn’t be delivered on. Even so, most of the Viet Cong were South Vietnamese and Ho tried to restrain them, in the hope that elections could still be held. It really wasn’t until the mid 60s that the North Vietnamese exercised active control over the Viet Cong, and “invaded” – which is an inapplicable term, as it was a civil war within one country.
People should take the ideological blinkers off, and actually look at the history. Howard’s obviously picked up on a trend – it’s still a political football primarily useful to bash TEH LEFT with after all these years.
Katz. Can’t. Even. Read. Wiki. Properly.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Katz: “About 300,000 out of 3,000,000 residents in the United States fled that country out of loyalty to Britain and/or fear of reprisal and/or actual reprisal.”
Wiki: “The vast majority of the Loyalists (300,000 to 400,000) remained in America during and after the war. … Following the end of the Revolution in 1783, Loyalist (especially soldiers and former officials) could choose evacuation. An estimated 70,000 Loyalists, about 3% of the total American population, left the thirteen states.”
Rob, if that’s the case, he wasn’t a particularly faithful agent. And it’s odd that Stalin didn’t want him to seize power – the USSR was pushing the same line as in China – first co-operate with bourgeois democratic forces.
Gotta go – meetings to attend.
Say hi to Bono for me.
Katz. Can’t. Even. Read. Wiki. Properly.
Katz lied, people sighed.
Which was ultimately swapped for a Communist bureaucratic elite.
Have a look at the power structure in any Communist country – only a very small percentage of its population benefit from its existence.
Plus ca change, as the French say.
I can live with 70,000.
My point still stands.
True up to a point, Mark. The South did not want to unify with the North, at least not on its terms, and who could blame them. They’d watched what happened in similarly-divided Korea, remember. Recall also that fully a million people fled from the North to the South when Ho took over in 1954. They were under no illusion as to what was coming down, and they were right.
Howard would have to be the last man standing in favour of the Vietnam war. This is typical of him – crowing for the Vietnam war at a time when he was old enough to enlist – and didn’t. Now he is standing poker straight for the Iraq war and handled it so that no Australian soldiers have lost their lives – as lives lost means votes of course. Don’t you just love these chicken-hawks?
Megan, Howard was unfit for enlistment – having both hearing and speech impediments.
Related: for the latest must read in lefty history incompetence, read Alan Dershowitz on a new book by Jimmy Carter, the worst President in American history.
“
Robert McNamara.
“…handled it so that no Australian soldiers have lost their lives…”
Err — this is a bad thing?
C.L. — yes, I caught a similar review by Dershowitz in the New York Sun.
Paulus I am afraid I find your South Korea comparison a bit hard to swallow. During the Korean war (and for quite a while afterwards) South Korea was indeed a political and military mess just like South Vietnam.
Defending South Korea and defending South Vietnam, however, were very different propositions indeed. After working it’s way back to the 38th parallel in 1951 the UN forces in Korea set up a militarily defensible line. For the remainder of the war warfare was, for the most part, static.
In South Vietnam, on the other hand, the US and it’s allies had to contend with a tenacious insurgency operating throughout South Vietnam as well as some areas of neighboring Laos whilst keeping the NVA at bay. This is much more ambitious proposition, and one that is much less viable in the long term.
The trigger for the boatpeople was an economic crisis after the war and the persecution of the Chinese minority by the government as a prelude to the Vietnam/China War. Much of the Vietnamese disapora is dominated by figures who supported the southern regime. When I worked in the CES in Foostcray I had to deal with some. I particularly remember one rather unpleasant man, a former police chief, who wrote under the “Skills and Attributes” section on a proforma resume: “detecting suspected Communists under the Prevention of Communism Act”.
Most, however, were economic refugees, or, if they were Chinese (a significant component) fleeing ethnic persecution rather than “Communism”.
Through my wife’s family (ethnic Chinese from the north) I’ve met many who hate the US, the Southern Regime AND the Current Regime. My wife refuses to go into restaurants or groceries in Footscray when they display the South Vietnamese flag.
The two facts that can’t be escaped are:
1. The southern regime was a vicious dictatorship, whatever you think of the regime in the north. And I can add to this that my in-laws, who owe no favours to the VCP, will attest to the popularity of the war in the north.
2. The south lost. With tons of equipment. Regimes don’t lose wars when they have better military equipment unless there is no will to fight. Why was their no will? Because the regime sucked. As a Vietnamese co-worker of mine once said, after a nasty interview with an arrogant ex ARVN officer: “You see these old bastards in Footscray sitting around boasting about how big they were. I feel like saying to them: ‘If it was so good how come you lost big man’.” This from a southerner who was a boat person and hated the Communists.
I sincerely hope that the Vietnamese working class will rise up against the nasty regime that runs their country. I’m glad that the equally nasty regime that used to run the south collapsed. I’m even gladder that the US got a bloody nose and pulled their head in for a couple of decades saving the world from God knows how many bloody interventions like Iraq is currently experiencing.
Chris, my understanding is that the “tenacious insurgency” had more or less shot its bolt during the Tet offensive of 1968-69, and thereafter the war was largely fought against formed NVA units infiltrating from the North or directly attacking across the border.
I hesitate to again cite wiki, but this accords with what I have read elsewhere: “The Viet Cong’s operational forces were effectively crippled by the [Tet] Offensive. Many Viet Cong who had been operating under cover in the cities of South Vietnam revealed themselves during the Offensive and were killed or captured. The organization was preserved for propaganda purposes, but in practical terms the Viet Cong were finished.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive
And in the end, of course, it was not the insurgency that did in SVN, but the NVA armoured divisions.
“I sincerely hope that the Vietnamese working class will rise up against the nasty regime that runs their country.”
There’s no need, Robert. Vietnam is in the process of pulling itself out of the mire it’s endured for 25 years as a result of generational change at the top and the adoption of capitalist principles in managing the economy. In other words, it’s doing what both China and India are doing: ditching the socialist model in favour of the market.
…with predictable results.
Eventually, a serious challenger emerges!
Robert B confirms that many on the left still despise the Vietnamese boat people for spoiling the narrative of a North Vietnamese “liberation” of the South.
Also, it’s a bit of a myth to think that the NLF was a popular resistance movement indigenous to the south. From the outset it was armed and equipped by the PAVN via the well-known Ho Chi Minh Trail, which provided a reliable supply route to the south (although most of the actual Trail ran through neighbouring Laos).
Paulus I must admit that my knowledge of the later stages of the Vietnam war is not as good as it should be. It is my understanding that following the Tet offensive the Vietcong did continue to opperate in South Vietnam, but at much reduced strengh and with many more northerners among its numbers than before. None the less your point that “in the end, of course, it was not the insurgency that did in SVN, but the NVA armoured divisions” is none the less a fair one to make.
It does, however, strike me as a point made with the benefit of hindsight. At the time when escelation was taking place I believe that the Vietcong was well and truly opperational and that the strategic situation I described earlier did exist, and thus my point that the situation was very different to Korea stands.
CL you can come off it. The notion that many on the left and centre-left are sympathetic to communism is one of the more obnoxious and threadbare canards I have had the displeasure of being subject to.
I was three when the Soviet Union collapsed. I have no sympathy for communism whatsoever.
“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft”
Did he raise this in a meeting with Bono?
Chris, the real difference between the Korean and Vietnamese experience was the strategies adopted. Kim Il Sung went for a frontal invasion from without — which came very close to success during the first offensive. Ho took a different path, cultivating an ‘indigenous’ liberation movement to undermine the South from within.
Ultimately this was unsuccessful, as Paulus said above, because the Viet Cong were crushed during the Tet Offensive. However, when Congress cut off all funding for operations in Vietnam — preventing even the re-supply of ammunition to the South — the North seized the opportunity to do what Kim had tried to do: re-unification by force (that is, invasion and conquest).
Second worst President of the last quarter century:
“Nah – let him go. He won’t be a prob.”
– Bill Clinton on Osama bin Laden (apocryphal).
Communism didn’t merely collapse, Chris.
It was defeated by the United States.
And the left gave enthusiastic support to the emerging Stalinists of South-East Asia. Even today, many leftists continue to admire Castro and psychopathic torture fetishist, Che Guevara – amongst others.
CL, can you please specify exactly when, where and how “communism was defeated by the United States”?
I was under the impression that Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the USSR collapsed due to a widespread people power movement resulting from public dissatisfaction combined with internal corruption and massive and unsustainable military spending.
While this may be partly attributatable to the United States’ own massive military spending, the actions of the other NATO countries and the wider Western hemisphere surely must also have played a part.
If “communism” has been defeated, how do you explain China, Cuba and Vietnam?
Worst President in history (and the one responsible for today’s new and shiny Cuban torture regime LOL):
“We will fight international terrorism by invading Iraq” (possibly apocryphal, but accurate).
“Mission accomplished” (verbatim)
Wow, this is fun! Let’s play quote-a-dope!
Speaking of the Vietnam-Iraqanalogy, there’s one person who sees a direct and very clear connection: Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbollah.
Nasrallah expects the US to bail out of Iraq in the same way it exited Vietnam, and he may well be right. The signs are the same: a deeply unpopular and purportedly ‘unwinnable’ war, rising US casualties, and the President faced with a hostile Congress. Cutting off all funding for the war has already been mooted by some Democrats, though it is not the party’s settled position. If they do, the analogy with Vietnam would be more or less exact.
Moderated — and I didn’t even use the “r” word this time.
[Yes, moderated --- but not actively. You tripped on the filter somehow. Not everything is a conspiracy against you. ---RC.]
I wouldn’t necessarily say it was unsucessful then. Unsucessful militarily, certainly, but getting turfed out of a country (as you mentioned almost happened in Korea) isn’t the only way to lose a war. A nation can also lose a war if it’s people or leaders consider the benefits and the likelyhood of victory and then decide that pursuing victory is no longer worth the blood and treasure.
“Wow, this is fun! Let’s play quote-a-dope!”
This is fun.
Communism indisputably is one of the most evil movements in history.
I note that all those who are suggesting in here that leaving people of a certain country (say Vietnam) to suffer under communism, is somehow honourable, defensible, or even admirable, have not chosen to live in such a country.
I suggest anyone who believes anything other than the peoples of Cuba, Vietnam etc have got the rough end of the stick in life is either joking with us, or is absolutely clueless.
Chris, I think it’s a question of political capital rather than blood or treasure. Let’s face it, politicians are cynical souls. There was no political mileage in staying the distance in Vietnam. The politics of doing so was entirely negative. Kissinger’s task was to get America out behind a fig leaf. All the political positives were in getting out. The US basically had to blackmail Thieu into signing the accord because he knew (and somewhere wrote) that he was signing the South’s death warrant. And so it transpired. By then the US just didn’t care (the US in the sense of Congress and the public — Ford still tried to do the right thing and honour his end of the deal).
We are at a similar point in Iraq. All the political advantage lies in getting out: there is none in staying. Bush and Blair are both lame duck leaders, and their successors are not going to pick up their tainted inheritance.
If the US is similarly ‘defeated’ in Iraq, as seems all too likely, the consequences will dwarf the fallout from Vietnam. They are almost unimaginable.
Yep. Own goal by Plonker Bush.
Lots of us “Traitors” have been saying this since before the invasion.
Welcome to the Reality Based Community Rob.
(You very quickly get used to being called a traitor because the people who call you a traitor have no insight, no class and no credibility.)
“If the US is similarly ‘defeated’ in Iraq, as seems all too likely, the consequences will dwarf the fallout from Vietnam. They are almost unimaginable.”
Yes, indeed. Perversely, the consequences would be worse because there is no one power like the NVA that would quickly conquer the entire place. Sunnis would ramp up the suicide-bombing of Shi’ites, who would respond with ethnic cleansing, which would draw in Sunni jihadists from throughout the Islamic world, etc. bloody etc.
We need the world centre-left to put aside its desperate need to humiliate George Bush, and focus on salvaging Iraq. Pray for the good judgement of the Blue Dogs.
WTF? Vietnam revisionism? Why can’t you losers acknowledge that this was a classic case of Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time?
Get over the fact that it was the second example (Korea being the first) of fairly serious limitations on the imposition of the US imperium by military force.
The lessons from Vietnam are many, not least of which is that you can’t go on endlessly pouring lives and treasure into a failed cause.
What you’re ultimately bunging up as serious propositions are the somewhat discredited hypotheses of the ’stab in the back’ and ‘we actually won’ so reminiscent of certain failed general during the Weimar Republic.
Get over it. If you want to fuck John Howard, arrange to meet him in a Canberra dunny.
No need for Lefties to do this. All we can do is watch in awe a truly professional display of self-humiliation.
Just like in Vietnam, it is the Right who cut and run.
Then they blame the Left.
I don’t think you’re quite understanding my point, Katz. The US could and should have won in Vietnam. Iraq is a similarly difficult conflict, compounded by the necessity of forging some kind of acceptable (to all parties) government before disengaging. Difficult, but still do-able.
The causes of the defeat, if it happens, will lie in the erosion of political will. So far, the US has sustained relatively light casualties, and its military are fighting well against implacable and incredibly vicious enemies. It will take longer and be more bloody than anticipated. As with Vietnam, it is at home that the war will be lost.
It is because of the vast consequences of defeat that the US and the Coalition should keep fighting until they win. But politicians with an eye to the polls and with elections of one sort or another continually on the horizon are unlikely to take the longer view. Howard is holding the line for Australia, but he is politically much more secure than Bush or Blair, and in any case our commitment is rather more symbolic than substantive (though not the less important for that).
I refuse to make a substantive point in a thread as developed as this
but I will pause to comment that it is rarely possible to make great decisions in policy when that policy framewrok has been f’d up for years.
In relation to this subject it is interesting that the defenders of the Vietnam war want to only consider the decisions that could be made in the early ’70s, when it is pretty clear that the decisions that this bloc made from the late ’50s through til then were pretty appalling.
And I should have won Tattlotto.
I understand your point Rob.
The fact that US belligerence is dwindling away was entirely predictable and it was not countered by any effective action on the home front.
What’s so mysterious about this?
Quite agree, Paulus.
Katz:
“Just like in Vietnam, it is the Right who cut and run.”
But it wasn’t. It was the Democrat-controlled Congress that shut off all funding for Vietnam, and over-rode Ford’s veto of the Foreign Assistance Act.
Any way, gotta ‘cut and run’ myself.
I am not sure of any single lines of argumentation in this thread, but just a reminder that four years after the US withdrew from Vietnam, China invaded to have its turn at being soundly defeated. It was a major crisis for the PLA and for the CCP generally, although one which largely gave impetus to the post-Mao “reformers” who proceeded to privatise a lot of the PLA’s activities. That’s when the PLA got into running casinos in Macao and making washing machines.
The Chinese invasion makes a mockery of most of the arguments which saw Vietnam in the broader context of global communism.
“I don’t think you’re quite understanding my point, Katz. The US could and should have won in Vietnam.”
Sure Rob. You’re confusing ‘why could, and why should’ with wishful thinking.
I think the simple facts of history prove you wrong on both points:
You really are a bit of a doofus.
How anyone in good conscience could defend the communist regime in Vietnam is beyond me but we have people willing to do it.
Quite extraordinary really given we know the history of the regime.
How anyone in good conscience could defend the communist regime in Vietnam is beyond me but we have people willing to do it.
And you donned the baggy green camo when exactly?
The sins of our enemy are no excuse for our own.
“If “communismâ€? has been defeated, how do you explain China, Cuba and Vietnam?”
You forgot North Korea which is as perfect an incarnation of the collective wisdom of Lenin, Stalin and Mao as can be imagined.
Anyone who thinks that China or Vietnam are “communist” in anything other than name only is seriously delusional. Both have seriously embraced the market. They remain political dictatorships but the party has traded off failed Marxist-Leninist economic theory in order to remain in power. Cuba’s brand of Copacabana Communism – heavily reliant on a Fidel personality cult – is unlikely to withstand his imminent demise.
The collapse of the Soviet bloc had multiple causes but Mikhael Gorbachev’s glasnot and perestroika – an acknowledgement of the utter failure of Marxism-Leninism – coupled with Reagan’s abandonment of detente and the clear and manifest evidence that the grey, constricting, monotony of “socialist reality” was a cruel monotone facsimile in comparison with the other side of the Wall, formed the precursors to the people power movement. The latter began only after the pieces had moved into alignment.
In essence, no-one “won” the Vietnam War (in effect, a proxy war between two global power blocs) – but the Americans certainly lost it. The VietCong were mercilessly subsumed by the NVA, a million Vietnamese fled the country and the Hanoi government was faced with a blasted economy with only the clapped out rhetoric of Marxist theory to fix it.
No wonder they’ve abandoned it.
What we all learned in Vietnam is that liberal democracy in the modern era will never sustain the human cost of war. Carnage – beamed to us electronically – is too high a price to pay. Why this never occurred to the Bush administration remains a mystery. It seems – unbelievably – that they thought the Iraqis would simply become New Englanders in Kaffiyehs, trooping off to town meetings to elect selectmen and debate garbage collection arrangements.
In truth, all that needs to happen now is for the body count to be upped in particularly horrific and graphic ways and liberal democracy’s opponents (who tend to have much more stomach for this kind of thing) win.
Rob’s right. When Congress withdrew funding, the Vietnam war was over. You can argue about whether this amounts to a military defeat for the US in strict terms, but it was certainly a major foreign policy disaster and it resonates with the current debacle in Iraq in a particularly devastating way.
Poor old Righties.
Grinding their teeth in impotent rage at yet another example of the failure of intellect and will of their heroes-of-choice.
By now some serious questions have to be asked about the toxic co-dependence of the Australian Right and US military adventurers.
Does the Australian Right want and need to be let down? Are they addicted to the hormone rush they experience when they suffer disappointment?
Do the right need to wallow in self pity, eating chocolate ice-cream out of a tub and blubbering about how “all military adventurers are bastards”.
Will the Right ever break out of this pathetic pattern of neediness?
Will they ever meet Mr Right?
Have they ever tried retail therapy?
Bulldust, the war was lost when the Paris Peace Accords were signed by Kissinger.
And President Thieu of South Vietnam knew it.
The Right cut and ran.
Geoff, I reckon you’re as full of crap as SATP.
“Geoff, I reckon you’re as full of crap as SATP.”
Christine, you’re about as full of pointless personal abuse as might be expected.
“The Right cut and ran.”
There was certainly a bunch of cutting and running going on, Katz, but I’m not sure that it was as ideologically clearcut as all that.
GH, what on earth does “ideology” have to do with cutting and running?
When Kissinger, in utter bad faith, lied to Thieu to get him to agree to signing the Peace Accords, privately he called the process of leaving South Vietnam in the lurch “an elegant bug-out”.
Now you can spin the gossamer of ideology as much as you like over those words, but in the world of action:
“elegant bug-out” = “cut and run”.
The Right cut and ran.
The key point is that they should never have been there in the first place. And ‘we’ should never have gone in to Iraq in the first place. To now be told that we have to stay there in order to save face for the USA is laughable. (Well, it would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting.)
“GH, what on earth does “ideologyâ€? have to do with cutting and running?”
Katz, I kind of thought you might be able to offer some insight into that given your mantra-like recitation of “the Right.”
The Congress that effectively ended the war was hardly “Right.”
I’ve got no problem with your “cutting and running” description, but this insistence that it was all about “the Right” isn’t quite how I remember it.
Who, suz? Who has told you that we have to stay in Iraq “in order to save face for the USA”? A politician? A blogger? The little owl that whispers secrets in your ear while you sleep? Who?
A number of people think we should stay in Iraq to do our best to give the country a future — see the ‘Pottery Barn rule’ — and to try to stabilise the Middle East.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule
But I’ve never heard anyone saying we should do it to save face for Uncle Sam.
Geoff, of course, I accidentally left out the best (worst?) example of Communism, thanks for reminding me of it. The rhetorical point that I was making was simply that the ideology of “communism” still exists and wasnt “defeated” by the USA as an earlier poster had claimed. Ultimately the thing which will see its demise, whenever that occurs, is the authoritarian nature of the Police state which is required to maintain that kind of social control in the first place.
People ultimately yearn for freedom and self-determination, its a basic need. A social system which is supposedly based on equal sharing odf wealth, but requires dictatorial powers to maintain it, and then doesnt even deliver on its basic promises (inevitably due to human corruption) is doomed to failure eventually. This will likely be North Koreas fate.
As to Iraq? I am still speculating what the defining image of the US involvement there will be. In Vietnam it is that immortal photo of the last helicopter on the roof of the US embassy, with people scrambling to get aboard before it leaves. For Iraq, it could well come to be that sinister picture of the hooded prisoner at Abu Grahib. Both are images representing failure of different kinds, but probably for similar reasons.
John Howard told me so.
“It would be an enormous blow to American prestige and it serves us nothing to see America humiliated, particularly given the importance of the US in our region with all the challenges we face with countries like North Korea,” he said.
Geoff, Katz is perhaps referring to the actions of a certain Mr R.M. Nixon, a notable conservative politician, in trying to feed the US Constitution through a shredder.
As a Mr G. Ford observes, the amusing shenanigans at a Washington hotel somewhat distracted the US legislators from their duty to bolster SVN.
“GERALD FORD: Watergate was a factor in the attitude of our Congress in supplying the necessary military funds to strengthen the South Vietnamese army, navy, air force and marines. Watergate had a very adverse impact on the Nixon capability of getting Congress to cooperate.”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-16/ford1.html
It’s been fun. Night all. I’ll convince you lot one day of the righteousness of sending in the Marines.
Geez, GH, I thought you might mount a challenging argument.
The Dem Congress just happened to be there at the very end.
A parallel:
Just the same way the new German Republic oversaw the end of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Great War.
You see, Kaiser Wilhelm cut and ran too.
Now you wouldn’t blame the New German Republic for losing the Great War, would you?
Why not observe the persuasiveness of the parallel?
So be consistent for your own sake, if not for the sake of the reality-based community.
Suz: OK, fair enough. I stand corrected. I’m actually quite surprised Howard said that so blatantly.
Don’t blame me — I voted for Kodos.
Katz,
Will you marry me?
Shorter Rob: I support Pol Pot.
Now let’s establish some facts:
1. In 1974 Congress didn’t stop aid. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. This was still a lot of money.
2. It is true that the cut had a significant effect on morale. However, corruption was rife in the SVN Army. And it is doubtful that any amount of money would have been sufficient to bribe south Vietnamese soldiers to defend their own country.
3. Therefore, nothing short of a recommitment of US troops would have been sufficient to save South Vietnam. And where were the voices on the American Right calling for that in 1974?
4. When the North Vietnamese invaded, Thieu panicked. He gave up half the country, causing chaos: “If [the U.S.] grant full aid we will hold the whole country, but if they only give half of it, we will only hold half of the country.�
No, nothing less than a major continued commitment of foreign troops could have saved South Vietnam.
And we all know that the Right withdrew these crucial troops from South Vietnam.
The Right cut and ran.
PS, Alex, only if you are woman enough for me.
Well that’s right Katz. But as I suggested a couple of posts back the final outcome of the misadventure was US and Australian support for the Khmer Rouge.
At which point CL, Rob and BBCLB disappear up their own fundaments and fall mysteriously silent.
Fear not, Geoff. The Council of Trent taking place in Trieste is not how ecclesiastical historians remember that either. Throw something as complex as the Vietnam War into a conversation and Katz will end up telling you the Paris Peace Accords were signed in Lithgow.
pre-dawn leftist, the cowardly Western left militated for years for unilateral disarmament in Europe. They believed the Cold War was “unwinnable” – just as today’s foreign policy “realists” believe fighting terrorists is unwinnable. They believed – effectively – in surrendering to the Soviets. Thankfully, Reagan and Thatcher thought otherwise.
What remains of communism today is a small island/museum whose buffoonish leader is about to cark it, a coupla states that have ditched communism for one-party corporatism and a single autarkic basket-case – North Korea – about which, unfortunately, the Clinton administration drank a toast I like to remember as Mission Accomplished!
In the most significant moral-cultural victory of modern history – the triumph of the West (and particularly the United States) over communism – the Western left played no substantive role.
It’s always interesting that the narratives of the Right write ordinary people out of history. As Liam observed a long time ago on this thread, the biggest cause of the fall of Soviet Marxism was the people of the Soviet Union. Reagan may as well have stayed at his ranch and eaten jelly beans for all the difference he made.
Rob et al have failed to acknowlege that well known maxim of International Property Law that I posted previously:
There’s a new one from International Tort Law as well:
As always, Peter provides the authentic screech of the moonbat.
It’s always interesting that the narratives of the Right write ordinary people out of history.
A bit like the way the narratives of the left ridicule Vietnamese refugees as greedy economic wannabes and the “ordinary people” of Iraq as having no right to expect anything other than state terrorism (which lefty badge engineering sells as “stability”). As for the “ordinary people” of Sudan, for example, they have to die to uphold the UN’s commitment to “realism” and “international law”. No lefties march for their cause because there isn’t a legitimate rationale for wheeling out a giant BusHitler puppet.
There have been a lot of marches in the US regarding Darfur, C.L.
‘The RIGHT killed 2 million Vietnamese!’
‘The LEFT cut and run!’
You’re all wrong, Vietnam means we should support my politics!
Reagan may as well have stayed at his ranch & eaten jellybeans?
Are you kidding or completely off your rocker.
Interestingly, that mindset is never found amongst those who contribute to freedom, democracy, or a better way of life.
“Don’t blame me — I voted for Kodos.”
Gold!
Iraq a moral blunder, says war hero
How many more fleas are there on this dead dog?
Christine, I had to depart this fine thread to go earn my living, if that’s all right with you.
Katz — the Foreign Assistance Act cut off all military funding to South Vietnam in December 1974. That meant that Nixon could not fulfil his part of the deal he made with Thieu, which was deployed to bully the South into agreeing to the Accords.
But in a sense you are right. Kissinger negotiated a fig leaf behind which Nixon could unilaterally withdraw while retaining some shreds of respectability. Whether either Kissinger or Nixon were serious about their side of the bargain is I suppose moot. But it was they who engineered the pull-out. However, they did so after years of strident unrelenting pressure from the American and international left to do just that. Left to themselves (ha ha!) they would probably have pressed on and achieved a better outcome for the South Vietnamese, even if not outright defeat of the North, than turned out to be the case.
You’re right, too, that Thieu knew very well what portended, as I’ve said in a couple of comments above. When the US failed to deliver on its commitments, he bitterly remarked: Does the word of America mean nothing any more? (OWTTE). The Accords committed both sides to pursuit of reunification through peaceful means. Thieu knew the North would never hold to that, and sure enough,and coincident with the FAA being passed, the North launched a ‘test’ attack on Phuoc Lan to see if the US would re-commit militarily. They did not, so Hanoi gave the order for the final offensives.
By then Nixon was gone, anyway, and the left had achieved its victory through the right (how’s that for irony?). No-one cared much about Vietnam after that until the Vietnamese started to irritate the likes of Whitlam by fleeing the place in their hundreds of thousands.
What does this mean, CK?
“Shorter Rob: I support Pol Pot.”
Are you trying to be Robert Manne to my Keith Winsdchuttle?
Thanks Rob. that’s a fair summation of the case.
I’d simply add that the chance for a viable South Vietnam evaporated in early 1968 when Johnson’s new, and hawkish, Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, consulted the “Wise Men”, members of the American corporate elite, on the question of continuing to fund the Vietnam War by surrendering to French demands that the trade imbalance between the US and france be paid for, not with the greenback, but with transfers of US gold reserves.
The Wise Men recoiled at the idea. Johnson was at first inclined to use US gold reserves to fund the war. Clifford explained his role:
David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest:
The Right cut and ran in 1968, not in 1973.
Still working my way backward through the thread to see what I missed.
Mark wrote:
“….the biggest cause of the fall of Soviet Marxism was the people of the Soviet Union. Reagan may as well have stayed at his ranch and eaten jelly beans for all the difference he made.”
I’m not so sure, Mark. I was in Poland recently and the folks there swear that it was Pope John Paul II who catalysed the fall of Communism. They argue that without the enormous moral boost that the Polish people got from the election of a Polish Pope — and, boy, is he a huge iconic figure in Poland — there would never have been Solidarity. Without Solidarity, there would not have been glasnost and perestroika. Without those, no fall of the Berlin Wall. Without that, no fall of the socialist satellites.
Now, that probably needs to be subjected to some chronological and empirical work, but on its face it looks plausible.
And as Geoff said, Reagan’s abandonment of detente, the which summed up a generation of western passivity to the old USSR, and his ‘evil empire’ rhetoric (together with similar stuff from Thatcher) sent a powerful signal to the people of the USSR and the satellites that the west had taken a new moral course and was not going to forget them — quite the opposite to the old message.
And it was powerful. According to Natan Sharansky, imprisoned as a dissident at the time, prisoners in the Gulag typed out the words of Reagan’s speech on the walls of their cells to spread the word that at last the west had understood.
Typed=tapped, sorry.
Christopher Andrew, author of the Mitrokhin Archive, the most intimate insight into the soviet security state, dismisses this argument.
Certainly, the Polish secret service was very concerned about the influence of Rome. However, JPII did not exercise the KGB at all. Rather, they were fixated on stopping western popular culture seeping into the Soviet Union. The people of the Soviet Union, according to the KGB, were only dimly aware of what was going on in Poland. They were much more concerned with events in Afghanistan.
Thus, it is probably true to say that Osama bin Laden played a bigger part in the fall of the Soviet Union than Pope John Paul II.
Ironic, huh?
But the KGB was really worried about Michael Jackson.
Bizarre, but true.
Yes, but, Katz, at the risk of boringly repeating myself, they did so because the left had, over the decade prior, destroyed any political advantage that might have accrued from staying the distance. In disengaging, Nixon was acceding to the left’s agenda,albeit for his own reasons (he was only a politician, after all).
In any event, I think it is difficult to contest empirically but what the South Vietnamese were far worse off under the communists than under the admittedly unlovely regime they replaced.
Also — I’d agree with ‘74, but not ‘68. Nixon was a whole other animal to Johnson.
Katz, re Mitrokhin: that could be because the KGB rather took their eye off the ball, though. The KGB probably thought the slave states were so subservient they would revolt. In any case, Solidarity was ‘ostensibly’ defanged by Jaruselski’s proclamation of martial law in 1981. Nonetheless, the movement re-emerged to win the elections of 1989. Interestingly, although Jaruselski was vilified at the time, there seems to be a consensus in today’s Poland that martial law was a far lesser evil than calling in the Soviet tanks, and contained a sub-text of tacit support for Solidarity.
I have the book and must re-visit that argument, which I don’t recall.
Oh dear. Would obviously = would not. Sorry to take up so much bandwidth.
That’s politics in a free society.
It is the responsibility of governments to do all in their power to reinforce unity of national purpose.
The Vietnam War was popular in 1965. In fact, opposition to the Vietnam War was a minority position until after the 1972 elections.
Successive US governments failed to manage opposition.
If a regime can’t manage conditions at home. what busienss does it have attempting to establish its will abroad?
Not according to Andrew. He provides detail about just how thorough the KGB was in domestic surveillance. Some of it is straight out of 1984.
Reread the book, especially the last chapter.
Rob wrote: Left to themselves (ha ha!) they would probably have pressed on and achieved a better outcome for the South Vietnamese, even if not outright defeat of the North, than turned out to be the case.
I know you put a ‘ha ha!’ in there, but still, this is the crux of the problem in the Right/neocon point of view. They never would be ‘left to themselves’. They never should be ‘left to themselves’. The world is not their chess board. There is no such thing as a surgical strike or a bloodless war. Why should the US have anything to do with the social organisation and governance of any country in Asia or the middle east? Days are long gone when we can believe any of the rhetoric about bringing democracy to other countries – as if you ever shoot democracy out of the barrel of a gun.
Keeping strictly to the Vietnam War, it’s sad to see people saying “we could have won if only”. What would such a victory have looked like? A divided country and an army of occupation. An ongoing guerrilla war. Ongoing civil strife in the US (and Australia, if we were part of it.) Ongoing deaths and suffering. The suffering from the Vietnam War is still ongoing even though in reality the war ended 31 years ago. The effects of napalm and other chemicals, the psychological damage to troops on all sides, is ongoing. But Vietnam is unified and half the population is under 30, that is, they have never lived in a state of warfare. That is something for us all to feel good about.
Certainly agree with your last point, Katz. If the political leadership can’t muster support for a war they can hardly complain if they don’t get it. Bush has been incredibly inept in this regard, and his performance as the major architect has tainted Blair, who is far more polished and articulate (which is why the US right love him. They wish he was their president). Which reflects Geoff’s earlier point: it is incredibly difficult for a liberal democracy to fight a war, which is probably as it should be. That said, such states have successfully and relatively un-controversially prosecuted wars in the Falklands, Kosovo and the Balkans.
Well, suz, if you discount the upwards of 2 million who fled communist persecution, the re-education camps, the forced migration from the cities, the persecution of the intellectuals and all the other institutions of the Gulag….
An alternative future would as plausibly be: a decisive defeat of North Vietnam and its corralment within protected (from the south) borders. The North left to its own devices under Ho, the south to its own under Thieu or whoever, bolstered by a strong US presence, and the threat of overwhelming force should the North again seek to invade. And the two entities of the divided nation get on with it, each in its own way. Rather like what happened in North and South Korea, in other words. And there’s no question which is the better off; which has successfully moved from autocracy under Park to the current burgeoning, prosperous democracy.
The irony is that Vietnam has realised it too, albeit after 25 years of poverty and oppression. As I posted way back, the Vietnamese government is in the process of dismantling the socialist system in all but name, and reverting to capitalism, having unexpectedly discovered that’s the best way to deal with poverty.
Ho Chi Minh CitySaigon, which has never really succumbed to its conquerors, has been leading the way for years now.And one thing we should all remember is that the anti-Vietnam War movement began and gained its greatest strength as an anti-draft, anti-conscription movement, not as an ideological opposition to the the war itself. Rafe could probably add something on this if he’s around — he’s written very persuasively on the subject in the past.
This is a very interesting paragraph CL. You clearly misunderstand the nature of realism. For a start you equate realism with the left (‘which lefty badge engineering sells as “stability�). This is silly. Realism has its basis in conservative philosophy, and most of its more prominent proponents are considered right-wing. Henry Kissinger served the Republican Nixon Administration. Bush the Elder and his Secretary of State James Baker were both realists and the foremost Australian realist, Owen Harries, is associated with the Centre for Independent Studies.
You go on to talk about “the UN’s commitment to “realism� and “international law�. This really is laughable. Boiled down to its most simple, realism is basically the notion that the national interest comes first and that stability is important. International law, like most law, restrains anarchy and as such proponents of realism and international law do share common ground, but this where the association ends.
The UN is an internationalist body and as such does not put the national interest first. If ever a conflict between international law and the national interest arises, any realist will toss international law aside without a second thought. The UN is not committed to realism and realists are not committed to the UN.
Our latest celebrity war hero (who never thought to disobey orders or resign his commission over the “morality” of the Iraq War) says a “more meaningful contribution could be through providing defence and security force training in a safer neighbouring country, such as Kuwait.”
Mmm. I wonder how it got to be a “safer country” and who was it again that made it so un-safe for a spell back in the early 90s?
True, Rob. That’s also vital to any study of how the left cut and ran from the Cold War and how it cut and ran from al Qaeda thoughout the 1990s.
Well it was the Iraqi regime that made it unsafe during the 90s by invading. The invaders were expelled by a military coalition lead by the United States, which was then lead by a realist President who felt that letting Iraq conquer it’s neighbours constituted a very serious threat to the stability of the region.
Yep, that’s about the size of it.
But good news!
The Idiot Son has been sent to his room without dinner and Daddy has sent in the grown-ups to pick up all the toys that Chimpo threw out of his playpen.
Meantime, the Senate and the House are going to look into the vandalism committed by Chimpo and his nasty little friend Ratty tipping off AWB.
Could be tears before bedtime!
This is a very interesting point Rob, and I would like to hear what those who are now saying we could/should have won the Vietnam war have to say about it. Specificaly if sustaining a war effort, morally justifiable or otherwise, in which a nations direct national security stake is fairly limited requires conscription should such a war be sustained?
No, Chris. Nowadays, the “progressive” left has signed on to to the “realist” modus operandi – not because they believe in it with much sincerity but, rather, because they want to differentiate their worldview from the so-called neo-conservatism of BusHitler. “Realism” is no longer delimited to national interest arguments of the kind you ignorantly outline. The UN practices its own version according to which “international law” (one locus of its own claims to power and prestige) replaces conventional national interest in the strategic equation and leads to the same kind of preference for non-action over intervention.
Thus, when questioned recently why the UN was apparently doing nothing substantive to end the genocide in West Africa, Kofi Annan replied that nothing could be done until the government of Sudan (one of the culprits) asked for outside assistance. This was then put to President Bush during a press conference who dismissed the notion that any special permission was needed for the UN to act. Bush is morally right. Annan is morally clueless. See also southern Lebanon, where a promulgated resolution of the UN calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed as a fundamental sine qua non of a lasting peace. Deploying its version of “realism”, however, the UNIFIL “force” refuses to follow the UN’s own stipulations; having no confidence in its ability to deal with Nasrallah’s terrorists, the UN would prefer to save juridical face by not failing and so instead facilitates Hezbollah’s re-armament and – inevitably – another war.
The “realist” President who successfully expelled Saddam from Kuwait – by the way, cut n’ run lefties took to the streets to protest against that war as well – also “realistically” asked Iraqis to rise against their bloodthirsty overlord, then “realistically” changed his mind according to a classic “realist” rationale. Thousands were then “realistically” slaughtered by Saddam Hussein. This exacerbated the turn towards cynical anti-Western jihadism throughout the world.
Foreign policy “realism” of the kind the left has expediently adopted always has the same result: war and bloodshed on somebody else’s watch.
So you’d advocate Australia intervening in Sudan as part of your “unrealist” approach, C.L.?
No trackbacks? Ah, well, trackback.
Thanks for an interesting and important discussion.
Rob, there’s zero chance the Democratic Congress will cut off funding to the forces in Iraq. And it appears much more likely that the Republicans will be searching for a way to withdraw as many of them as possible. Margaret Beckett has already announced in the House of Commons that the British troops will be out by May on present indications (not coincidentally, the month when Blair is expected to retire).
How precisely will it be a “victory for the terrorists?”
The more likely scenario is that the chaos there will only intensify – and such Jihadists as are in Iraq will be turning their firepower on Shi’ites exclusively instead of Americans.
By the way, Bush himself was comparing Iraq to Vietnam in the lead up to the mid terms.
Kim, since Clinton cut and ran from Somalia African interventions are problematic but – sure – there is no moral reason why other countries could not choose to intervene without the UN’s bogus permission. Sadly, the left is opposed to such interventions – believing as a matter of religious doctrine that Africans must die en masse for the fiction of “international law”.
Whoever “the left” is, C.L. I’d be very happy to see intervention in Darfur, and if you search the archives of this blog, you’d find that I’m not alone.
Rob, it now appears that the Iraqi government is on the brink of collapse:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1956706,00.html
Realistically (there’s that word), even the US is now aware that there’s very little difference they’re making to what has become a civil war. Hence the alternatives – attempt to “secure” Bagdhad with more troops, move the forces outside Iraq altogether, or, and I don’t think this has been mentioned above, withdraw to the Kurdish North.
All the Coalition troops are doing at the moment is providing a convenient target for warring factions and militia.
This is the correct line.
US withdrawal from Iraq will hasten the civil war.
Perforce, what jihadists there are in Iraq will confederate with Sunni forces.
The Shiite forces, who haven’t begun to fight yet, will be reinforced by Iran.
The Shiites will win.
A political settlement will follow. Jihadists will be sacrificed by their Sunni confederates in return for some concessions.
To Jihadists worldwide, Iraq will appear to be a failure because the hated Shiite Persians will be in the driver’s seat.
The lesson learned by Sunni jihadists will be that success is achievable only when the direct enemy is an infidel power like the USSR or the USA.
Sunni/Shiite reprisals will continue throughout the Middle East and Pakistan for the foreseeable future.
“Whoever “the leftâ€? is, C.L. I’d be very happy to see intervention in Darfur, and if you search the archives of this blog, you’d find that I’m not alone.”
With you on that one. I was also very pleased that after years of inaction NATO grapsed the nettle in the Balkans.
“Realistically (there’s that word), even the US is now aware that there’s very little difference they’re making to what has become a civil war. Hence the alternatives – attempt to “secureâ€? Bagdhad with more troops, move the forces outside Iraq altogether, or, and I don’t think this has been mentioned above, withdraw to the Kurdish North.”
And that’s the thing. What are they doing there exactly? I don’t know if anyone saw the nice counterpoint on the news last night: Massacre in Baghdad accompanied by shots of US service pesonnel happily tucking into turkey.
Of course the real moment of truth is yet to arrive. That’s most likley to occur when a large bomb is smuggled into the Green Zone. Probing attacks have already commenced http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Think Tet. Think Beirut. Think Mogadishu. Once it happens there’ll be a rush for the exits.
Tet could be a poor choice of analogy Christine. Although upon reflection a good one, it was all about perception.
The enemy was thrashed in the Tet offensive. However squadrons of war correspondents who eschewed the front line, instead reporting from the safety of bars in Saigon, suddenly were exposed to shooting. The “chicken little” effect took over, and it was reported as an enemy gain.
Mogadishu has some similarities. However no need to digress into this sort of stuff.
Though as I recall it, the same class of people who opposed involvement in Vietnam actually supported Australian troops going to Somalia. Hmmm.
if there are idiots around who think the Vietnamese people were better off under the Communists then there are sure to some who think Gough was a good PM!
No. Here is Owen Harries on realism, in an article written just last year
You got that. No international government. Harries is a realist himself, so he should know.
So there you go. Those national interest arguments I paraded my ignorance by outlining still rule the roost as far as realists are concern.
link
There certainly are a growing number of centre-left realists but pretty much none on what could be called the hard left. They typicaly opposed the Iraq war on the basis of international law, because they generaly didn’t like war or because they thought it was just a grab for oil. Further more, many were on about West Papuan independence earlier this year, which isn’t exactly a cause celebre of realists.
The problem there was that Bush changed his mind. He should have been prepared to set up the no-fly zones immediatly or kept his mouth shut in the first instance.
Oh, I forgot to put this in the previous post. CL your example of UN realism simply offers further evidence that such a thing does not exist.
Annan refused to invertvene in Sudan on the basis that national sovereignty was sacrosanct. This is not the realist postition at all. As mentioned above, realists believe that “anarchy in the strict sense prevails”. As such they are quite willing to interfere in Sudan, or any other foreign country for that mattter, so long as they consider the intervention to be in the national interest.
“Tet could be a poor choice of analogy Christine. Although upon reflection a good one, it was all about perception…The enemy was thrashed in the Tet offensive.”
True enough. But the point was that the offensive gave the lie to US assertions that everything was just going swimmingly.
“They typically opposed the Iraq war on the basis of international law, because they generally didn’t like war or because they thought it was just a grab for oil.”
I opposed and oppose it on all three grounds.
Good that you brought up the third one, oil, because if we’re being realists, it’s clear that’s what the war is ultimately about.
To add to Chris’ point, Annan has no choice. He is bound by the UN Charter. He doesn’t have any troops under his command, and all he is in an employee of the UN. It’s disingenuous in the extreme personally to blame him for doing nothing other than articulating the legal framework constraining his actions. The UN is not a state actor nor an autonomous actor.
C.L. fails to specify exactly who should act. If Bush feels so strongly, why doesn’t he take action? He could.
All we get is some bullshit about Clinton and Somalia.
I think the situation in Darfur is a disgrace, and like Kim and Christine, I’d love to see something done about it, but C.L.’s contorted “argument” is just political – he wants to bash an imaginary left “realism” but has no solutions to offer himself, and can’t even examine the inaction in practical terms because it would reveal that Bush is being a perfect realist in offering nothing but rhetoric on Darfur.
No, Chris. You appear to be confused. A lot of people are on this subject, which is one reason reportage of world affairs is so shockingly inadequate at the present time. You don’t have to tell me there is no such thing as international government – that being one of the bedrock principles of my own view of the world. Let me go over this for you in more detail.
Foreign policy “realism” is indeed a conservative idea but, conventionally, the cynicism, unilateralism and nationalism of the doctrine made it anathama to left-of-centre ideologues and denizens of an imagined “global village”. Recently, a much broader demographic of leftists has decided to embrace “realism” as an alternative – so they believe – to what they consider to be the “adventurism” inherent in the Bush Doctrine. That’s why some supposedly liberal commentators have welcomed the return of “realists” like James Baker and the other “experts” who botched the first war against Saddam Hussein and appeased al Qaeda throughout the 1990s – with disastrous consequences.
To these neo-realists, “international law” and the myth of UN moral authority are no longer contrary or irrelevant to the pursuit of foreign policy “realism”. Rather, phony internationalism and “realism” nowadays reinforce and echo the counsel of one another: regime change, democratisation, defensive pre-emption, waging war against terrorism – all these are adjudged either pointless or at odds with manageable “stability”.
Certainly there are right-wing realists but their isolationist theorising has no real application to a world where everything from trade to climate becomes a discourse in which internationalist agendas and institutionalism are the lingua franc. Neo-realism constitutes an antithesis to the Bush Doctrine thesis on regime change, democratisation, defensive pre-emption, waging war against terrorism, the promotion of liberty etc. Harries’ far more classical – even nineteenth century – definition of “realism” is not relevant in an age when war strategy takes account of the evening news and the efficacy of appeals to internationalist principles forms part of the calculus for even the most “basically selfish, aggressive and suspicious” of nations.
What neo-realists advocate is an ensemble of inter-related notions whose ultimate goals (thought to be mutually reinforcing) are a) electoral success for embittered liberals in the Anglophone world and b) pre-9/11 “normalcy”. The ensemble is comprised of: military withdrawal (if not surrender); preoccupation with “blowback” as the casus belli par excellence (it’s our fault, why do they hate us? etc); claims that terrorism is an over-rated – if not concocted – threat (the Real War is on the weather); a kind of Islamic exceptionalism (verging on racism) according to which Muslims should not be encouraged to improve their systems of governance for the good of their own people and everybody else in the world; the illusion of “stability” (sure he’s a mass-murdering tyrant but the trains run – sans bombs – on time).
This, then, is why one may nowadays talk accurately and profitably of leftist “realism” in international affairs. As Weltanschauung, neo-realism is less a dynamic alternative to the here-to-stay Bush Doctrine than it is a revolting Hooked on Classics collection of old standards. Finally, of course, the new leftist “realism” has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
At last, some modulated language from CL.
What about the majority who think nothing of the sort?
The above screed does nothing more than whack a straw man of your own creation to death.
Congratters CL, you beat your own chimera.
All we get is some bullshit about Clinton and Somalia.
Mark exercising his famous impartality.
The usual leftie double-standard: evil America trying to solve everything/evil America not trying to solve everything.
Why doesn’t France “act”?
Oh, that’s right – they’re busy with that UNIFIL “force” ensuring Hezbollah gets enough new missiles to attack Israel again.
More brilliant neo-realism.
So what’s your plan for staying the course in Iraq, C.L.?
Do enlighten us with your geo-strategic wisdom.
Vietnamisation is going well.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=world-qqqm=world-qqqa=world-qqqid=19189-qqqx=1.asp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401317.html
Howard:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061124-040058-7266r
Christine: The only lie connected to the Tet offensive was the reporting of it.
An enemy offensive being rapidly defeated/put down is 100% compliant with everything going swimmingly.
The only thing which did not go swimmingly was the nerve of the “war correspondents” in Saigon, whose Y-fronts turned yellow (or brown) at the sound of actual SHOOTING. They reported the Tet offensive wrongly.
This skewed domestic perception back in “the world” (though it made great TV & front page)
An excellent example of how perception can overcome reality.
Or if you like, how an army can win a battle, but the political & domestic perception at home is that they lost.
A bomb in the Green Zone in Baghdad would actually be quite a close comparison to this. Though reporters covering the Iraq debacle aren’t made of stuff anywhere near as stern as that which the Saigon barflies were made of in the 1960’s.
Thus I concede to you, though possibly for reasons opposite to what you were thinking when you first wrote.
“The only thing which did not go swimmingly was the nerve of the “war correspondentsâ€? in Saigon, whose Y-fronts turned yellow (or brown) at the sound of actual SHOOTING. They reported the Tet offensive wrongly.”
Oh here we go. The stab in the back.
Isn’t the strategy obvious, Mark? Keep not winning until a pantywaist with more sense than you decides to cut & run, then blame them for losing.
Losing Vietnam? Gough Whitlam’s to blame.
Not losing in East Timor? Gough Whitlam’s to blame.
Not losing the Gulf War?
Gough WhitlamRealist Bush’s to blame.9/11?
Gough WhitlamBill Clinton’s to blame.Losing in Iraq?
Gough WhitlamSomeone-other-than-the-fuckwits-who-got-us-into-the-FUBAR clusterfuck-in-the-first-place’s to blame.See? Works every time: you don’t win, but at least you’re never wrong AND you have someone to blame for losing.
CL that really sounds more like a haphazard collection of ideas that piss you off rather than a theory of international relations. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Can you please link me to an article by some reputable theorist of internation relations characterising all of those ideas as realism of any sort?
Chris, try here.
Oi, Steve;
this:
in the interests of accuracy should be amended to this:
They’ve “turned a few corners” in Iraq too.
Yairs – precisely four.
Leinad, are you somehow trying to suggest that the enemy came out on top with the Tet offensive?
You feel that unless there is an immediate capitulation by one side a victory cannot be termed a victory?
Steve are you insinuating that there’s only one facet to warfare, and that killing more of the enemy is all that is needed to secure victory?
Or do you somehow think that the total inability of the US to gather reliable info about the whereabouts and plans of almost the entirity of the NLF’s armed cadres in ‘67-68 was a sign they were winning?
When will you stop ripping apart live puppies in front of pre-schoolers?
Thus the cast-iron persistence of the RWDB.
Like cockroaches, they are the only organisms that survive cataclysm.
ChristineKeeler and SteveAtThePub:
Hate to sound picky but …… from what I remember of the Viet-Nam War, very few journalists ever won the respect of the troops: Pat Burgess (went bush with the Diggers); Sean Flynn, the Japanese bloke taken prisoner by the Viet-Cong near Bien-Hoa, the French woman similarly taken prisoner in Central Highlands, an American woman (Dicky Chapell?) killed on operations in I Corps, Neil Davis and less than a dozen others. And, of course, all the US Army Combat Photographers and the unrecognized Vietnamese journalists who took frightful risks.
As for the rest, well, “As I write this story by the light of the flares and tracers ….Waiter! Another whisky sour and hurry it up!” Therefore much of what was written about the Viet-Nam War could be evaluated no higher than E5 at best.
Here endeth the lesson in Ancient History.
[, especially given that LBJ and MacNamara had been telling all and sundry that after their victory at Khe Sanh the US had ‘turned a corner in Vietnam’ a few weeks earlier].
And then there were Westmoreland’s musings that another 200,000 troops might just do the trick.
So many corners, so little time.
Can you please link me to an article by some reputable theorist of international relations characterising all of those ideas as realism of any sort?
No problemo.
Mark links to evidence of terrorism but goes on believing there isn’t any point combatting terrorism. Reporting World War II, Mark would have blogged about the bloody “disaster” of D-Day and called for an immediate surrender to the German “insurgents”.
Don’t think I’d disagree with you there Graham, but I think you’re being a bit on the ungenerous side. 63 correspondents were killed in the course of the war from about 1954, including Robert Capa.
You’re right about Dickey Chapelle, but it’s also worth noting that a correspondent with UPI, Kate Webb, was also captured with the Japanese journalist.
Marguerite Higgins contracted a tropical disease while in Vietnam and died on return to the States. She’s buried at Arlington.
Also don’t think you can lump Larry Burrows (killed) David Halberstam, Michael Herr or Neil Sheehan with the crew waiting out the war at the Caravelle.
This is beyond absurd.
Mark would have known that behind the first wave of 300,000 hitting the beaches of Normandy there were millions of reinforcements in transit to press home the attack.
Mark would have known the ultimate objective of the Allies — unconditional surrender.
Mark would have known that the resources and will of the Allies were adequate to that objective.
Let us return to Mark’s question, which CL has refused to answer:
1. Do COW troops in Iraq require major reinforcements?
2. What ought to be the ultimate objective of the COW in Iraq?
3. Has the leadership of the COW provided resources and leadership adequate to that objective?
The truth is that CL’s orotund bluster is a threadbare attempt to conceal the fact that he doesn’t like his own candid answers to these questions.
Thus he is preparing the ground for the “stab in the back” explanation for failure.
However, it is clear from all the facts that the Chickenhawk Right cut and ran.
The pathological condition of the Right is plain for all to see.
satp is right — it’s all about perception. There’s been some wry commentary on military blogs about how it doesn’t matter whether you’re winning or losing, it’s how it looks on CNN.
CK provides a neat example here:
“I don’t know if anyone saw the nice counterpoint on the news last night: Massacre in Baghdad accompanied by shots of US service pesonnel happily tucking into turkey.”
The realities are: (1) US troops are on patrol 24/7, in shifts, at huge risk to themselves from terrorists and insurgents who have no respect for human life or anything resembling conventional ROE or the laws of war. (2) Thanksgiving is a traditional US holiday which is observed in every US installation worldwide if circumstances permit. (3) The fact that some troops were tucking into turkey means that (a) they were the ones on break between shifts and shortly would be on the streets again, and (b) the military establishment was honouring an old tradition and trying to maintain their morale and solidarity as well as feeding them.
But the way it looked, as Christine picked up, was the US troops didn’t give a damn about the latest bombings as they were too busy stuffing their faces to care or do anything about it. I assume that’s what Christine meant by ‘nice counterpoint’, picking up on none of the realities but the only media’s laboured and confected irony.
Indeed, it is largely a matter of how it looks, and how the media juxtapose the images.
Another telling example is Mogadishu 1993 –the famous ‘Black Hawk Down’ episode.
The US special forces (Rangers and Delta Force) fought with professionalism, tenacity and, yes, heroism, outnumbers scores to one by militiamen concealed in crowds of civilians. The soldiers lost 19 dead, but the remainder survived and made it back to their base on foot under withering fire. They killed between 500-1500 enemy, among them, inevitably, given the tactics used against them, civilians.
On the facts, they were heroes to be lauded and celebrated.
But the images didn’t play that way. The sights seen on the nightly news in the the US of the dead bodies, dreadfully desecrated, being kicked around the square in Mogadishu was too much for popular opinion and political will. So, almost overnight, Clinton announced US troops would be withdrawn.
bin Laden is on record as saying it was the events at Mogadishu that showed him what the US was really made of.
It all comes down to the way it plays on TV. It was true in Vietnam and it’s true in Iraq.
Ah now I see CL. This neo-realism is in fact a paradigm that you have invented by squashing a bunch of complaints people make about the Bush Administration together and declaring it to be part of the realist tradition (since intelectual traditions going back hundreds of years most definantly do not transcend eight year presidencies) without reference to even one contempory realist scholar or any of the philosophers of realism.
Very novel indeed, but I some how doubt this evidence free approach to political science will catch on.
It all comes down to the way it plays on TV. It was true in Vietnam and it’s true in Iraq.
It’s a bugger having a free press.
Anyway, to add that it’s not always ‘just about the pictures’.
It also has plenty to do with the dissonance between the cheery predictions (or in the case of Vietnam and Iraq, blatant lies) of the politicians and military briefers in Washington, and the reality of what’s happening on the ground.
In the case of Vietnam, it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t ‘just the pictures’ that caused the angst. It was the realisation of the elites in Washington that they finally had to give serious consideration to what they were involved in.
At the time of Tet the US was losing in the order of 400 killed per week.
No. Clark Clifford’s “Wise Men”, listened to the advice of Wall Street financiers in early 1968
The Wise Men were deeply impressed by warnings of dangers that continued US military operations posed to the viability of US govenment finances and the strength of the greenback.
They urged withdrawal.
LBJ ultimately conceded.
It wasn’t mostly about TV, it was about preserving US control of the world financial system.
Of course perceptions of battlefield difficulties played a part, but they weren’t critical. LBJ believed Westmoreland in early 1968 when the General claimed that an extra 200,000 troops would do the job.
LBJ was convinced that the US financial system couldn’t sustain the cost.
That’s a perception of an entirely different kind.
He said reputable, CL.
Rob, on the facts the US infantry performed admirably BUT had their arses handed to them in every way that matters.
They launched a heliborne snatch & grab into the heart of enemy-held territory in a built-up area with light infantry and no armour support. They were consequently surrounded by untrained irregulars armed with little more than small arms and RPGs and pummeled until Pakistani and Malaysian forces [Oh ,yeah: thanks, UN] came to their rescue with armoured personnel carriers. The vaunted US technological superiority was neutralised and in the consequent firefight they withstood casualties so unacceptable (i.e. less than two dozen dead) the USA was forced to withdraw politically. Hubris, meet Nemesis.
Next time you’re in Melbourne, ask one of the many Somali taxi drivers who THEY thought won Mogadishu.
As for Turkey Time at Camp Giveafuck, US soldiers are the most pampered in the world. While they tuck in to turkey, pumpkin pie and pop in air-conditioned fortified facilities, their enemies are boiling rice in tunnels while scraping mud out of their rifles. You tell me who has the stomach to fight on.
Why can’t the Americans learn from their mistakes?
You’ve been reading too much Eric Brecher, and you’ve allowed reflex anti-Americanist revisionism to seep into your worldview, Pluckaduck.
Eric Bana won. The Somalians were forced to respect American technological superiority, the invincible Panavision. Clinton wasn’t willing to bomb anything, except when he did. Vietnam wasn’t so bad, except the Vietnamese weren’t willing to fight like Americans. The Cold War was won by a simultaneous nuclear first-strike on the USSR’s missile bases, massive aerial bomardment of Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern Europe, and an armoured advance through East Germany and Yugoslavia.
Don’t you remember?
Red Dawn, right? Militiaboys Swayze and Sheen fending off elite Cuban paratroopers [!] in the US heartland. Not exactly the Great Game, is it?
I suspect that in centuries to come we will look back at this era from our head-tanks and conclude the Pax Americana was the most. ridiculous. empire. ever.
Actually, Haiku, I can recommend a book to you that I think you’ll just love: The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett (1985), chronicling the WP invasion of the Bundesrepublik, with NATO eventually winning. Fantastic armchair-general fun with enough detail for a Cold-War egghead like you to enjoy.
“The vaunted US technological superiority was neutralised and in the consequent firefight they withstood casualties so unacceptable (i.e. less than two dozen dead) the USA was forced to withdraw politically. Hubris, meet Nemesis.”
I think you are making my point for me, Fyodor — and bin Laden’s come to that.
“As for Turkey Time at Camp Giveafuck, US soldiers are the most pampered in the world. While they tuck in to turkey, pumpkin pie and pop in air-conditioned fortified facilities, their enemies are boiling rice in tunnels while scraping mud out of their rifles. You tell me who has the stomach to fight on.”
As I said:
Nice to see you back, by the way.
Yes, I’d really like to hear from C.L. on this (and Rob).
All this “lefties are traitorous terrorist sympathisers” bluster from C.L. sits uneasily with his refusal to comment on the options available to those prosecuting the war (who have made it very clear that they are going to cut and run in the next year).
It’s all fun and games until someone’s capital gets turned into hot, flat, radioactive glass. While the Americans stuff about trying to project military will and strategic big-dickery with expensive guided bombs and Marines in HMMWVs, any decent fourth-generationist sees perfectly well that they’re not serious. All the Iraq project is achieving now for US forces is giving a bit of target practice for jihadis with guns.
By the way, Rules of Engagement, Rob? Whoever the Americans are fighting in Iraq, and the major problem is that the Americans don’t particularly know until the shooting starts, are guerrillas at best, terrorists at worst. Either way the whole point is breaking codified war rules within which they’d lose. Uniforms, yeah, right. To quote tactical theoretician Jack Sparrow: Duh, pirate.
I could just see you, Rob, in 1917 chalking Gallipolli up as a campaign that could have been a win for the Allied troops, if only they’d stuck around.
…
I’m not much of an armchair general. More an office-chair Petit Caporal.
Errata: Gary Brecher.
Congratulations, Rob, you missed BOTH points:
1. Kill ratios mean sweet feck all when your side cannot accept casualties, REGARDLESS of what’s shown on the teev.
2. Your typical guerilla soldier is tougher and more motivated than your flabby-arsed doughboys. Don’t get into a knifefight with him unless you have to.
But don’t let that stop you from losing “heroically”.
Erm, thanks, but I’m just visiting, as is my wont.
Is it worth pointing out that the US created this problem for itself, and us, through its own monumental mismanagement?
Firstly by sacking the 50,000 Iraqi bureaucrats who could run the joint because they were deemed to be Baathists, and days later sacking the entire 300,000 person army?
In other words they created a pool of 350,000 unemployed, armed, well-connected, extremely pissed-off enemies almost overnight.
As for the objectives of the COW, they appear to transmorgified from creating Iraq as a beacon of democracy which would spur regime change in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
That goal is no longer operational. According to Cheney just days before the mid-terms “Victory will be the day when the Iraqis solve their political problems and are up and running with respect to their own government, and when they’re able to provide for their own security.”
Unfortunaletly it now appears that will only occur after the civil war.
{George W. Homer has his arms stuck in two vending machines}
Man: Homer, this…this is never easy to say. I’m going to have to
saw your arms off. [brandishes a buzzsaw]
George W .Homer: [plaintive] They’ll grow back, right?
Man: Oh, er, yeah.
George W. Homer: Whew!
Just as the man is about to being cutting, another man asks Homer if
he’s just holding on to the can. “Your point being?” queries Homer.
In the next shot, he slinks away from the plant and the derisive laughter of the rescue workers, his arms free at last.
Christine Keeler:
You are undoubtedly correct about casualties among journalists in Viet-Nam (I mentioned only those I knew about and who were spoken about with respect by the troops themselves).
About Iraq
that was absolutely stupid and downright suicidal. I said so at the time and copped a heap of abuse for saying so. It gives me no delight at all to be proved right.
The situation in Iraq is bleak and dismal …. but it is not yet completely hopeless.
Second that. I’ve read it.
I think that’s right, Christine, and it’s very unfortunate indeed. The Iraqi government’s last shreds of power and legitimacy are collapsing.
Iraqi state tv has now been hijacked by the Al-Sadr militia to declare sectarian war.
Sunni clerics are now calling for the de-recognition of the Iraqi “government”:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/16092045.htm
I repeat my question to C.L. And to Rob as well. What options remain for the COW forces? What good are they currently doing?
Mark and Everyone.
The easiest way out I can see is for the 1917 plan for the break-up of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in Mesopotamia/Iraq to actually take place now 90 years later.
Even though that would leave Turkey – and the European Union – with the difficult but not insoluble matter of an independent Kurdistan on Turkey’s eastern frontier and with a substsntial number of Turcomans being possibly worse off than before. Even though that would give the Persian Empire – oops, sorry, I meant Iran – a resounding victory as well as a very friendly (for the moment) Arab client state with a Shiite government on its west. Even though that would force large numbers of Sunni Arabs and others in what was lsft of Iraq into closer ties with whoever would have them. Even though that would mean that much of the oil that formerly went to the West would go to the East instead. (Look on the bright side, it would mean a boom in bicycle sales in the US, Australia, etc.)
The Americans can fume and throw tantrums but they’re the ones who allowed that bunch of fakes and amateurs in the White House to run and then ruin the whole show. Howard and his goverment are completely irrelevant to resolving the mess in Iraq; they can only do what they do best …. nod their heads and say “yes” when ordered to do so. And then there’s the tricky matter of actually extracting all those foreign troops in one piece from the Former Iraq ……….
Erratum:
Mark would have known the ultimate objective of the Allies — [their own] unconditional surrender.
Vietnam was mismanaged by the Democrats – though their belief in the justice of fighting in Vietnam was itself admirable and unquestionably correct – which is one reason Johnson personally cut and ran in 1968. (His heath was also woeful for stress-related but mainly genetic reasons). Even so, I have a lot of time for Jack Kennedy and Johnson – they were the last of the great Democrats. It was the outside-of-congress left that always wanted to abandon the Vietnamese to a Stalinist holocaust. They were successful at poisoning the political efficacy of waging that just war – as the counter-factual “reporting” after Tet proved well. (And, of course, ultimately it was the Democrats who surrendered). The same paradigm was continued by the worst president in American history – Jimmy Carter – and was a hallmark of Clinton’s cut ‘n run strategy in Somalia and against al Qaeda throughout the 1990s. Now in the new century, the morally revolting chicken-hawk left wants to – yawn – surrender yet again. (While waging a bloodcurdling war on the climate!).
Anyway…
Mark, it’s quite clear from numerous of your comments and observations on Iraq that you welcome – and are even semi-amused by – the chaos unleashed by terrorists against (mostly) civilians in Iraq. You blame these acts of violence on the Americans and I consider that to be despicable. So I don’t take your soliciations for military counsel very seriously, to be honest. And my apologies for not spending the weekend in front of a computer, which – in what I presume is a pale-faced rage – you characterise as my “refusal to comment on the options”.
The strategy pursued for some time now has been to train the Iraqis to the best extent possible and withdraw gradually. There was never any intention to stay forever so there hasn’t been any radical change on the nature of the endgame mission – despite the increasingly hysterical media coverage of events in Iraq. An increase in troop numbers may not make any difference; maybe certain provinces and urban sectors could be bolstered by more soldiers but blowing up IEDs will always be a tactic that can be easily moved on to other locations – indeed, any place where the resultant bloodshed will be reported by journalists reading from their groupthink “disaster” scripts.
On the other hand, the precipitate withdrawal advocated by lefty dingbats will make matters worse by allowing a more conventional (and roaming) array of terror tactics to be employed in a more diverse range of locations. While the latter would lead to something approximating the “internal contradictions” war that the left always favoured over outside intevention, it need not be considered inevitable and should not be recklessly brought about. I think the benchmarks idea or something like it is the best way to quantify for all parties the expectations that must be met before withdrawal can occur. That rules out a nominated calender date for skedaddling of the Murtha/Beazley kind but does strategically adumbrate – in a telegraphed way – the purpose, nature, limits and extent of the occupation.
An initial increase in troop levels could have the advantage of signalling a commitment to both the country and the process – even if, as I wrote above, it doesn’t stop the kind of market and street bombings that BDS-suffering commentators blame on BusHitler and Rumsfeld or the “failed” planning for the occupation. In other words, if you ask me – and you have – I don’t think it’s a matter of Go Big or Go Long or Go Home. It might be a combination of all three that emerges as policy in coming weeks: go bigger initially, go for a good training time (not a long time) and go home (for some; for others, say, a Kuwaiti garrison).
I can’t see the viability of Kennedy-style Cuba/Turkey trade-offs – brokered with Syria and/or Iran – that could facilitate a magic-bullet cessation of politico-sectarian violence. Some ideas on that have been discussed in the press; it seems to me that the Americans could only offer Iran more power and prestige with one hand if they were quite sure they were going to topple the regime in Tehran with the other within the next few years. Otherwise such arrangements would make no long-term strategic sense and would, in any case, be overwhelmed and rendered nugatory by likely events in Gaza and southern Lebanon in the next six to twelve months. War in these places will, as usual, be met with calls by – yes, the left – to capitulate, surrender, negotiate etc etc. The other variable, of course, is a Democrat Congress out of its depth already and edging towards its own ideological civil war faster than Iraq.
What the Iraqis are able to do with this once-in-a-half-millennium opportunity (for something better than state terrorism) has always been largely a question for them – as worryingly vague as that must be for those who want matters definitively settled. This, when all is said and done, will be the ultimate denouement and the real Iraqification; one hopes it can also become a fruitful beginning. The meta-narrative for that possibility is reform and modernisation within Islam itself. The just, lawful and successful removal of Saddam Hussein from office stands in contrast to the disastrous inability of a minority of religious fanatics to accept modernity and dialogue.
Chris, you remain quite wrong and quite discombobulated about what foreign policy “realism” has come to mean – and to whom – in the last 12 to 18 months. I can’t do anything more to help you on that. You’re on your own, grasshopper.
P.M. John Howard really angered some war veterans with his failed attempt, while visiting Viet-Nam for the APEC meeting, to have history rewritten so that he and his party would come out smelling of roses over the shameful way Australian veterans have been treated.
My comment spaminated.
C.L., no I wasn’t in any kind of rage. However, I believe I would be justified in feeling some by the vile and offensive suggestion you’ve just made that I regard civilian deaths in Iraq as welcome. That is very far from the case. I regard them as tragic and avoidable.
Well, “Vietnamisation is going well” seems an extremely trite way of responding to news of several people being torched to death. The Hussein boys used to knock off people for screwing up soccer matches but I don’t recall too many sagacious peaceniks observing dryly that “stability is going well”.
CL actually addressing these questions?
No appearance, Your Honour.
To paraphrase CL:
1. Do COW troops in Iraq require major reinforcements?
CL’s Answer: “Yes, No, Maybe.”
2. What ought to be the ultimate objective of the COW in Iraq?
CL’s Answer: “This is the day that the Lord hath made! We in the Faith-Based Community have no need to match our ambitions to our resources!
3. Has the leadership of the COW provided resources and leadership adequate to that objective?
CL’s Answer: ????????????
Disappointing stuff.
CL said:
Is he trying to throw us off course with comedy?
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
Needs reworking:
CL again:
Contrasted to Colin Powell:
Mark, in answer to your question — I think the time is fast approaching when the US must bow to reality and the inevitable and accept that a united Iraq is an impossibility. The sectarian divisions are too deep and intractable. The US should recognise the only realistic future is in, at best, some kind of federated Iraq with three sect/ethnic-based entities, or at worst (more likely) three separate ‘Iraqs’. This will happen anyway in one form or another when the Coalition leaves. So maybe the only useful role for the US to speed that process, minimise the bloodshed, and facilitate the migration of minorities to ‘their’ bit of of what used to be Iraq.
There could be a semi-honourable exit in this. ‘We tried for the ideal, but circumstances did not allow it, this is the new best available’, etc. etc. There would be both an endstate and an exit point to that strategy. But it would require enormous political courage from the Administration.
Rob,
That is a frank, realistic and honest assessment of the “least-worst” option remaining for the Bush administration.
Most urgently, then, the American political nation should study how the Bush administration came to ignore sound principles of military policy, as embodied in the Weinberger Doctrine (1983):
and in the Powell Doctrine (1991):
Is there such a thing as the “Cheney Doctrine”?
Shoot first, ask questions later.
Naturellement mon ami, announced in the Senate but applicable to all his detractors:
For once I agree with Rob re the “least worst” option. As for the “political courage” I somehow doubt the Bush administration will swallow this bitter pill. I think a lot will depend on whether some real bi-partisanship can emerge next year but events may be moving outside any control if for example Motaqa al-Sadr withdraws from the government and the whole dodgy thing falls apart anyway.
There will be a tendency I think, in the event of any “belly up” scenario for Bush to try his hardest to push responsibility onto the Democrat controlled Congress or even to the next President. He desperately wants to avoid being seen as the guy who stuffed up big time.
(We’ve all heard one thing about that before, ad infinitum, ad nauseam–it’s all teh left’s fault and Gough must have had something to do with it)
Katz — to which I think we must add the time-honoured principles of a just war:
# A just war can only be waged as a last resort.
# A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority.
# A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered.
# A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success.
# The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
# The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered.
# The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. …. The daths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.
Although, of course, one could argue endlessly about the balance of proportionality and reasonableness in any number of given situations.
But the principles are very sound, however one might argue about their specific application.
More at Wiki.
Thanks for the blockquote work, Peter and Katz. Hey Peter, I’m still waiting for that nuclear war on Iran which you assured everyone would take place before the US mid-terms. It was very naughty and sneaky of you to cut ‘n run on that.
Weinberger was the genius whose unwillingness to retaliate after the Beirut Marine barracks bombing in 1983 presaged a withdrawal from Lebanon that worsened the bloodshed in that country and is thought to have emboldened both Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein vis-a-vis Kuwait. Application of the “sound principles” of the Weinberger “docrine” led to absolute and unmitigated disaster.
The Katz Doctrine: listen to Caspar.
See what happens when Wingnut Chicken Hawks get a rush of blood and do something stupid.
As I recall Ronald Reagan was president at the time. Should Weinberger have been impeached for failing to wake Ronny up to tell him what orders he’d been signing in his sleep?
As Katz said
Exactly. But the US stopped lobbing those 16″ shells into Beirut from the New Jersey battleship, didn’t they CL? (Correct me if that history is wrong)
(The good news is that warmongers can play simulations firing the New Jersey’s weapons by simulation here against a Beirut background):
http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews17.shtml
And aren’t we all so glad that prediction never came to pass–maybe James Baker and daddy Bush took away the doomsday attache case from junior?
(OTOH junior has 2 years left to figure out a way of getting his finger on that button)
Rob (11.49) like Clive (and Gough) stands amazed at his own moderation?
(How many others I wonder have seen a burning Bush on the road to Damascus?)
Yep. Fact is until George W Bush had the courage to turn foreign policy into the domain of ill-informed, self-righteous moral vanity every Administration was a hotbed of treacherous realists.
The difficulty with this, Rob, is threefold. Bagdhad, oil and the effects on the regional balance of power (eg Kurdistan/Turkey, Iran/Shi’a South, Syria/Sunni middle).
Because the Shi’a (or elements thereof) are currently in control, they have no incentive to go with a federalist solution with regard to oil revenues since it’s effectively become a winner takes all game.
So you’d have the Sunnis fighting them anyway.
Still, you’re right – it happens regardless of whether the US stays or goes.
The schizo schtick of the lefties on this thread is becoming laughable.
Here’s what we believe. Oops, that didn’t actually work. We blame TEH right for making us believe in something with their GOP mindrays.
Listen toimpeach Weinberger! (Via synodus horrenda).Rob, many just war theorists in fact question the morality of the so-called Powell Doctrine because its lumbering reliance on massive response is contrary to the proportionality criterion that is perhaps the theory’s central principle. More practically, some historians believe that one reason the war in Vietnam lost focus was that a huge army presence encouraged ill-discipline, boredom (and associated pathologies), operational inexpertise and over-confident fatalism.
Just war theory has also yet to assimilate or convincingly deal with the question of just pre-emption in an age of WMD. As it stands, the imminence yardstick for pre-emption is absurdly dangerous: say Iran has financed and facilitated the transportation of a radiological bomb to Los Angeles. The government finds out the attack is imminent but cannot uncover the details. Oops, we’ll attack Tehran after thousands of citizens have been killed. The Osirak operation – condemned by lefty moonbat Jimmy Carter in his latest weird book – was far more moral and far more efficacious.
The BDS brigade can hate Chimpo all they like but the Bush Doctrine is here to stay.
Deal.
No further advance on these evasions, I see.
“… the Bush Doctrine is here to stay.”
Only in that strange moonscape inside your skull, CL.
I prefer not to respond to lists of demands in thread discussions, Katz. Knownothings like you employ the tactic to create the illusion that you’re controlling the discussion – which plainly you’re not intellectually capable of doing. I write about what I want to write about. Your now collapsing pseudo-hawk routine reveals a person who believes in nothing more substantive than an obsession with George W. Bush that verges on the psychiatric.
Christine, if it makes you feel somwhat more involved I’m perfectly happy to throw you a bone and affirm that no-one should doubt your familiarity with lunar topography – if not international relations.
Gary Younge has written a piece in The Guardian addressing some of these exact same issues – and attracts some of the same ‘blame the victim for the crime’ comments.
I thought Guardian oddballs believed they were staying for the oil. Leftie lies on Iraq never stop morphing into strange new versions.
My previous comment has been spaminated by the world’s most sensitive blog filter.
Have you ever voyaged upon Cheney Ocean, CL? It’s smooth sailing until you reach the cape.
Ha! CL of Kut-al-Amara
CL’s fantasy:
1) “Cannot uncover…details”. Hmmm
2) Why would they do this when there are 150, 000 US military next door to practice malice aforethought on (through proxies)?
3) Assumption the Iranians are more irrational than Chimpco, a brave call.
Not unless the UN Charter and/or the Nuremberg definition of the crime of aggressive war is expunged from the record CL. Most reasonable people think that it’s beyond the power of a US president to expunge by fiat.
WMD (ie chemical/biological) has been around since at least WW1. The fact that terrorist groups may have access to it does NOTHING to justify unilateral repudiation of International law. (Let alone Common Article 3 [torture] of the Geneva Conventions ruled as Customary International Law by the US Supreme Court [being on the same level in universal jurisdiction to prosecute people indulging in slavery].)
Oh, I must have forgotten. Attacked by Saudis, bomb and invade Iraq. Attacked by terrorists using a dirty bomb, (never mind who did it), bomb Iran. A few soldiers attacked/kidnapped by Hezbollah, bomb all of Lebanon. What’s next? Some Mexican’s come over the Rio Grande, bomb Nicaragua?
Bush Doctrine: Bomb anybody, anytime, anywhere– ‘cos we’re Uncle Sam and can never be wrong.
Deal CL. With international law
C.L.
Perhaps the spaminator was exercising good judgement.
I am not going to tolerate your continued presence on this blog unless you apologise to me by midnight tonight for the vile and unwarranted accusation that I welcome deaths in Iraq.
That is way beyond the pale, and so offensive as to suggest that you are incapable of carrying on any kind of civilised discussion.
You have 4 and a half hours, and there’ll be no second or third or five hundredth chances.
I thought Guardian oddballs believed they were staying for the oil.
Well, I do believe that is why the US is basically reluctant to withdraw and will try every trick in the ideological and military book to justifying staying there – they are, after all, building permanent bases, as Peter Kemp pointed out. That’s why “Go big for a short time” is another evasive lie – the short time will undoubtedly morph into “staying the course until the job is done”.
“International law”: wait till everyone – especially black Africans – is dead.
Then issue a stern resolution.
Currently working well in Sudan.
There is no such thing as international law and there never will be.
“Why would they do this when there are 150,000 US military next door to practice malice aforethought on (through proxies)?”
Mmm, why would Tehran bomb a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires when it could have arranged a few “martyrs” to kill Jews in Israel?
Assumption the Iranians are more irrational than Chimpco, a brave call.
Only to a very strange person, Peter.
A few soldiers attacked/kidnapped by Hezbollah, bomb all of Lebanon.
All of Lebanon was not bombed (a lie) and “international law” demanded the disarmament of Hezbollah terrorists. The UNIFIL “force” has no intention whatsoever of realising this demand of “international law”.
The Bush Doctrine is an irrefutable reality in modern international relations and it won’t be going anywhere. While various schools on the right sit down to discuss foreign affairs into the future, the “multilateralists” and the left sit at the children’s table tucking into cheerios and sarsparalla. All we ask of you, kids, is that you keep the noise down while the grown-ups are speaking.
suz, I think they’ve got no choice other than to leave very much sooner than anticipated. The developments over the last week (the effective collapse of what was the figleaf of the Iraqi state, the call for sectarian war on state tv, the hugely increased kill rate, and the Sunnis trying to draw in other Middle Easter nations) all indicate that reality is far outstripping the cranky machinery of political/policy deliberation in the US. Those permanent bases will be worthless very soon.
I hope your apologise to Mark is adequate to the purpose CL.
I’d hate to see an easybeat like you disappear from the scene.
I believe you are right on that score Mark, but going by the incredible expenses of constructing bases and the Taj Mahal of a concrete and steel reinforced monstrosity of an embassy in the Green zone, the original intention can only have been for a US presence in Iraq for a long long time. Logically this also follows from the effective removal of US forces from Saudi Arabia.
The interesting question that arises, is that with a pullout from Iraq, where will the US have large secure land bases close to the Straits of Hormuz? Obviously the Saudis won’t want them back in a hurry, that leaves Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Oman, all of which have some sort of US bases but would not be so keen to be the prime short range targets of Iran in retaliation mode.
This smells mightily of humiliation and will mean (means already, actually) the utter destruction of Chimpco foreign policy in the Middle East. Conversely it will signify Iran as the regional superpower which has “testicular” control of oil going through the Straits, US carrier forces notwithstanding. In the Arabian sea, I don’t see Pakistan being accomodating either.
On an Iraqi pullout it will for the forseeable future be game, set and match to Iran. Putin in the Kremlin must be laughing his head off especially as he has succeeded in his big game of bi-lateral oil deals which have squeezed out the US oil majors (including if my memory is correct from parts of Central Asia.) Russia is another player successfully leveraging it’s oil power to hobble the US.
Afghanistan BTW, like Iraq is likewise almost rooted for the US and Euro forces.
All in all RWDBs, not a bad effort for one particular moron and his gang in the White House? How to undo a volatile but relatively stable ME in 6 years, which will most probably NEVER be recoverable. How to aim at controlling ME and Central Asian oil and lose the fecking lot.
And with a mate like Howard helping him do it all, albeit but crucially with more moral/diplomatic support than military, our good name is in the shit as well. Thanks ever so much Johnny.
Bring on a uni-polar world, but let’s not forget the legal liability for war crimes, for which there is no permanent immunity.
Interesting points, Peter. The Kurdistan issue also probably factors into the fact that the US can’t use Turkey as a redoubt for troops if they go with some partition scheme. Perhaps Cheney was over glad-handling the Saudis to prepare another fallback?
(I meant multi-polar world)
Enough with the POINTLESS lefty nuance, Bahnisch! Everyone knows there’s only TWO sides to this fight – the C-O-W and the filthy feckless TERRORISTS simple as that.You’re just trying to throw us off with this crap, you lying Saddam-loving sympathiser
I KNOW you are
don’t try and hide it
It’s the ‘tash isn’t it?
Quoted in Bob Woodward, State of Denial
My, what a difference four years makes!
I guess you’d have to say that Bush is batting zero on those objectives.
World oil markets are on the verge of being restructured in a major way, with enormous geopolitical consequences.
Peter is correct. The big winner is Russia, which is now in a position to hook Iraqi oil that’ll fall into the Iranian sphere of influence into Russia’s Eurasian pipeline distribution system.
This struggle was at core about whether Iraqi oil flowed through the Straits of Hormuz into the US sphere, or through Russia.
Today the Ukraine, tomorrow the world.
China, India and Japan will deal with Russia because they have to.
When this happens, to a significant degree the world oil trade will cease to be fungible. Russia has dealt itself back into the game as a superpower.
It’s the ‘tash isn’t it?
WTF?
Perhaps Leinad alludes to TEH EVIL CONSPIRACY whereby Natasha Stott-Despoja is behind all these Whitlamite/Democratic/Clintonian/Terrorist-Sympathisin/Realist sell outs?
Yes, I agree Mark but even if there’s no official partition, they will still have an entity close to statehood, and this will always be a sore point with Turkey and may blow up if the Iraqi Kurds start helping their brethren over the border too much. In Fisky’s book, he has an interesting tale of how after Gulf War 1 he was present on the Turkish side, saw and reported the Turkish Army stealing the Kurdish refugees’ humanitarian aid, for which he was promptly deported from Turkey but came back through the Syrian border.
The Saudis are definitely between a rock and a hard place, and I imagine it was hard for them not to let on to Cheney that he has lost so much “face.” The main Saudi refinery is I believe close to the sea, and therefore vulnerable, both to its own dissidents and Iran. Doubtless may Saudis will remember OBL’s message on driving the US from the gulf, and ponder that it’s happening now. One of the main reasons why OBL went so apeshit was of course the presence of US troops on their soil, so I’d be very surprised if King Diesel let them come back.
Iran’s diplomacy would be soothing, “we can get along as long as you don’t do the wrong thing with the ‘infidels,’ “[sotto voce, dripping with irony: "now that we have this new position thanks to your protectors."]
It will be interesting to see how all the realignment to Iran’s changed status works out. (The neo-cons should hold some sort of wake even if some of them don’t commit hari-kiri)
CL said, above, in release from the spaminator:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/11/24/howards-two-wars/#comment-210674
You got that absolutely spot on. It won’t be going anywhere.
(I’m for bed, and welcome anyone to demolish the rest of CL’s nonsense– a lesson in International law and enforceability in context seems to be what he’s asking for)
Now there’s a thought.
And imagine the surprise of the Saudi princes when they saw ol’ Shotgun pulling up in the drive.
“Ah, he’s back already. Told him those Iraqis were mad as cut snakes. Now, let’s just get that NYMEX screen up on the plasma please, Omar. Thank-you.”
While it’s taking your life in your hands talking back to Katz, I’d still maintain that oil has never been fungible. Force of arms and diplomacy have always been the oilman’s most effective tools.
But yes Russia is looking good. And so is China. All this little while when the US have been blundering about in Iraq killing folks and getting nowhere, the Chinese have been quietly but effectively dealing with regimes all over the globe in their own particular pursuit of hydrocarbons. Iran, Sudan, Venezuela etc.
Of course we right-wing moralists would like to show those particular regimes some Westinghouse shock’n'awe, but in the real world we can’t even get a fill-up in downtown Baghdad. Nevermind a Subway 12″ to go.
Mark ….and Peter Kemp too:
The greatest failure of Western diplomacy in the Early 21st Century is in neglecting to persuade and to guarantee Turkey that an independent Kurdistan would not be a threat to Turkish national security, integrity and interests. The Turks have had, over the past 80 years, good reason be concerned about hostility from their neighbours …. and I’ve heard nothing myself of any worthwhile efforts from the US State Dept., the UK Foreign Office or our own irrelevant DFAT to assure Turkey that an independent Kurdistan would be a good thing. (A union of Turkey and Kurdistan would be rather unacceptable to almost everyone this decade though).
The swift dismemberment of the present Iraq – which would include independence for Kurdistan – is just about the only thing that will now prevent far worse bloodshed in Iraq itself and a spread of this war throughout the Mediterranean and elsewhere. But …. without a massive, immediate and very generous diplomatic effort towards Turkey, the Turks would feel quite justified indeed in taking up arms to defend their own interests …. which then may not necessarily coincide with our interests.
Turkey is absolutely vital to whatever happens in South West Asia and yet we have ignored and neglected Turkey for far too long …. (b.t.w. SBS TV will broadcast a program on the Turkish economy tonight).
FDB [post 2], ND [posts 6&9], Katz (post 7]:
Thanks for your comments which speak volumes on how John Howard still manages to stay in power despite everything he has done and everything he has failed to do.
Everyone:
As one of the tens of thousands of Australian veterans of the Viet-Nam War who has been punished – socially, financially and in many other ways – for having served Australia, I am offended by former Young Liberals “urger” John Howard’s hypocritical attempts to use my war service for his own grubby political purposes. And now he and his cronies are doing the same sort of thing to the Diggers deployed overseas.
CL said:
A breathtakingly asinine statement if ever there was one, but I’ll assume CL means that IL doesn’t work, in the same sense that domestic criminal law doesn’t work when some criminals are never prosecuted.
In which case it demonstrates that any legal system is always imperfect, and IL is even more complicated because it encompasses the obligations on States (Treaty Law, UN Charter and Customary IL) and through those, it devolves to the Human Rights of individuals. There’s also concepts such as jus cogens which means certain IL that can never be derogated from.
But there will always be situations when the UN Security Council fails to act such as in Africa, and there will always be nations that fail to live up to their treaty obligations, or have made a reservation from certain parts of a treaty–better to have them partly in, for example, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights rather than have them wholly outside.
Re:
It would have been prudent CL to check one simple fact about Resolution 1701
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1701
No Chapter 7 Resolution for the simple reason that no sane member of UNIFIL was ever going to commit to disarming Hezbollah, which was the very thing that the much vaunted might of the IDF so palpably failed to achieve.
The degree of enforceability, in any legal regime, will determine its efficacy, and 1701 was perhaps the best outcome taking the interests of all parties into account–(a bit like Alternative Dispute Resolution methodology now I think of it, interests based emphasis rather than rights based.)
But your concern for Africa is commendable CL, the trick is how to make our imperfect system work and I’d suggest it doesn’t help to shovel all the blame onto Kofi Annan.
It is true that to a large degree oil majors and owners of major oil fields (usually governments) have formed a confederacy of rent takers. However, it is also true that the interests of oil majors and owners of oil fields do not exactly coincide.
Oil majors want to maximise returns on their investments. If the price of oil rises too much, that encourages consideration of other fuels and it raises government tax revenues based on the pump price of oil.
Oil field owners want to maximise the price of crude because that increases government revenue.
Nevertheless both parties are sensitive to market signals.
Moreover, there is an active market in oil futures and oil options. There is a world market price for oil.
In this sense, oil is fungible.
On the other hand, Russia has already proven in its dealings with the Ukraine and Georgia that oil and gas supplies have a political cost.
Pricing and supply arrangements are made government-to-government with the possibility of all kinds of conditions, including perhaps that the oil is not to be onsold to certain other countries.
This is a new form of mercantilism that further undermines the world market in oil.
So, WBB, by no means am I arguing that the world oil market is sliding from a shining white state of free market arrangements to a black state of government control. Rather i’m arguing that it is going from a lighter grey state to a darker grey state.
So it’s settled then.
Resolved:
1. Iran is the world’s new superpower. Armed with fearsome not-yet-existing early-60s nuclear capability and happily suffering from no internal divisions of its own, Iran will swan effortlessly into Iraq and assume control of an angry mob of millions of car-bombers, as the world quakes in fear. Their pincer-like grip on the Persian Gulf will throw the world into crisis because America and Europe have never invented or built anything new, and thus will be left as helpless and puzzled as the Egyptians in their fog.
2. Russia will become a Bond-villain-like monopolistic czar of the world’s oil supplies, as the world looks on, utterly helpless to do anything about it. Meanwhile, the global Russian juggernaut founded on the unshakeable pillars of gangsterism, computer fraud and human trafficking will overtake Japan, Nigeria, and the EU in economic prowess.
3. Russia’s only competition (leaving out the Iranian colossus for a moment) will come from China, a nation with no political troubles and no regional enemies or rivals, which terrifies the world with its unprecedented ability to manufacture low-cost, low-tech consumer widgets.
4. Meanwhile Iraq is doomed to an eternity of ethnic and sectarian violence because Iraqis are congenitally irrational and incapable of sitting down after a prolonged crisis to work out solutions to their own problems. Iraqis will never, ever grow weary of killing one another, nor will they begin to see it is counter-productive. They are as doomed to endless violence as the US has been to the eternal sectarian clashes that began in 1861 and continue to this day in that troubled land; or just as China has been doomed to endless struggle against the Manchus, the Khitai, and the Xiong-nu.
5. And the US, the world’s foremost rogue state and exporter of criminal evil, will slide into irrelevance because it has declined to use overwhelming military force against a barbaric regional squabble dressed in civilian clothes and stolen police uniforms, settling scores and grudges that date back to the Ottoman Empire.
6. After Bush has been hanged in The Hague for war crimes (and it’s gotta be at The Hague, because Europeans, themselves a sort of walking greatest-hits collection of war crimes, oughta know one when they see one), the US will shrivel to a cinder and then go crashing back into the 9th dimension from whence it came, to join Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth, its only equals in pan-cosmic evil.
7. And for the first time in human history, civilization will not somehow just grit its teeth and muddle through a sticky patch.
All in favor say Aye.
Gosh j_p_z, that’s a great crib of Bush’s “Axis of Evil’ speech.
Who would have thunk that a lampoon of the Left would sound so much like a Wingnut’s credo.
What a strange world we live in.
You’ve forgotten the Venezuelans, JPZ, who’ll lead Latin America, once freed from the gringo yoke, into a new Greater Confederation of South American Socialist Republics, renouncing petroleum/gas, mineral and cocaine dependence, and forging ahead with a progressive donkey and hand-loom fabric based economy. At least there’ll finally be competition for the New Indian economy, based in the future on domestic artesanal hand-spun textiles.
Thanks for the reality check, j_p_z. Maybe we have been kind of OD’ing on doom and gloom and mournful prophesy (not Peter K, of course, who’s loving it).
But Rob, there are moments when the doom and gloom/mournful prophesy can be put aside, when for example certain people have seen the “burning Bush” revelation.
It’s celebration time: we love it when certain people lift their game from endorsing summary executions in time of war, to an fulsome explanation and endorsement of what is a “just war.”
Now surely you wouldn’t disagree with that; you wouldn’t want to be a killjoy of people’s pleasure in justice and morality, would you?
Katz — w/r/t yr Bush quote above at 12:08…
The last sentence (the one beginning “States like these, and their terrorist allies…”) is, strictly speaking, a matter of opinion, and a matter for interpretation (however –so much the worse for us– amateurishly constituted).
But aside from that, please point out to me the parts of the quote that are factually incorrect.
(Well, maybe the Iranian people in point of fact have no “hope for freedom,” I wouldn’t know, but that part would be their own business, unlike the rest of it…)
j_p_z,
I was less interested in its factuality than in its orotund, apocalyptal, portentous tone.
However this one:
is possibly more true after the sweets and flowers had been handed out by the grateful denizens of Baghdad to their self-effacing, lopsidely smiling, American liberators than it was before the Beast of Baghdad slithered, shocked and awed, to his “Spider Hole”.
ObsPete, you’reweirdstrange,dudeman.Um, Mark, it is you who have an appalling grasp on basic history.
The international agreement signed in 1954 was between itself as the relinquishing colonial power and North Vietnam. South Vietnam had a legally independent de jure government (set up by the French to be sure, but that does not change what its status was) and they refused to sign what was a blatant French sell-out that the French had no right or power to sign on their behalf. Instead, in the face of French perfidy (what’s new here say the people of Rwanda and indeed anyone who has ever placed their faith in the French acting honourably) the South Vietnamese government looked for allies where it could find them to help defend itself, as it was perfectly entitled to do under international law.
Of course the North Vietnamese then went about blithely ignoring the undertakings of neutrality that they had given to Laos and to Cambodia at the very Paris Accords you alluded to.
I had to spend a considerable amount of time getting Peter Kemp up to speed on this topic on a thread here about a year ago. It’s sad that you missed that thread.
Might I remind y’aall that:
a) This thread commenced with JHo’s fatuous comments concerning Vietnam, while a diplomatic guest of Vietnam, while simultaneously dropping a large turd in the dining room of the people who so graciously offered him a quite sumptuous meal. In front of the hosts. And the guests. Noice.
b) JHo is a total cnut with no principles on either Vietnam or Iraq. Or anything really. He’s a smug, dwarf, suburban solicitor who got lucky.
c) Did I mention he’s a tunc?
d) We’re just 39 posts away from the big 300.
Carry on.
Should read: “…France as the relinquishing colonial power…”
Greg, you neglect to mention the other signatories to the 1954 accords.
Was Missy Higgins one of those signatories? And was she lesbian?
Hey, GregM, I was hoping you’d turn up on this thread.
Christine, thanks for your contribution. I’m sure you meant well.
Speaking of which, dare we ask if C.L. for offending Mark has gone the way of EP for offending Kate?
C.L. shouldn’t accuse people of welcoming the deaths of civilians, Rob. Surely you’d agree that’s not just the usual stoushing.
Can we take it then, Christine, that you won’t be voting for JHo or his minions in the next Federal Election?
Just asking so I can sure about it.
Yes, but what’s the actual answer, Kim?
I don’t agree with the premise of the question, Rob, as the PM is fond of saying in Parliament.
GregM is correct. Of all the conferees at the Geneva Conference in 1954, Laos, PRC, UK, US, Soviet Union, Cambodia, State of Vietnam (with Emperor Bao Dai as Head of State), North Vietnam and France, only the last two signed the Accords, mandating elections in 1958 to decide on the unification of Vietnam.
Soon thereafter, the Emperor was deposed and the US engineered the foundation of the Republic of Vietnam and the accession of Diem as president.
Thus, the sovereignty of the State of Vietnam never agreed to the Geneva Accords.
However, the first steps taken for unification after the time for the 1958 elections passed were locals, resident in South Vietnam, but rejectionist of South Vietnamese sovereignty. This was a very typical story in the great era of decolonisation post WWII, where rejectionism of sovereignty deemed to be illegitimate was the rule rather than the exception.
A nationalist insurgency followed. The US recognised the sovereignty of South Vietnam. Many South Vietnamese didn’t. Neither did the North Vietnamese.
The outcome is well known.
Ah well.
Gawd, how did that happen?
Mark, are we opening up a new province of international law here?
If a hundred countries were sign a treaty but one did not then it is not bound to that treaty. That’s been the way it’s been since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact being an ignoble exception that took sixty years to overturn.
The proposition implicit in your comment is as valid as saying that should, say, France (always up to no good in diplomacy) sign a Treaty with Russia, China and Singapore that handed sovereignty of Australia over to Singapore, but Australia sensibly did not do so and in fact vehemently protested the farce and said it would go its own way and defend itself, then that treaty would be a valid treaty binding on Australia and its failure to observe the treaty’s terms would be a breach of international law.
Tosh and nonsense (I hope) you would say of such a proposition. The situation of the government of South Vietnam in 1954 was no different than that of Australia in the hypothetical I have given. it didn’t matter who signed the Treaty. All that mattered in international law was that South Vietnam did not.
Was South Vietnam recognised at international law as a state in 1954, Greg? That affects the premise of your argument.
Fuck me. There I was thinking this thread was dead.
But Kim, since you’re here, I have to ask whether you’ve been following West Wing, and what you think of CJs elevation to COS? I was blown
atwataway.For a fictional character she rocks.
Jeb, CJ, Toby, Donna, Josh. Why aren’t these people in fake power? Unlike teh weirdenss for the next two years: http://www.slate.com/id/2154150/nav/tap1/
Well Katz and GregM, there’s about 12 pars that have gone to waste in the apparent delusion that they constitute coherent arguments. Bit of casual sniping wouldn’t have done any harm.
Spiffy, Christine! Loved the way she put the Secretary of Defence back in his box.
But bring back Amy Gardner to the West Wing!
[She does come back actually, but I don't want to give away any spoilers]
Oh! Have just realised have done bit of casual sniping! *preens feathers, struts*
Oh yeah Kim. Was thinking she should have just waltzed into Tiger Group (?), plonked handbag on desk, pulled out Luger, and pointed at SOD. Or maybe returned to WH Press Room & done same. Whatever.
Kim, South Vietnam was a recognised State under international law in 1954, meeting both the tests of de-jure government, having been declared as such by the relinquishing colonial power in 1952 (for the usual cynical reasons of the French) and of having defacto control over the land that it claimed as its territory. It attended the Paris Talks in its own right so implicitly the other parties at the talks recognised its sovereign nature although the North Vietnamese did so on the understanding that it had received from France that when the time came for signing an agreement France would be able to strong-arm the South Vietnamese in going along what was on the table. It is one of the high-points of French diplomacy that their conduct was treacherous to both the North and South Vietnamese.
Katz’s account of what happened is one I agree with. What annoys me is that many commentators, some of whom claim to have a grasp on basic history of the time, ignore the fact that in pursuing its war for unification of Vietnam the North ignored completely its undertakings, given as part of the Paris Talks ajnd confirmed by treaty, to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Laos and Cambodia, each of which had indigenous, legitimate and popular governments which wished at all costs to avoid involvement in the looming Vietnamese civil war. Instead, in complete breach of international law, the North used their territory as a staging ground for its war against the South and in doing so destroyed their governments, visited monstrous atrocities upon their people and turned them into effective economic colonies of itself, a fate that is, to some extent, even true today.
Then again if you know Vietnamese history it would not surprise you that they’d trash the Khmers and the Laos. The only time in their history when they didn’t do so was when they were colonised by the French. The Chams, descendants of the people of the Kingdom of Champa, located in what is now central Vietnam, which was trashed by the Vietnamese in the 16th century, fled to Cambodia where they live today. The Khmers still yearn for the return of their fishing village Prek Nokor (now Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City) and the rest of Kampuchea Krom (southern Vietnam, including the Mekong Delta) stolen by the Vietnamese in the mid-nineteenth century, the theft being validated by the French in the late nineteenth century, and then again in the 1920s.
On your other question, as Katz points out, no Missy Higgins was not a signatory. I have no information as to her sexual inclinations at the time as none of the documents I have read have mentioned that topic being canvassed in negotiations, probably because the French, in their perfidious way, made sure that all mention of that vital topic was expunged from the archives.
Christine wrote:
b) JHo is a total cnut with no principles on either Vietnam or Iraq. Or anything really. He’s a smug, dwarf, suburban solicitor who got lucky.
c) Did I mention he’s a tunc?
I just have to pop in to say that in a post which is somewhat under my auspices, I dislike seeing a part of female anatomy being used as the ultimate term of abuse, even against someone like John Howard who I detest.
Only wasted on you of course, Christine. But that’s what happens when you cast pearls before swine. My hoped for audience were people like Mark and Rob and Kim and Katz, who actually know a coherent argument when they see it and are not so blinded by their prejudices that they cannot accept that the world is not always as they thought it was or they wish it to be.
Greg M wrote:
The proposition implicit in your comment is as valid as saying that should, say, France (always up to no good in diplomacy) sign a Treaty with Russia, China and Singapore that handed sovereignty of Australia over to Singapore, but Australia sensibly did not do so and in fact vehemently protested the farce and said it would go its own way and defend itself, then that treaty would be a valid treaty binding on Australia and its failure to observe the treaty’s terms would be a breach of international law.
Tosh and nonsense (I hope) you would say of such a proposition.
I would say that of your example, which completely leaves out history. In other words, France is never going to be in a position to hand Australia over to any country, especially not one of those you list. In the case of Vietnam and France, there was a history of French occupation/colonialism of the entire country which, despite regional differences, is a unity in many ways. The Geneva Conference and the Vietnam War were a continuation of and a working out of the legacies of that history.
Apology needed from Christine Keeler is it then Suz?
By midnight ?
At this rate of contributors being subject to permanent exclusion Kim and Mark will be the only ones left soon .
I said nothing about exclusion, permanent or otherwise.
I just have to pop in to say that in a post which is somewhat under my auspices, I dislike seeing a part of female anatomy being used as the ultimate term of abuse, even against someone like John Howard who I detest.
suz, I think it’s is an entirely reasonable point, and I have no hesitation in apologising. I lowered tone, didn’t engage in reasoned debate, used sexual organs/gender as terms of abuse, and was wrong to do so on all counts.
Sorry.
Greg, I’ll see if I have a chance to pop in over the next few days and address your arguments. I’ve had a busy day with work and I’m a bit too tired for serious commenting tonight.
suz, at international law one a country hands over sovereignty of a country to the government, however formed, of that country then that is it. It cannot then presume to exercise the relinquished sovereignty on behalf of that country in negotiations with a third party, (which legally was what North Vietnam was to South Vietnam during the time of the Geneva Talks) without the express agreement of the government to which sovereignity had passed. Sovereignty over southern Vietnam had passed to the State of Vietnam before the Geneva Talks. France therefore was not in a legal position to hand it over to anyone. That is the historical record. To ignore it is to deny history as well as the workings of international law.
The fact that France had a colonising history in Indochina is irrelevant to the legal point, just the fact that the United Kingdom once had a colonising history in Australia is irrelevant to the legal relationship between those two sovereign countries today.
France acted at the Geneva talks with bad faith to both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese Governments and failed both of them. Better that it had just packed up its kit and sailed away but it is the nature of French foreign policy to interfere in the affairs of its former colonies and to stuff it up when it does so.
I do agree though that the Vietnam war was a working out of the legacy of France’s colonial history and from a historical perspective I cannot see fault in the North Vietnamese seeking to unify the country and many southern Vietnamese wanting the same when, as the southern Government was not widely seen as legitimate, its officials often being associated with collaboration with the hated French. Once the French deception was apparent it was quite legitimate for the North to take up arms in support of the insurgents in the south in a civil war to achieve unification. Sadly for those southern insurgents once the war was won they learned that the North’s idea of unification was to be rule by and from the North which, if you are familiar with Vietnamese history you will know, is something the southern Vietnamese have historically resisted. More than one senior NLF figure spent time in Vietnamese prisons after the “Liberation” when he protested that, despite assurances that it would be otherwise, the South had replaced one set of colonial maters for another.
Mark, I look foward to reading what you post. Since your original concern was about South Vietnam’s breaching of an agreement which it had not signed and therefore to which it was not bound as a precipitating factor for the Vietnam War I hope you will also address the breaching by North Vietnam of its treaties with Laos and Cambodia respecting their sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to get at its southern enemy.
Would you agree with me that it is much worse to breach agreements you make with countries you have no quarrel with and who have given you no offence than it is to ignore a treaty to which you are not bound?
Do recall that Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium to get at France in WWI was thought of at the time, and still is, as being an egregious war crime. Should we apply lesser standards when the war is in Asia?
Suz:
Very good post …. even if there were a few potholes and mud-puddles along the way.
ChristineKeeler [at 6:05pm 28 Nov]:
Thank you for mentioning Mr Howard’s abuse of his Vietnamese hosts’ hospitality; an abuse which Australia’s news media crawlers chose to ignore or downplay.
GregM, eventually we get over the “Bad King John, Good Queen Bess” approach to individual historical problems.
The difference between Belgium in 1914 and Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s was that no major power was prepared to fight for their territorial integrity.
There are several possible reasons for this inconsistency. You hint at probably the most potent of these:
The point is that Western nations, notably the United States, did exactly that.
There is nothing surprising about this. The French successfully twisted the arm of the US in the late 1940s demanding support for their return to colonial overlordship in Indochina.
The linkage that the French demanded, and the US accepted, was French co-operation in the defence of Europe.
So, for the first time, the US became an active participant in European imperialism.
This was very inconsistent with previous US foreign policy, and very stupid.
And the US was punished for it. The US response to this punishment can still be seen in its obsessional desire to bury finally the “Vietnam syndrome”.
But the “Vietnam syndrome” just keeps getting worse!
GregM wrote:
The fact that France had a colonising history in Indochina is irrelevant to the legal point, just the fact that the United Kingdom once had a colonising history in Australia is irrelevant to the legal relationship between those two sovereign countries today.
I’m not a lawyer much less an expert in international lawyer, but I’m astonished that you could claim that our colonial past is irrelevant to our current relationship to the UK. The British monarch is after all, still Queen of Australia.
Apologies for an OT question, but what is the answer regarding CL?
Is he banned or not?
I never knew he was in a band
EDIT: Name changed to poster’s
actual nameoriginal username by moderator.I can understand how tempting it is, but why can’t Homer have his original dumb-arse entry in the [name] field?
…
GregM, that’s hardly the only difference between pre-Great War Belgium and Cold War Laos and Cambodia. Belgian territory wasn’t being used by anyone militarily except the Belgians before the Bosche invaded it, for a start.
And let’s not get into that whole first-world industrialised colonial power versus third-world agricultural-based developing country business. We’ll all get confused.
Fyodor:
No longer is there a link to his blog on the LP front page. Is that recent?
C’mon, let’s have an answer people!
I can’t actually get to the URL linked in Fyodor’s moniker. Is the domain still active?
what in heaven’s name is happening here.
monikers are changed because of ….
EDIT by Moderator: Name edited to poster’s
actual nameoriginal usernameText originally entered in [name] field: Bring Back MY Original moniker at LP
No, Tiggers – my blog is so exclusive even I can’t get in. I banned my last commenter (moi) some time ago in a fit of pique – so you might say I’m no longer Master of My Domain. The upside, of course, is that the blog no longer needs a comment policy, so there is a silver lining.
I’m thinking of changing the name to “Ha! Made you look!”, but that strikes me as a little infantile, non?
Heh. Funny.
all comments in moderation is not meant to be taken literally
EDIT by moderator: name edited to poster’s
actual nameoriginal usernameoriginal text entered in [name] field: Bring Back MY orignal monikers and comments
why would CL be banned?
EDIT by moderator: name edited to poster’s
actual nameoriginal usernameoriginal text entered in [name] field: Bring Back the Original LP
Homer, Fyodor etc, this is the relevant part of the comments policy:
Turn it up, Homer. ‘Bring Back the Original LP’? It’s not yours, nor mine, nor anyone’s except Mark who pays the domain fees.
Whinge by all means, hypocritically, self-righteously and faux-sensitively as I do at Catallaxy—but don’t falsely historicise.
GregM sez:
Wiki sez;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam
Even the Pentagon Papers say
Perhaps GregM could enlighten us all on the State of Vietnam, and on his novel definition of sovereignty (of puppets) which apparently trumps all and occurred over all of Vietnam in June 1949, ratified by France in Feb 1950, but which he now states that sovereignty was given only it seems, to South Vietnam, before the Geneva Accords in Dec 1954?
He then uses his creation of a new doctrine “infalliable retrospective puppet sovereignty” to declare that France had no right to give away in negotiation what France did not possess, having given the South away with the State of Vietnam in 1949/50.
This is coupled with his universal doctrine of “French deceit” which apparently nullifies any agreement France made, whatsoever, whensoever, excepting for the creation of the State of Vietnam in 1949 but with his post facto interpretation of that being applicable to South Vietnam only, pre the Accord.
Confusing but entertaining, in the fields of international law and history, I must say.
This may be one of those times when the interested amateur wikipediast goes beyond her competency.
Another admittedly amateur historian puts it this way:
I’m willing to concede that, even though a de facto puppet of the French, Bao Dai was de jure Head of State of a sovereign nation from 30/12/1949. This concession of sovereignty was within the competency of the French as de jure sovereign. Indeed, Cochinchina, (South Vietnam) even sent a deputy to the French National Congress.
Therefore, the State of Vietnam had legitimate interests that were of no legal concern to the French by 1954, when France and North Vietnam alone signed the Geneva Accords.
Again GregM makes a bold and novel assertion:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/iaaa1969240/sch1.html
Schedule 1 of 3 in NSW legislation—Imperial Acts Application Act 1969 NSW with among others reference to habeas corpus, from a noted middle ages document called Magna Carta.
How about the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (Cth)
(no prizes for guessing who enacted the original Statute of Westminster)
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sowaa1942379/s3.html
A “colonising history irrelevant to the legal relationship.” ???
Liz and Phil-POG would be mortified!
Katz, re
I take to mean that France had a right to (finally) hand up all sovereignty by the Geneva Accord?
(I was addressing GregM’s assertion that the French had already handed over all sovereignty to the S of V in 49/50)
I’m inclined to agree with Peter. The other factor you have to look at is the transmission of power from Bao Dai to Diem.
Diem was originally named Prime Minister by Bao Dai. Subsequently he held a referendum to depose Bao Dai as Emperor. The vote in favour was something like 99%. Hmmm.
Whatever the formal legal position, and I believe it’s doubtful, there’s no doubt in practice, as I said long ago on this thread, that South Vietnam in the 50s was a semi-colonial entity.
I’ll just note in passing that the logic of Greg’s case would also rule out the COW invasion of Iraq, which was unquestionably a sovereign state, as illegal. It’s odd that some people who support both “Howard’s Wars” like Rob don’t see the contradiction.
Peter Kemp, of all of the bizarre arguments to continue, why on earth are you picking to continue arguing the grounds for American involvement in Vietnam? It’s not as if either side took any of it particularly seriously, except at the conference tables and in the colleges.
I wonder whether Graham Bell recalls much of the basic training in sovereign colonial constitutional law and international treaty-making he must have received before he was sent over there. </banalsarcasm>
Here’s the text of the accords, by the way. They seem to assume that “South Vietnam” was not sovereign as they refer to the “French Union forces in Indo-China” as the party which had to agree to withdraw below a “provisional military demarcation line”, as did the “the forces of the People’s Army of Viet-Nam”.
It doesn’t sound like those negotiating the agreement recognised Diem’s government as a sovereign entity.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/genevacc.htm
No, the French did this on 30/12/1949. They had nothing else to give up by 1954, except to agree to remove their armed forces, which were in South Vietnam, at the request of the legitimate and sovereign government of the State of Vietnam. BTW, Australian troops are in Iraq at the request of the legitimate government of Iraq (as recognised by the United Nations).
The overarching point is, of course, in South Vietnam, as in Iraq, large parts of the population didn’t and don’t recognise the legitimacy of the process of creating those sovereignties.
Thus to run around in cases like this applying the measuring stick of the Treaty of Westphalia is an exercise in pious futility.
Fyodor, I was thinking about buying you the Ali Zaybak domain for Christmas.
Thanks again your very helpful advice last week. It enabled us to get a few things straight in our heads.
Domains as Xmas presents? It’s a cool idea!
Sovereignty is the nub of it Katz, and it’s an interesting and a worthy point to argue for applicability to Iraq, Palestine, Taiwan and many others. While ultimately sovereignty rests always with the people of a country, my argument is that France held any sovereignty on trust for the Vietnamese people which was handed back (finally and belatedly) by “cession” or in other words ceding the territory, militarily, according to the Geneva Accords. Interestingly the Accords never seem to mention the State of Vietnam at all, but do mention the DRV. There is a distinction between territorial and popular sovereignty it seems.
On the subject of French territorial occupation then, when France returned the territory of North Vietnam, it could be said that they (as the king pins of the Vietnamese government) returned territorial sovereignty to the NV, and by their Accord agreement, also handed over territorial sovereignty in the South, to the Bo Dai entity.
To say that full sovereignty had been handed over in 1949/50 to the State of Vietnam seems to me to fall foul of the definitions of sovereignty ie absolute control etc. I include in this argument, for the same reasons, that occupied Iraq can never have full sovereignty (by fact) until the occupiers leave, notwithstanding that the UN has given them de-jure sovereignty.
So, if handing back limited de-jure sovereignty in 49/50 was an irrevocable act, then you would have to argue that the State of Vietnam (Bo Dai) had sovereignty over all of Vietnam and the Accords could not be applied (at the least), ie the Accord stated it would give territory north of the 17th parallel to the DRV. I find that argument untenable. Sovereignty to be fully held, IMHO has to be both de-jure and de-facto. The fact that the DRV was recognised in the Accord is at odds with the overall S of V irrevocable sovereignty argument, which was limited de-jure at best.
The US Secretary of State said May 7 1954:
So, in the light of that, I don’t see how the argument of full sovereignty in 49/50 can stand. How can one have full sovereignty without independence?
Some interesting links:
Taiwan:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FB27Ad01.html
Black’s Law Dictionary
(Sixth Edition)
http://www.hawaii-nation.org/sovereignty.html
No, the French treated Cochinchina (essentially SVN) as a special case.
This is interesting, because subsequently the US Government went through an elaborate process of recognising the sovereignty of Bao Dai, to the extent that they insisted that their man Diem recognise his sovereignty. Later, in 1955, the government, but not the sovereignty of South Vietnam was changed by means of a dodgy plebiscite to a republic.
“Independence” in this case can be seen as a weasel-word.
Katz, sorry for the Wiki again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam
But confirmed here fwiw:
http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Cochinchina
So although Cochin-China was indeed a special case, for the purposes of the the 49/50 creation of the State of Vietnam, it was incorporated into that entity.
Rather a lot there to respond to. I ‘ll do so in a series of posts, first to Katz.
Katz:
That’s not the difference thats a difference.
Under international law, reinforced by the UN Charter, countries are meant to respect the territorial integrity of other countries irrespective of whether or not a major power is prepared to fight for those other countries. Is that not a key pillar of your opposition to the US invasion of Iraq?
On the actual politics of it, though, I see it pretty much as you do, although the motivator of US policy at the time was containing communism. They’d already had their foreign policy debate on who’d “lost” China (as if it were a set of car-keys), had fought the Korean War to a standstill and were supporting the Philippines government in suppressing the communist influenced Hukbalahap insurrection.
Your point that:
just demonstrates the deep cynicism of French foreign policy. One would have thought that having just recently been bailed out from under Nazi overlordship by the Americans the French would have been eager to co-operate in the defence of Europe. Perhaps they had happy memories of when Russian troops had last occupied Paris in 1813 (giving rise the word “bistro”-Russian for “quick”- appearing in the French language) and were looking forward to a reprise.
Or perhaps, paraphrasing the mid-century European statesman, Prince Schwertenberg of Austria, (referring Austria’s response to Russia’s assistance in suppressing a Hungarian uprising), they just wanted to astonish the Americans with their ingratitude.
Next Liam.
Liam when you say:
You might care to enlighten us as to who, other than the Laotians and the Khmers, of course, was using their respective territories militarily when the north Vietnamese decided to open up the Ho Chi Trail and violate their sovereignty in 1958.
I think that you are already confused. There was no first-world industrialised colonial power involved in either Cambodia or Laos at the time the Ho Chi Minh Trail was opened up and their neutrality violated. There was a hegomonistic third-world agricultural-based developing country, North Vietnam, which treated its neighbours with contempt, which the Vietnamese had been doing for hundreds of years.
Next for Peter Kemp.
Peter Kemp:
Always glad to throw light in dark and dusty corners Peter, although in your case I did so about a year ago on a previous thread when I traced the development of the State of Vietnam to sovereignty prior to 1954. In this instance though Katz has done the work for me when she (I am assuming that you are female Katz, correct me if I am wrong) states, for the reasons she outlines:
It is a simple concept at international law Peter that one nation (France) cannot trade the sovereignty of another nation (the State of Vietnam) to a third body (North Vietnam) except with the express consent of that nation. As I pointed out to Mark that’s the way it’s been since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Whether or not Bao Dai was a defacto puppet of the French is immaterial to the position of the State of Vietnam at international law. The State of Vietnam could not be bound by the Geneva Accord unless it signed it, it was not obliged to do so, no-one could sign on its behalf and as it did not sign the Accord it was not in any way bound by a treaty that gave north Vietnam no rights against anyone except the other sole signatory, France, and certainly no rights against the State of Vietnam.
You ask Katz, of her statement:
No Peter. What she means is the exact opposite of what you want it to be.
Finally, Peter, you have a concern about my statement:
I am always glad, as I have done in the past, to help you continue your legal education. The legal relationship between Australia and the UK is governed by the Australia Act 1986, passed by both the Australian and UK Parliaments, the long title of which begins:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aa1986114/
Says it all really. The Queen’s status as Head of State devolves from her being that in the Australian Constitution, not from being the British sovereign, and should the British abolish the monarchy in their country that would not affect her status as the Australian Head of State. If we want to get rid of her we’ll have to change our Constitution.
You really should keep up with legal developments.
Finally (for the moment) to Mark:
Mark:
You are introducing more novelty into international law, Mark. The fact that Diem deposed Bao Dai in 1955 is utterly irrelevant at international law as to whether or not the State of Vietnam continued as a sovereign independent nation. That pesky old Treaty of Westphalia principle again.
Of course, Mark, the exact same was true of north Vietnam at the time, which was one of the reasons that the northerners wanted to get France out of northern Vietnam and hence negotiated the Geneva Agreement, the other being to take over the south as part of a unified country. And, of course, the French withdrew from southern Vietnam when they withdrew from the north. Its colonial adventure in Indochina ended with the Geneva agreement which then left it with its colonial empire in north Africa, and didn’t the Algerian War turn out well for it.
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. No wonder the State of Vietnam wouldn’t sign the agreement, despite considerable pressure from the French to do so. Just standard French duplicity. Then again they knew the gig was up after Dien Bien Phu and were desperate to retrieve their soldiers who had been captured there.
You might ask yourself, however, why if France had not already given the State of Vietnam its sovereignty, the United States and the United Kingdom recognized that State in 1950. Nations don’t go around recognizing other nations lightly and I can find no evidence of a furious flurry of French protests at the United States and UK recognition of the State of Vietnam which you would expect from a colonial power when other countries interfere in what are to that colonial power are its private affairs. Imagine what the United Kingdom’s reaction would have been if the United States had recognised India as an independent country in 1935.
“It’s odd that some people who support both “Howard’s Warsâ€? like Rob don’t see the contradiction.”
No, Mark. I did not support the invasion of Iraq, as I’ve said any number of times on this blog. Perhaps paradoxically, I supported its continuation as long as it seemed there was a reasonable chance things would turn out for the best. Now I think it’s a matter of straightening things out in as realistic a fashion as possible and getting out. (Not that it matters what I think, of course.)
Against that dispiriting prognosis is the argument that insurgencies can and have been defeated over time (the Mau Mau, Malaya) but it does take time and political will. The political systems of the UK and the US in particular will not allow for either.
Then again, j_p_z’s reality check may be closer to the mark.
Colour me conflicted.
GregM wrote earlier:
the fact that the United Kingdom once had a colonising history in Australia is irrelevant to the legal relationship between those two sovereign countries today.
and then later:
The Queen’s status as Head of State devolves from her being that in the Australian Constitution, not from being the British sovereign, and should the British abolish the monarchy in their country that would not affect her status as the Australian Head of State. If we want to get rid of her we’ll have to change our Constitution.
All very legally exact but this ignores the historical fact that she became queen of Australia due to Britain’s colonial role. We don’t have the King of Thailand as our head of state and there’s a cultural and historical reason for that.
He also writes:
You might ask yourself, however, why if France had not already given the State of Vietnam its sovereignty, the United States and the United Kingdom recognized that State in 1950. Nations don’t go around recognizing other nations lightly
No they don’t. They usually do so for strategic, tactical, political reasons. The US and the UK’s recognition of South Vietnam probably had everything to do with their relationship to France and their own hopes in the region (especially in America’s case.)
Well I might be drunk, but I think the phrase “…at [insert juristiction] law” is so cute!
Can anyone give a reason why we should accept such an inappropriate preposition, other than the usual ‘there is precedent’ or let-lawyers-talk-howsever-they-like?
Peter Kemp, when will I not have to assist you in your legal education?
You have asked the question:
The High Court canvassed this very issue in Sue v Hill in 1999 as it traced Australia’s constitutional development from Federation, when the United Kingdom was not a foreign power to Australia and Australia, though sovereign in her own territory and with defence and external affairs powers, was not fully independent of the UK, up to the passing of the Australia Act 1986 when, the High Court held, Australia was both sovereign and independent and the unfortunate Mrs Hill, by virtue of her failure to renounce her British citizenship when she took out Australian citizenship and before she stood for election to the Senate, owed allegiance to a foreign power and was therefore ineligible to take her seat in the Senate.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1999/30.html
Rather than explain the decision to you in detail I will let you read it and you can come back to me if you have any questions.
You also say:
No Peter. That is utterly wrong. France held sovereignty by force of arms so that it could exploit Vietnam and the Vietnamese for the benefit of France and the French. Whatever the pious platitudes that may have been uttered at the time that was the brutal reality of colonialism and especially French colonialism. There is no legal underpinning for the concept that France held sovereignty on trust for the Vietnamese. That’s why the Vietnamese, including long before the communists came along and in all parts of the country, fought for their independence from France.
If you want to discuss legal concepts and their application to real-life situations and expect to be taken seriously then you’d better learn to apply concepts that actually have a foundation in the law and not some concoctions that you have whipped up in your head. And, equally, try not to apply domestic Property Law to international law. It’s as relevant to that as it is to determining custody rights under Family Law.
You might like having the King of Thailand as Australia’s Head of State, Suz. He’s quite partial to approving coup d’états when Prime Ministers get uppity and up his nostril. It might be one way of getting rid of John Howard who on current indications doesn’t look like he’s planning on leaving Kirribilli House until he turns seventy-five.
Katz, your comment:
is, of course, quite true. However Peter Kemp has, on this thread and one about a year ago, tried to argue the legal case that France was entirely in its right to dispose of the whole of Vietnam to the North Vietnamese by applying, of all things, Australian domestic Property law. I have entertained myself by pointing out to him that the relevant body of law to apply if one wants to look at the issue is international law and there, even today, the principles founded in the Treaty of Westphalia are the principles that govern the relationship between nations. I think I am making progress with him.
Only today he made the (tentative) discovery:
Perhaps there is hope that he will further discover that the concept of territorial sovereignty is a 17th century legal concept traceable back to the abovementioned Treaty, (to which, I must admit, I have become quite fond) made between despots who would have been horrified to think of popular sovereignty getting a run in their territories and that popular sovereignty is a radical 18th century political concept best expressed in the words of the United States Declaration of Independence: