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.