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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
14, 2006
Alive, Well and Gaining Strength
The
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq Syndrome
By JOHN V. WALSH
"Two, Three, Many Vietnams"! was
Che Guevara's famous call to arms. Today we remain in the throes
of our third Vietnam, Iraq. This is the third time since World
War II that hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops have been sent
abroad in a neo-colonialist war (1).
The first "Vietnam"
was in fact Korea. And it was the first war to be televised
to the relatively few TV sets then in existence. Americans saw
the bloody battles in black and white with American soldiers
killed day after day. At the end of it all about 50,000 Americans
and a million Asians were dead, at the hands of Harry S. Truman
who was deeply reviled as the result of the war. Truman was
unexpectedly defeated in the first New Hampshire primary and
withdrew from the presidential race, which Eisenhower won on
the promise of "going to Korea" and ending the war--which
he did, much to his credit. Today we do not hear much about
Eisenhower; but the bloodthirsty Truman, the only human being
to order the incineration of hundreds of thousands with nuclear
weapons of mass destruction, is hailed by the likes of Democrat
neocon Peter Beinart and other Democratic neocons as a model
for Democrats today. However, at the time of Korea organized,
antiwar sentiment was miniscule and there was little to no protest
over the draft.
Next was Vietnam itself where
our historical memory often seems to begin when most pundits
discuss war, apparently because their knowledge of history only
springs from their own personal memories. Kennedy and the rest
of "the best and the brightest" Democrats started this
war and by its ending another 50,000 Americans and two million
Southeast Asians, by Robert McNamara's count, had been killed.
Kennedy was another "tough" Democrat, decrying a supposed
missile gap and promising to send troops anywhere in the world
for "freedom." But this time a massive opposition
grew, slowly at first and then gaining in speed. By 1968, Johnson
had suffered the same fate as Truman in New Hampshire and he
was driven from office. By 1964 there were sizable campus and
street demonstrations against the war, driven by Old Left and
New, and by 1969 the demonstrations had grown to hundreds of
thousands. The draft became untenable and was abolished. From
now on the empire builders would have to make do with an "all-volunteer"
army recruited mainly from the ranks of those who were strapped
for cash or mesmerized by the culture of war.
Now we have Iraq. And in this
last election, the President who brought it upon us was handed
a resounding defeat--just as were Truman and Johnson before him.
But this time millions in the U.S. marched against the war before
it started, and 23 Senators refused to rubber stamp Bush's call
to arms. Even the military was reluctant, and it took enormous
exertions of deception and manipulation, like calling for a vote
a month before the 2002 elections, leading most politicians to
vote their careers and ambitions instead of stopping the unnecessary
slaughter that knew lay ahead. Once again the United States
has left its signature in Iraq, killing around 500,000 so far
and probably more than that due to the Clintonian sanctions leading
up to the war. It seems that a consistent U.S. strategy, its
signature, is to level any third world country and visit mass
murder on its population if that country is considered an enemy.
The hope is obviously that those who displease the American
Empire will know that there is a great price to pay. Although
American deaths have fallen far short of those in Korea and Vietnam,
the tens of thousands of injuries would have been deaths in those
earlier wars.
Vietnam generated more opposition
than Korea and now Iraq has generated more opposition and earlier
opposition than Vietnam--despite the absence of the draft, which
did so much to mobilize opposition to the war on Vietnam. (Now
we have Max Boot, resident neocon at the LA Times calling for
an army of foreign-born mercenaries who can be rewarded for their
fighting with U.S. citizenship.) And opposition to this war
does not come mainly or principally from students but from all
segments of the population. It was a grown-up opposition, symbolized
by Lila Lipscomb and Cindy Sheehan, whose sons were taken from
them by the machinations of the neocons. (The drawback to the
lack of youth has been a dearth of militancy and radicalism and
uncompromising idealism.) The opposition has sprung not only
from the Left, but from Libertarians and the non neocon Right
which has returned to its anti-imperial roots, largely abandoned
after WWI(2). This stance is routinely smeared with the "isolationist"
label to no avail, and I soon expect to see bumper stickers proclaiming
"Isolationist, and Proud of It."
The fact is that we have come
a long way. The American people are increasingly dissatisfied
with war and Empire--in fact we are sick to death of it. The
Vietnam syndrome is no longer adequate to describe the phenomenon
since it is now the product of three colonial wars. Properly
it should be called the "Korea, Vietnam, Iraq Syndrome."
The masters of Empire, both Democrat and Republican, will try
to "cure" us of this sentiment, and we must be wary
of this, but in the end they will not succeed. They have lost
the battle in Iraq, and they have lost the battle for the hearts
and minds of Americans to sustain an empire.
So we stand on the threshold
of a full-blown Anti-imperial movement if we can pull it off.
We need to consolidate this now before the Empire decides that
it must wage war on China--which was part of the motivation for
Iraq in the first place and is now finding its way into the screed
of the propagandists of empire (3). We have the forces, from
Left and Right, to generate such a movement. We must do it--or
with the advance of technology, we may all perish by accident
if not by design.
This article is prepared from
unprepared remarks at a demonstration of the Antiwar League (AntiwarLeague.org)
in Boston on Veterans Day.
Notes
(1) The numerous imperial
wars fought by proxy armies for the U.S. from Angola to El Salvador
to Afghanistan to Iran, which killed untold millions, do not
qualify as "Vietnams" in Che's definition. No one
has yet adequately tallied the toll in lives and destruction
claimed by these cruel wars.
(2) Justin Raimondo. Reclaiming
the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement.
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