Another Vietnam?

[siercia]

I went and say The Quiet American last week with Wiley, and it made me think a whole lot about what we ("we" here meaning the American government) were trying to do there, and how badly we did it, and how I can't shake the feeling that we're doing the same thing in the here and now with Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

I took a grad class on the Vietnam War when I was in school. Although I realize that it came with the requisite liberal bias found on most college campuses, iI still feel a little more educated on the era than a lot of people my age - we didn't live through it, and standard issue history classes never covered it, and all most of us are left with is the memory of popular culture.

One of the strongest things I came away from after that class was just how badly we had understood the countries involved. This stemmed from both our having poor information, coming from poorly educated and equipped diplomats, civil servants and intelligence gatherers, and from our willful misunderstanding and ignorance (both ignoring information we didn't like, and making sure our information sources were those that would tell us what we wanted to hear). It follows that our lack of understanding the poeple and their culture led to our consistent mis-steps, underestimation of the people (both our allies and our enemies), and ultimately our failure there.

We caused so much death and devastation in Vietnam, and I cannot help but believe that much of it could have been avoided if, in the early years of the involvement - (even going back to the 1940's and '50's and their fight against the French for independence, and certainly by the 1960s and the Kennedy administration) we had actually understood better the country, the people and their culture.

I can't help thinking and fearing that we're doing the same thing here in our dealings with the Middle East - once again, we have a people and culture who are fundamentally different in beliefs and practices from the US (for both good and bad), and we're being blinded by our own ignorance and hubris into making terrible mistakes and thinking we know what we're doing when we don't. I know it's a different era of warfare, and a different kind of fight, and I don't think we'll be pulled into the same kind of long, drawn out conflict as we were then, but I can't shake the feeling we're walking a tightrope over giant mawing pits with unimaginable horrors lurking within them, because once again, we're charging ahead without knowing what we're really doing.

It makes me unspeakably sad to think so - that we haven't learned better from our mistakes of the past. I hope I'm wrong.

Comments

I have the same hunch that you do...

[mamawrites.livejournal.com]

... that we're fundamentally misunderstanding some things. I hope we're both wrong.

Re: I have the same hunch that you do...

[siercia]

So do I.

[rawrin.livejournal.com]

You said it far better than I could.

[siercia]

Thank you.

[scirocco.livejournal.com]

Whenever I argue with folks here at work about this whole war, I always find myself finishing up with "I'd like to think we're smarter and won't do what we've done before, that we've learned something." Unfortunately, I only half believe that myself. I am, however, almost eternally optimistic.

[siercia]

I really hope you're right. I have to say though, that I really fear that we haven't.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

One of the things that made everything so "murky" in Vietnam is that because we are pretty ignorant of other cultures as a country, and because sometimes it's just plain hard to tell, it was hard to tell the difference between those that were "for" us or "against" us, north vs. south, "good guys" vs. "bad guys." I think the same is true for all of the Middle East aggression these days.

I felt it start right after the WTC attack when people in NY were running around beating the crap out of people who looked like they were from Middle Eastern descent. Ever since then, we've been beaten with "Middle Eastern = bad." But now we're saying we want to save the Iraqis from Saddam? Who's telling the soldiers who is a "good" Iraqi and who is a "bad" Iraqi? Ugh.

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. All of a sudden the west has decided that Saddam shouldn't be allowed to dictate over Iraq, yet by making that decision to oust him by force, and the likelyhood of a US military occupation after the war makes us dictators too.

How about we ask for their input in this thing, about what they want, rather than appointing ourselves as their decision makers?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I want to know how we pick which violent people we're going to try to stop. I mean, are we stopping the Israelis or the Palestinians? What about all the fighting in Ireland? Why did we go to Somalia and Kosovo? WHY WHY WHY?

[siercia]

That is why I couldn't get behind supporting this action, even on a humanitarian basis. As I commented somewhere else, only making a humanitarian effort when it happens to co-incide with our own interests is unsupportable. At best, that makes us hypocrites; at worst, it makes us unspeakably selfish and destroys our credibility.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

And why, I wonder, does our president want to spend $100 billion of our tax revenue supporting the rights and justice of the Iraqi people, but at the same time claims that these rights and justices here in America should be taken care of outside of the tax realm?

Why can't we just build churches in Iraq so they can have faith-based social services, too? ;)

[asmodel.livejournal.com]

Well, technically, the US is aiding Israel.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yes, but not with big bombing campaigns.

[cfred.livejournal.com]

What about all the fighting in Ireland?

Back around 9/11, when the talk of opposition to terrorist organizations started flying, it occurred to me very quickly that the IRA could very easily fit the bill as one.

Now, I haven't heard a lot from them lately. Maybe the news is preoccupied elsewhere. Maybe they had the same thought I did and are laying low.

But I can't help wondering if Britain is backing the U.S. so willingly on Iraq so that, after this skirmish is done, they can invite us in to help with their own little "war on terror."

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

But I can't help wondering if Britain is backing the U.S. so willingly on Iraq so that, after this skirmish is done, they can invite us in to help with their own little "war on terror."

Interesting thoughts.

I don't know enough about the IRA or the conflicts in Ireland to have an educated opinion on who is right or wrong or misunderstood or whatever, so I am going to just stay out of it.

I just hope that this "war on terror" thing doesn't become a reason for superpowers to start squashing random groups and places.

[siercia]

Well, there is the (potentially legitimate) argument that people in Iraq can't speak their true feelings for fear of reprisal - and given our track record for leaving our "allies" hanging in the wind, I woundn't blame any one of them for not trusting our promises to provide protection.

That said, however, if we're successful in removing Saddam, a failure to allow the Iraqi people to build and shape their own new regime, whether or not it is one we "approve" of is unconscionable, and none of us shold stand for it.