Vietnam

Once Upon a Time Vietnam

 The fact we didn’t go to war in Iraq brings up the issue of another war we didn’t get involved in: Once upon a time we didn’t go to war in Vietnam and kick some butt.  At the time, my high school history teacher told us Russia had more troops on their border with China than they had in Europe.  But still some folks thought we should go to war in Vietnam because of thing called “International Communism.”

Some time before, Ike Eisenhower, the President of the United States, had decided to trust the democratic process and let an election proceed that had been agreed upon by the French and the Vietnamese at what was then called the “Geneva Accords” which was held after France was beat real bad in a battle with a bunch of Little People who didn’t own any cars at a place called Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam.  Ike Eisenhower decided to allow the election even though he knew that Ho Chi Minh would probably be elected President of Vietnam when the northern and southern parts of Vietnam voted as a unified country because Ho Chi Minh was a national hero for having beat the big country of France at the place called Dien Bien Phu.  And Ho Chi Minh was a Communist and just might turn Vietnam into a Communist country.  But even though Ike Eisenhower feared Ho Chi Minh might turn all of Vietnam into a Communist country, he figured Vietnam belonged to the people who lived there, and he trusted the democratic process, and let the election proceed in the year 1956, the same year my dad bought a new Pontiac station wagon.

And sure enough, Vietnam voted to make Ho Chi Minh president of Vietnam, and sure enough Ho Chi Minh talked all of Vietnam into trying a Communist form of government, just like lots of patriotic Americans feared he would do.  But some things worked out real good thanks to his Communist Government.  For instance the Vietnamese hired the Jewish Doctor the Chinese had put in charge of one of their Venereal Disease Programs, and almost eradicated Venereal Disease in Vietnam, just like the Jewish doctor’s program had almost eradicated VD in China where the Communist Government had out-lawed prostitution and the opium trade that had come to China thanks to the British East India Company.  I heard they even eradicated a thing called Black Syph, which American Boys, if America had gotten involved in a big war in Vietnam, would have been told was real dangerous, and if an American Boy caught Black Syph, as it was called by his sergeant, he would be sent to an island somewhere off the coast of Vietnam and never be heard from again.  And another thing that worked out real good for Vietnam was that many years later, just like Cuba, Vietnam quarantined troops they had sent to Angola to help the Cubans fight their “war of liberation” as they called it, and didn’t spread AIDS around their country.

But some things didn’t work out so well: Vietnam thought Big Daddy Mao of China had some good ideas, and tried his Five Year Plans and things like his Cultural Revolution, which left lots of folks dead and stuff like that. 

Anyway, President Ike Eisenhower, when he learned that Ho Chi Minh, the president of Vietnam, was going to make his country Communist, sent him a postcard with a return address, and asked him to send the postcard back in ten years, and tell him how his Communist Government worked out. 

If it worked out real good, Ike thought, maybe we can get Ho to tell us how to start a Communist Government in America.  And then Ike Eisenhower put the hundred billion dollars America would have spent on a war in Vietnam to good use building roads and bridges, and putting the rest in a bank so Lynden Johnson could use it for his war on poverty.  Since the war on poverty was declared as a non-partisan war, using money a Republican President had stashed away, fewer fuzzy-minded liberal Democrat programs were implemented by sometimes fuzzy-minded Democrats, but the American economy flourished so there were lots of jobs even for folks who lived in poor parts of town, with enough jobs left over for the 58,000 guys who didn’t die in Vietnam. 

Ike Eisenhower and the Presidents who followed him spent lots of time sweeping their doorstep, and walking to the mailbox to see if Ho Chi Minh had returned the postcard telling them if Communism had worked out real good in Vietnam.  Many years later, when a President finally did get the postcard from Ho Chi Minh, he noticed that Ho had written real small, because he had a lot to say, and a postcard is kinda’ little: first, he mentioned that Vietnam’s supposed friend Communist China had been pointing guns at them for years, even though most of China’s guns were pointed across their northern border toward Russia who had more troops on that border than they had in Europe, even though Russia and China were considered partners in a project called “International Communism.”  And Ho had decided he didn’t like Big Daddy Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution or five year plans, even though Mao was a popular author, selling lots of Little Red Books in China.  In fact, Ho said that he had recently contacted Nike, the shoe company that was started by a couple of guys from Eugene, Oregon, who liked to run and used a waffle iron to make soles for their shoes.  Big Daddy Mao of China, of course, would never have allowed that, since he told everyone what waffle irons were for in his Little Red Book, and would have sicked his cultural revolutionaries on anyone trying to become a businessman, especially anyone using a waffle iron for something it wasn’t designed for. 

Anyway, Americans invested the hundred billion dollars a less enlightened President would have spent to fight a war in Vietnam on roads and bridges, and things like shade trees and vacations where Americans played with their kids and taught them to throw a ball, and 3,000 square foot houses heated by sunlight and stuff like that.  Lots of people bought cars that could fly and float and could go a hundred miles on a gallon of water, just like my Weekly Reader that I read in 1956 said I could expect by the time I grew up.

Finally Mao Tse Tung, the leader of Communist China, died of a broken heart since his Cultural Revolution hadn’t worked out real well, and Dung Zhow Peng became the leader of Communist China and he sent a postcard to Lee Kwan Yew, the President of Singapore who believed in democracy but had made a law in Singapore that people in Singapore couldn’t chew gum because they kept sticking it under the seat of their chair.  He also had American kids who spray painted Mercedes Benz as they walked down the street in Singapore beat on the butt in public.  (They called it “caning” in Singapore.) Deng Zhow Peng the new leader of China asked Lee Kwan Yew why Lee Kwan Yew’s little country of Singapore was so successful while China, a big powerful country, was all messed up. 

Anyway, after talking to Lee Kwan Yew, Dung Chow Peng the new president of China decided to let folks use waffle irons for anything they thought would work, at least if they bought their own waffle irons.  And pretty soon China had a growing economy and was not a threat to the United States because the Chinese were busy keeping their doorstep clean and counting their profits and taking vacations with their kids to teach them how to throw a ball.  If they didn’t have any kids, they sometimes joined a gym because they were getting fat.

China would never have been a threat to America anyway because, first of all, America is a long way from China, and second of all, Americans were producing about a third of everything produced in the world, and Americans loved and respected their country that didn’t get involved in other peoples’ business, and America was always trying to keep its own doorstep clean, and Americans picked up any McDonalds wrappers they found that had accidently fallen out of someone’s car along the road, and told their kids to quit sticking their gum under the seat of their home room chair, and quit spray painting cars as they walked down the  street. 

 

 And everyone lived happy ever after except for Russia who decided to tear down their big wall in Berlin in 1989 after they learned that the little country of Japan was producing more goods and stuff than they were, and they decided to give communism up, and President Gorbachev of Russia sent Ronald Reagan a postcard asking what he should do since Ronald Reagan had made a nice speech at the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin Germany where the nasty old Berlin Wall lived, and said – and I quote: “Do you want peace?  Do you want Prosperity? Then Tear down this wall.”  Anyway, the next year President Ronald Reagan of the United States went back to the Brandenberg Gate near where the nasty old Berlin Wall had stood, and said nice things about Michael Gorbachev, things like: “He teared down this wall.”  President Ronald Reagan said this of Michael Gorbachev, the leader of Russia, and he meant it as a compliment since the Berlin Wall had been seen by almost everyone as a nasty addition to the scenery of Berlin, and it looked like Gorbachev had torn down the Berlin wall.

Anyway, “Gorby,” as he was soon to be known, sent his new friend “Ronnie,” as the President of the United States was soon to be known, another postcard asking what he should do to find the “Peace and Prosperity” Ronnie had promised if he teared down his wall.

“Ronnie,” as everyone was soon to know him, sent emissaries to Moscow the capitol of Russia to tell their Russian counterparts where to find the Peace and Prosperity Ronnie had promised Gorby, and these emissaries from Ronnie told the people of Moscow it would be located with a thing they called “Freedom.”

Sadly, some of the emissaries sent by Ronnie to counsel Gorby’s followers in the “Ways of the West” as they were sometimes called began celebrating too soon and drank a lot of Russian Vodka, and didn’t heed my dad’s advice who said he wouldn’t drink vodka which didn’t leave much odor on your breath like American Whiskey, since people might not know you had been drinking, until you fell down, and my dad said he would want people to know he was drunk and not stupid.  Anyway, some of these emissaries sent by Ronnie to inform Gorby of the ways of the West must have gotten stupid drunk. 

And, unbeknownst to Ronnie, some of his emissaries that he had sent were ex-hippies who graduated from college in the “60s”, as the time period came to be known.  They got peace and prosperity confused with a thing called love and peace, and started singing the Beetles song that said to do it in the road, or something like that.  They also started drinking lots of vodka and told the Russians they should pursue freedom and “do what comes natural.”  The Russians who had always liked vodka because they had never had any American Whiskey because of import restrictions took the Americans’ advice and abolished all their laws that would keep them from doing what comes natural.  Sometimes they sat in the middle of the road drinking vodka.  

And as you can imagine, a truck hit them.  The US government considered bailing them out of their problems that showed up with the truck, but by then Ronnie’s handlers told him he shouldn’t get involved in foreign affairs, and should keep his own doorstep clean because his second term as President was over, and his Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush was now President, and although he had been head of the CIA before he was Vice President under Ronnie Reagan which was just before he was President of the United States from 1989 until 1993 when he lost to Bill Clinton the former Governor of Arkansas, who beat George Herbert Walker Bush in his attempt to win a second term as President of the United States because George Herbert Walker Bush kept calling Bill Clinton a “draft dodger,” when Clinton had not really dodged the draft, which of course would have made him a coward like President Bush was implying, but he, Bill Clinton, had avoided serving in the military during Vietnam because he had “other priorities,” as future Vice President Dick Cheney would so poignantly put it some years later.

Anyway, lots of Americans who had avoided the draft (or encouraged their brothers and boyfriends to avoid the war in Vietnam) because they thought “Vietnam” was a stupid war, or because they thought it might even be an immoral war, didn’t like being called cowards.

So they voted for Bill Clinton – or in some cases they voted for Ross Perot who was also running for President and sometimes made some sense, or at least seemed like a good guy since neither Republican nor Democrat Party Faithful liked him, and the press especially disliked him because he told them he was going to spend a hundred million dollars of his own money to hire their advertising agencies when he ran for President, and after they had geared up and hired accountants to count their money, they had to lay them off with big severance bonuses when Ross Perot decided to save his money and not run – until he changed his mind at the last minute, drawing lots of votes away from George Herbert Walker  Bush, and somehow leaving Bill Clinton of Arkansas, the home of Walmart and Tyson Chicken – which may have some significance – as America’s new President.

The point in mentioning all this is that one of the reasons Gorby asked Ronnie for some ideas on where to find Peace and Prosperity was that Russia, who had been previously been called the Soviet Union, had run into some trouble after it decided to “kick some butt” as the business was called in English by public relations outfits who always found nice ways to explain you were going to tell someone else what to do.

At the time they decided to “kick some butt,” the Soviet Union had the world’s second most advanced military with fancy helicopters and jet planes and 51 caliber bullets that could go through something like thirty inches of dirt, and if they didn’t have to go through dirt they could go through a couple miles of air.  

Russia, or the Soviet Union as they called it at the time, decided the best butt to kick was in Afghanistan since it was just across the border from member states of the Soviet Union, and logistics and stuff like that would be rather simple – taking truckloads of 51 caliber machinegun bullets and troops with 51 caliber machineguns, and Hind helicopters that were full of rockets and belt-fed grenades and miniguns I was told could put a round in every square foot of something like a football field.  This sure sounded like overwhelming force to draftees and volunteers who drove to Afghanistan to help their country kick some butt, as the process was sometimes called.

 

Of course the Soviet Union was a planned society, with a reputation that some of its government planners must have drunk a lot of Russian Vodka due to import restrictions, and apparently never read their history books that said both Alexander the Great who never lost a battle, and the British who lost the Battle of New Orleans, the big event of the War of 1812 as every American Schoolboy knows, decided not to fool around with a war in Afghanistan if  they had other wars to fight because Afghanistan might be a tough nut to crack.  I who never drink vodka gained this information neither from books nor from analysis by CIA operatives, but from a thing called “hindsight,” which is the same place both the Soviet Union and the American Expeditionary Force learned that Afghanistan might be a tough nut to crack.

Which brings us back to the observation that the leader of a country can decide not to go to war, or can sometimes decide to call off a war that is in progress.  And since both Alexander the Great, and the British who were already messing around in India, had decided not to mess around in Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union with its 51 caliber bullets and Hind helicopters seems to have run into problems in Afghanistan, you might think we were very wise not to get involved in another war in the country of Iraq before we had tidied things up in Afghanistan, even though some folks would have no doubt emphasized the fact “ We are Americans” who have never lost a war or something like that, and called everyone who didn’t want to go to war in Iraq a communist or coward, and started a war in Iraq with a thing they called “Shock and Awe” on national TV. 

Instead, once upon a time, we used the money we would have used on “Shock and Awe” to repair the roads and bridges Eisenhower had built with the money he saved by allowing a democratic vote in Vietnam even though it looked like everyone would vote for Ho Chi Minh who might make Vietnam a communist country.  And we used the money we didn’t need to buy artificial arms and legs for guys whose arms and legs weren’t blown off in Iraq to buy an arm and a couple legs for Max Cleland even though, as the Republican advertising outfit had pointed out, he wasn’t very patriotic and didn’t believe in American Exceptionalism, or at least in American Ethnocentrism which says we can do whatever we want because we are Americans who have never lost a war and never do anything wrong, or something like that.

 

Addendum:  Folks in Fairyland do not want to impugn the integrity of American leaders who thought it appropriate to wage a war against Communist North Vietnam, or to suggest more than the possibility that it may have been cowardice on America’s part to pick a fight with a bunch of folks so poor they didn’t own any cars, because we were accusing Russian and Chinese Communists of doing bad things… you know, the old “You killed our serfs, so we are going to kill your serfs” argument.

Well-intentioned American leaders may have had significant reasons for doing the things they did.  It just looks like they may have overlooked something important, since the situation was often confusing and happening real fast, which didn’t give a lot of time to reflect.  And I might add, it was too early for hindsight.

For instance, while everyone today seems to accept the “fact” – a fact discussed in this fairy tale history – that Vietnam was interested in its own national interests, and not in some nebulous “International Communism,” we might note that Communist Vietnam started major offensives against the French within a few weeks of the time North Korea invaded South Korea, and they were soon waging their war with Russian and Chinese help.  Communist China bordered Vietnam, just like it bordered Korea, where China and Russia were helping a communist North invade a democratic South.   Russia, who was supporting both Korea and Vietnam, had just developed their first atom bomb, having stolen plans from the US, and looked like a real jerk.  Just as important, Russia had refused to allow free elections, forcing at least parts of some dozen Eastern European countries into their empire.  Good Presidents like Ike Eisenhower could have thought it looked like “International Communism” was more than just a nebulous concept.

The only point I wish to point out is that lots of guns – guns that were pointed at American boys for a long time in Vietnam– were pointed across Communist borders at other Communists as soon as we were not around to point guns at.  Maybe you remember the Vietnamese were fighting with Communist Cambodia by 1977, and in a big war with the Chinese in 1979, just a few years after America and its South Vietnamese allies were overwhelmed by the communist North.  So back to the point I would like to point out: the Communists in all these countries were pointing their guns at one another whenever we were not around to point guns at.