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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 6/11/14

Reshaping the Vietnam Narrative

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In this respect, permanent war not only threatens our democracy, Karl pointed out, but also our economic future. In one example, Karl noted that the United States fights wars to secure oil and gas; yet the largest consumer of oil in the world is the Department of Defense because of those very wars.

Karl also observed that we have not "won" all of these unpaid wars -- if measured against their original objectives. The United States fought in Vietnam to prevent communist reunification of the country; yet that is exactly what happened.

The Reagan administration decided to "draw the line" in El Salvador to prevent FLMN rebels from coming to power; yet the FMLN is the government today. And the Reagan administration supported the contras in Nicaragua to prevent the Sandinistas from governing that country; the Sandinistas are now in control. She predicted we would see similar "victories" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Cultural Memory of the Vietnam War"

H. Bruce Franklin was the first tenured professor to be fired by Stanford University, and the first to be fired by a major university since the 1950's. Franklin, who was a Marxist and an active member of A3M, was terminated because of things he said at an anti-war rally, statements that, according to the ACLU, amounted to protected First Amendment speech.

Franklin, a renowned expert on Herman Melville, history and culture, has taught at Rutgers University since 1975. He has written or edited 19 books and hundreds of articles, including books about the Vietnam War. Before becoming an activist, Franklin spent three years in the U.S. Air Force, "flying," he said, "in operations of espionage and provocation against the Soviet Union and participating in launches for full-scale thermonuclear war."

Franklin told the reunion about myths the U.S. government has promulgated since the Vietnam War. "One widespread cultural fantasy about the Vietnam War blames the antiwar movement for losing the war, forcing the military to 'fight with one arm tied behind its back,'" Franklin said. "But this stands reality on its head."

Franklin cited the American people's considerable opposition to the war. "Like the rest of the movement at home," he noted, "the A3M was inspired and empowered by our outrage against both the war and all those necessary lies about the war coming from our government and the media, as well as the deceitful participation of institutions that were part of our daily life, such as Stanford University."

The war finally ended, Franklin thought, because of the antiwar movement, particularly opposition to the war within the military.

The other two myths Franklin debunked are first, that the real heroes are the American prisoners of war (POWs) still imprisoned in Vietnam; and second, that many veterans of the Vietnam War were spat upon by antiwar protestors when they returned home. The black and white POW/MIA (missing in action) flag has flown over the White House, U.S. post offices and government buildings, the New York Stock Exchange, and appears on the right sleeve of the official robe of the Ku Klux Klan, according to Franklin.

"The flag now came to symbolize our culture's dominant view of America as the heroic warrior victimized by 'Vietnam' but then reemerging as Rambo unbound," he said. After talking to several Japanese scholars he met on a trip to Japan, Franklin realized he had missed the "most essential and revealing aspect" of the POW/MIA myth.

The scholars told him, "When militarism was dominant in Japan, the last person who would have been used as an icon of militarism was the POW. What did he do that was heroic? He didn't fight to the death. He surrendered."

Franklin told the reunion: "Both the POW and the spat-upon vet become incarnations of America, especially American manhood, as victim of 'Vietnam,' which is not a people or a nation but something terrible that happened to us."

He also said that there is absolutely no evidence that any Vietnam vet was spat upon by an antiwar protester. "These two myths turned 'Vietnam' into the cultural basis of the forever war," Franklin said. He quoted George H. W. Bush who proclaimed in 1991 (at the end of the Persian Gulf ground war), "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all."

Legacy of the Vietnam War

But, as Karl and Franklin observed, we are now engaged in a "permanent war" or "forever war." Indeed, the U.S. government has waged two major wars and several other military interventions in the years since Vietnam. And in his recent statement on U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama said: "The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it -- when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger."

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and a member of the National Advisory Board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. See  (more...)
 

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