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Peace with honor?
By Ivan Arreguîn-Toft
"Peace with honor." This was the Nixon administration's euphemism for disengagement from South Vietnam, a place where corruption and incompetence had long doomed any hope of victory; even a victory as modest as the simple negative objective of preserving the political independence of tiny South Vietnam.
Today marks the first of a series of disengagements of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, as U.S. armed forces withdrew from Iraq's major cities and moved to take up blocking positions along likely infiltration routes into these same cities. The hope -- and it is little more than that -- is that in the time remaining between today and 2012, U.S. forces can manage to prevent a collapse of Iraq's fragile political independence and achieve what eluded them after 1973: peace with honor in Iraq.
The good news is that from the accession of General David Petraeus to command to the present, it is now fair to say that the "honor" part is not in question. In Nixon's time "honor" meant "no obvious defeat." Yet the honor of U.S. conduct in Vietnam remains a point of extreme controversy to this day. Many historians have argued that most U.S. armed forces in Vietnam de-civilized and de-soldierized: becoming viscous, drug-impaired war criminals. Others remember many who served with restraint, professionalism, and honor in the deepest sense of the word. To be fair, the weight of evidence pushes toward the barbarism side, but the truth is we will never actually know. Today, notwithstanding Abu Ghraib and five years of faith-based strategy, diplomacy, and politics during the Bush administration's tenure, "honor" once again means self-sacrifice and right conduct.
Since 2007, when U.S. strategy shifted dramatically in Iraq, U.S. armed forces have been dedicated to protecting noncombatants and by that means creating the crucial space for politics to resolve the underlying issues that lead young men to take up arms in the first place. Assaults against "evildoers" remain important, but have been conducted in a much more careful, methodical, and systematic fashion; and never, one must add, at the expense of Iraqi civilians. In short, U.S. armed forces can no longer be defeated in Iraq. The U.S. public understands that its new presidential administration is committed to pursuing more modest political objectives in Iraq with more effective tools than armed force. As a result, U.S. armed forces are preparing to leave Iraq in good order.
In fact, the mere physical presence of U.S. armed forces -- which in the main were never designed as an occupation and transition force -- had become (and remains) the single biggest obstacle to the achievement of a stable, prosperous Iraq. U.S. armed forces understood this as early as 2005. Their core concern then (as now) was that they not be blamed for "defeat" in Iraq. In this goal they have succeeded, largely due to unflagging public support and sympathy, and their tireless efforts to resolve the contradictions between what their experience and professionalism told them on the one hand, and the often foolish demands of their civilian leadership on the other hand.
The departure of U.S. armed forces from Iraq has another, less obvious benefit. Currently, most commentators believe that a U.S. withdrawal will signal a victory for Iran and fast-forward Iran's penetration of Iraqi politics. On the contrary. U.S. departure will remind Iraqis -- who with the exception of its Kurds and regardless of religious affiliation are virtually all Arabs -- that Iranians are Persians. Iran is likely to have as much luck bossing about the Iraqis after a U.S. withdrawal as China did bossing about the Vietnamese in 1975.
But there is bad news as well. After it became obvious that self-defense could not stand as a justification for the invasion, conquest, and occupation of a distant sovereign state, Americans turned to the positive objective of aiding Iraq's transition to a stable, democratic state; with the understanding that "democratic" meant "like us." This would protect us from terrorism, high oil prices, and just make us feel good. It wouldn't hurt Israel either. But nothing like that is even a remote possibility. What follows progressive U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will look very much like what preceded its intervention in 2003. Within a decade, expect to see the consolidation of a top-down authority structure (very much like that in today's Russian Federation), like as not dominated by Shii factions. Expect this consolidation of power to be attended by fighting between the Shii-dominated center and Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis, as well as extreme tension between Iraq and its neighbors: Sau'di Arabia, Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Israel.
In the end, success in Iraq -- one could hardly call it "victory" -- may come down to simply engineering a soft landing: a return to the way things were in 1980, when the United States was allied with an unpalatable but stable Iraq against an even more unpalatable and more dangerous Iran. Of course, that's if we're lucky.
Ivan Arreguîn-Toft is an assistant professor in the History and International Relations Department at Boston University and author of How the Weak Win Wars.
AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images
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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University.
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"Many historians have argued
"Many historians have argued that most U.S. armed forces in Vietnam de-civilized and de-soldierized: becoming viscous, drug-impaired war criminals. Others remember many who served with restraint, professionalism, and honor in the deepest sense of the word. To be fair, the weight of evidence pushes toward the barbarism side, but the truth is we will never actually know."
This is an ill-considered statement unworthy of you. A large portion of armed forces in Viet Nam were never in close combat, so the idea that "most" were war criminals is patently absurd. Calling them "drug-crazed" as well reveals a contempt that I seriously doubt is reflected in the work of the historians you refer to - experimenting with or even using drugs regularly is not the same thing as being "drug-crazed."
There were war crimes committed in Viet Nam, just as in virtually all wars. McNamara acknowledged he himself would likely to be so condemned by many. But to smear most of our armed forces in Viet Nam as drug-crazed war criminals is too much. Of course, many served with professionalism and honor. Lots just did their time, trying not to get killed or commit any grave errors of judgment, keep themselves intact under bad circumstances. I'd wager "most" fit in the last category, with a minority that were gung ho and up to our highest standards, and a smaller minority, far more than reported, but the least of the three groups, who committed war crimes. I can't prove it, but among those I've known who served over there, that is the likely count.
I also resent your comment that the truth is we will never know, as if the conduct of our troops in Viet Nam were something that can only be sifted out of woefully ambiguous and incomplete evidence. What about the part of "we" who served over there, and can form a conclusion based upon their own experience. Or do you not include them in the group you think of as "we."
What of the several hundred thousand Iraqis who died ?
And what of the several hundred thousand Iraqis who died as a direct or indirect result of the illegal and immoral bombing and occupation of Iraq? When will the US compensate Iraqis for that, and how?
Peace, no not yet, Honor, definitely no.
"Peace with honor." This was
Wrong - "Vietnamization" (which was the associated policy with this statement) was actually rather successful during its first years of implementation; the ARVN actually held off North Vietnamese military incursions, and it had the support of most of the South Vietnamese populace (one thing that people tend to forget is that the Vietcong and Communists were not widely supported in the South). What killed them was the cut-off of weapons and aid, which allowed the North Vietnamese military to overwhelm them in a conventional assault.
It was only one of several squandered opportunities, including that of the aftermath of the Tet Offensive (which effectively annihilated the Vietcong as a force in the South).
Then why are you even making the point? If you want to make a point, actually say it openly - don't try to hide behind bullshit suppositions like this.
Don't make me laugh. That was General Casey's idea (that the US forces were an obstacle to the development of Iraqi security and development), and we all saw how that turned out - violence and turbulence spiked in 2005-2006, and it didn't turn around until the US applied a combination of bribery to the Sunnis militias as well as population-centric COIN in certain areas (such as Baghdad).
There's no such thing as an "illegal" war - the Kellogg Pact of 1928 is long-dead.
Price of Admission
I doubt that the remarks about Vietnam by the author of the main post here were intended as anything other than a gesture toward an audience presumed hostile to American policy both in Iraq today and in Vietnam several decades ago, prefacing an argument complimentary of some aspects of current American policy in Iraq.
I'm not sure the gesture represents an accurate understanding of what motivates Walt's readership (or at least most of his dedicated commenters). This is not reflexive hostility to American foreign policy in general or to American wars fought in the cause of anti-Communism but American support of Israel. Also American media coverage of Israel, the history of Israel, and the existence of Israel.
In fact, the mere physical
In fact, the mere physical presence of U.S. armed forces -- which in the main were never designed as an occupation and transition force -- had become (and remains) the single biggest obstacle to the achievement of a stable, prosperous Iraq. U.S. armed forces understood this as early as 2005. Their core concern then (as now) was that they not be blamed for "defeat" in Iraq.
Bush didn't have to admit that iraq was lost in 2005, and look many people still have not admitted that it's lost! After all our army is still there, still controlling things. We can direct airstrikes absolutely anywhere we want to and nobody can stop us. By some ways of thinking that means we have not lost.
Compare to vietnam. There are actually people today who want to claim that south vietnam was in good shape until the US congress cut off the funding, and presumably that if the funding hadn't been cut that south vietnam might exist to this day. They say the viet cong were destroyed during the Tet offensive and were no longer any threat, that the COIN challenge was entirely handled and the only remaining problem was the north vietnamese army, which the ARVN could handle just fine,
When somebody denies the Holocaust people call him a holocaust denier and ridicule him. When somebody says 9/11 was an inside job people call him a Truther and ridicule him. But vietnam deniers are taken perfectly seriously. People who ought to know better treat them as if their point of view is somehow legitimate, as if they are not delusional loons whose own words make them ridiculous.
So I think it's reasonably certain that when Obama gets us out of iraq (whether that's in October 2012 or earlier or later) there will be a concerted effort to say he lost iraq and to blame him for anything bad that happens later.
And Obama can say that he had no choice, that he was following the treaty that Bush signed, and his alternative was only to overthrow the iraqi government and conquer iraq all over again without any particular excuse the UN could accept. And the delusional loons will ignore that and say he should have stayed and consolidated the Surge victory rather than create a brand new defeat.
Compare to vietnam. There are
1)South Vietnam was surviving. I wouldn't say it was in good shape, but then, neither was South Korea in 1950. Had the support in arms and funding not been cut off, South Vietnam might still exist today.
2)The Viet Cong were largely destroyed during the Tet Offensive. In anticipation of the invasion from the North, and the expected uprising in the South, most of the Viet Cong cadres (including the leadership) came out into the open and exposed their positions. Unfortunately for them, the uprising never came, the Tet Offensive was crushed, and the Viet Cong were largely annihilated. From that year onward, North Vietnamese assaults were done largely by North Vietnamese Army regulars (including the conventional invasion that finished off South Vietnam in 1975).
3)The COIN challenge was never handled properly, but in a sense, after Vietnamization, it didn't really matter - most of the Viet Cong was gone, and the main threat was the conventional force of the North. Like I said, South Vietnam was surviving, right up to the point where Congress refused to renew the annual funding for them, and the ARVN started to run low on munitions (while the North Vietnamese were being re-loaded by the Soviets).
This might have something to do with the fact that the Holocaust and 9/11 deniers ignore mounds of facts while building spurious conclusions, whereas we so-called "Vietnam deniers" rely on written accounts, records, and histories to prove our point, against the false narrative that the fall of South Vietnam was "inevitable".
I notice, for example, that you've lumped me in with Holocaust deniers, even though you don't have even a response against my argument except to attack me.
Brett, I don't know what to
Brett, I don't know what to say. You have very often presented cogent, reasonable, interesting positions on a big variety of topics. I've never before seen you take the stand of a delusional loon whose positions aren't worth refuting.
I'm kind of flabbergasted. I'll look forward to interesting comments from you on other topics.
[5 minutes later] This is an example of what I was talking about. Here's somebody who usually presents interesting, rational ideas. I often disagree with him but I can see where he's coming from. And yet he treats vietnam delusion entirely seriously, as if it's a respectable position that a sane person could take. It shows how deeply vietnam delusion has sunk into US society.
I've never before seen you
I'm disappointed, Thomas. I've never seen you dismiss someone as a loon, regardless of what they presented. None of what I've pointed out is delusional, like the claims of most of the Truthers (who largely depend on idiotic reports) - much of it is, in fact, based on sound historical accounts of the war.
I'd argue that you are being delusional, Thomas. I've presented clear, historical arguments as to why I hold my position, and how do you respond? You don't. You simply dismiss my position because it doesn't confirm to the highly simplistic narrative about Vietnam that sprung up in the US afterwards, about how it was the "unwinnable" war (look up any history of the Tet Offensive, for example, and it will tell you that tactically, it was a massive victory for the US that resulted in the effective destruction of the Viet Cong and a massive setback for the North Vietnamese).
None of what I've pointed out
None of what I've pointed out is delusional, like the claims of most of the Truthers (who largely depend on idiotic reports) - much of it is, in fact, based on sound historical accounts of the war.
Comparing US with NVA and viet cong records, it becomes obvious that much of US thinking during the vietnam war was delusional. We did not understand what the vietnamese were doing, we made wrong assumptions about that, we acted on those assumptions, and we interpreted the result in terms of those assumptions. You can find sound historical accounts of the delusions we had at the time which do not mean what you seem to think they mean. And people want to keep to those delusions more than 30 years later.
Sure, lots of Truthers come up with all sorts of weird things to believe in. But they have a reason -- the official account makes no sense. We have a command at Andrews AFB right at the edge of DC that's supposed to deal with unauthorised planes over DC. They often scramble in minutes and they're supposed to be ready in less than 30 minutes. They have responded to hundreds of airliners that got slightly off course etc. Why did they fail the one time it was important, after the warning provided by two previous attacks? The official reports do a bad job of explaining this.
Truthers come up with stories that make far more sense, although of course they tend to lack proof. But the official story has set a low bar....
My own explanation is that perhaps our air force is very good at planning and executing attacks, but is mostly incompetent at the grinding routine of preparedness for enemy attacks. So they failed and then the whole government played CYA to the point the records are muddled. But this is not an explanation that anybody much likes. And it isn't falsifiable. Once you assume that the records are falsified almost randomly by government officials doing CYA, you can explain the falsified records without a conspiracy but you have no basis to decide what actually happened.
Dismissing all those people as "Truthers" just because most of them are too credulous of alternative explanations is just as stupid as accepting the official story.
So about vietnam, US accounts differ dramatically from NVA and vietcong accounts. Which set is delusional? Maybe both. But one hint is to look at who lost....
But it's at least as bootless for me to debate the details with you as it is for you to seriously consider Truthers. We're developing a complex subculture of vietnam denial, and it looks like you're part of it.
Comparing US with NVA and
The part about the Tet Offensive and its effects on the Viet Cong is not part of that. In fact, from what I remember, the Vietnamese accounts actually reinforced the point.
I don't outright dismiss the Truthers - I dismiss them because I've heard their arguments, and they're bloody nonsense. You, on the other hand, have tried to dismiss my points as part of a "subculture" that shouldn't even be debated, without really providing a cogent counter-argument.
Instead, you've relied on what amounts to intellectual solipsism, as seen in the below part of your response:
"Comparing US with NVA and
"Comparing US with NVA and viet cong records, it becomes obvious that much of US thinking during the vietnam war was delusional."
The part about the Tet Offensive and its effects on the Viet Cong is not part of that. In fact, from what I remember, the Vietnamese accounts actually reinforced the point.
Agreed, the Tet offensive was a big setback for the irregular forces in the south, and with continued increases in US military forces, without the NVA we might have eventually killed off the remaining dissidents and moved loyal peasants into those areas. But as it was our efforts along those lines failed. To the extent that the maps drawn at the paris peace talks actually reflected the reality on the ground, they didn't control that much of the area of south vietnam at that time.
But saying it was a defeat for them goes much too far, because it was a worse defeat for the south vietnamese government and for the USA. They were able to make that attack in complete secrecy. We had no advance warning of it, they managed to sneak over a hundred thousand fighters into south vietnamese cities and nobody told the south vietnamese government. While the city folk didn't rise up in great numbers to overthrow the government, they did nothing to support that government either -- not so much as give them a hint.
In the bombing and artillery attacks afterward we killed large numbers of vietnamese. We destroyed many of the fortified villages that we had established to help vietnamese fight off the viet cong. When anti-government forces sheltered in those villages we bombed them. In terms of COIN, how good was that? If vietnamese had the sort of revenge culture that arabs are famous for, the viet cong would have far more than replenished their numbers from that alone.
Ideally south vietnam would have been unified against northern aggression. Instead we supported one dedicated faction while many of the rest idly waited to see who would rule them. As a result the numbers were wrong for vietnamisation, the number of dependable south vietnamese was far too low.
It's real unclear how many viet cong there were. When the NVA called on locals to go out and dig holes for them and the locals did, we said it was press gangs and they did it so the NVA wouldn't shoot them. We didn't want to think large numbers supported the NVA. And it might have been they were unwilling, no way to say now. After the war it was expedient for pretty much everybody to say they'd supported it all along. The data is pretty mushy. But by using large numbers of US troops to turn the country into an occasional high-intensity battlefield, we avoided the COIN problem until after vietnamisation. And after that it was still officially a conventional military problem -- when the ARVN surrendered it was over. Viet cong sabotage played a part in that but not the main part.
It wasn't that the viet cong were beaten. It's that we were able to ignore them, because we didn't need the countryside for anything but a battlefield. We *could* beat them any time we wanted to, a la my lai. But when we had sufficient arms and numbers we could ignore them. While we had a conventional war to fight we could pretend the COIN war was irrelevant.
I don't outright dismiss the Truthers - I dismiss them because I've heard their arguments, and they're bloody nonsense. You, on the other hand, have tried to dismiss my points as part of a "subculture" that shouldn't even be debated, without really providing a cogent counter-argument.
Do you bother to prsent arguments to Truthers? No, you just call them Truthers.
Instead, you've relied on what amounts to intellectual solipsism
Part of the historian's job is to look at the possibility that the records are delusional. Sometimes that's easy. How many of the "witches" that got burned in europe worshipped the Devil? Sometimes you just can't tell. How many secret catholics were there in england in the days they were killing catholics? The number of houses with priestholes gives you a lower limit....
The fact that the Tet offensive could happen shows that our announcements before that were delusional.
You have to use judgement about what to believe. People lie a lot, and they make a lot of mistakes.
So, Thieu felt like Nixon was selling him out in 1973, but he had no choice but to sign, on the promise that he'd keep getting supplies. If he didn't sign he wouldn't even get that. The north vietnamese probably kept about half our POWs with the idea they'd return them when they got their $5 billion in reparations. Or possibly the various POWs that our intelligence guys thought were being kept at various places to keep us from bombing those places did not actually exist -- maybe they completely fooled us about how many POWs they had. Or both of those could be true. We didn't just stiff the south vietnamese government, we stiffed the northerners too. Also the hypothetical POWs.
The US congress didn't give Thieu his extra $300 million when they noticed how much of the earlier money had been looted. Would the various corrupt vietnamese have taken the money if they thought south vietnam could have survived if they didn't? Maybe not. It's complicated. Chains of expectations and feedforward etc.
Peace with honor?
After inciting regional rebellion by Shiites and Kurds against Sunni Saddam Hussein’s regime by imposing no-fly zones under Clinton administration, US can do nothing but watch helplessly as US-installed Shiite regime in Iraq unifies Iraq. Maliki regime has seen at close quarters how West manipulates opponents of regimes that US does not like i.e. recent Iranian elections. Maliki definitely had that in mind when he told Biden to butt out in no uncertain terms.
US want Maliki government to truly create a harmonious government looking after the interests of all Iraqis, not just Shiites but Sunnis and Kurds as well. But Maliki government is NOT going to oblige US anymore than Saddam government did. It won’t be long after US troops depart in June, 2010 that Shiites first will unite with Sunnis to suppress Kurds and then Shiites will suppress Sunnis. Bloodbaths similar to those under Saddam will repeat until Shiites establish their supremacy with the help of Iran if need be and US won’t be able to do anything about it.