Vietnam Retrospective
This is Bob's email
Interesting to look at one aspect of the antiwar debate of 1971 from the vantage point of 2004. In political debate, people are free to make predictions about the future. Predicting the future is risk free until the time when the predicted event comes to pass.[on the Dick Cavett tv show, during a debate between John Kerry and John O'Neill]"Cavett asked whether either of us believed in the "cliche" that a bloodbath would occur if the United States were to withdraw from Vietnam. I answered that I thought that there would be a bloodbath given the assassinations we saw in the Can Mau region and the executions by the Viet Cong of South Vietnamese solders whose bodies we recovered in rivers and canals. Kerry answered in substance that it would never occur, that at most there might be five thousand people killed-- a number so small that it was "lunacy" to talk about it.Some 3.5 million people are estimated to have died in the Communist purges at the end of the Vietnam war, including the 2.5 million in the killing fields of Cambodia. In Laos, whole peoples were eliminated. There were 1.4 million refugees, many of whom made it to the United States. Tens of thousand of "boat people" perished at sea trying to escape. I often wonder if Kerry is haunted (as I am) by his answer and by the thought of those lost souls, who once loved and lived and experienced the joys of life, but whom he so casually dismissed that day."from "Unfit for Command" by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi Ph.D. (page 18)_____________________Nowadays, most people seem to assume that the Vietnam was was a dishonorable war, morally indefensible, and a disgrace to the United States. Kerry and his fellow antiwar activists seem to have prevailed in writing political history.Given the (perhaps unexpected) consequence of our withdrawal, is this common assumptions properly debatable? Perhaps these innocent victims might have survived if we had held firm as we did in Korea? Perhaps it is the fact that we gave up, withdrew and abandoned the promises we made to the South Vietnamese which is our real badge of dishonor?
Interesting to look at one aspect of the antiwar debate of 1971 from the vantage point of 2004. In political debate, people are free to make predictions about the future. Predicting the future is risk free until the time when the predicted event comes to pass.[on the Dick Cavett tv show, during a debate between John Kerry and John O'Neill]"Cavett asked whether either of us believed in the "cliche" that a bloodbath would occur if the United States were to withdraw from Vietnam. I answered that I thought that there would be a bloodbath given the assassinations we saw in the Can Mau region and the executions by the Viet Cong of South Vietnamese solders whose bodies we recovered in rivers and canals. Kerry answered in substance that it would never occur, that at most there might be five thousand people killed-- a number so small that it was "lunacy" to talk about it.Some 3.5 million people are estimated to have died in the Communist purges at the end of the Vietnam war, including the 2.5 million in the killing fields of Cambodia. In Laos, whole peoples were eliminated. There were 1.4 million refugees, many of whom made it to the United States. Tens of thousand of "boat people" perished at sea trying to escape. I often wonder if Kerry is haunted (as I am) by his answer and by the thought of those lost souls, who once loved and lived and experienced the joys of life, but whom he so casually dismissed that day."from "Unfit for Command" by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi Ph.D. (page 18)_____________________Nowadays, most people seem to assume that the Vietnam was was a dishonorable war, morally indefensible, and a disgrace to the United States. Kerry and his fellow antiwar activists seem to have prevailed in writing political history.Given the (perhaps unexpected) consequence of our withdrawal, is this common assumptions properly debatable? Perhaps these innocent victims might have survived if we had held firm as we did in Korea? Perhaps it is the fact that we gave up, withdrew and abandoned the promises we made to the South Vietnamese which is our real badge of dishonor?
Comments
Are we now going to say that one's opinions on the propriety of the conduct of the Vietnam War is a valid criteria for determining whether you are fit to be commander in chief.
What about the Civil War? Should only Unionists be able to serve as President?
The country was pretty divided on Vietnam and lots of hawks became doves by the end of the war.
b