From Fire in the Lake, Frances Fitzgerald

 

From Fire in the Lake

Peter Schultz

 

                  “The United States might leave Vietnam, but the Vietnam War would now never leave the United States. The soldiers would bring it back with them like an addiction. The civilians may neglect or try to ignore it, but those who have seen combat must find a reason for that killing; they must put it in some relation to their normal experience and to their role as citizens. The usual agent for this reintegration is not the psychiatrist, but the politician. In this case, however, the politicians could give no satisfactory answer to many of those who had killed or watched their comrades killed. In 1971 the soldiers had before them the knowledge that President Johnson had deceived them about the war during his election campaign. All his cryptic signals to the contrary, he had indicated that there would be no American war in Vietnam, while he was in fact making plans for entering that war. They had before them the spectacle of a new President, Richard M. Nixon, who with one hand engaged in peaceful negotiations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China and with the other condemned thousands of Americans and Indochinese to die for the principle of anti-Communism. To those who had for so long believed that the United States was different, that it possessed a fundamental innocence, generosity, and disinterestedness, these facts were shocking. No longer was it possible to say, as so many Americans and French had, that Vietnam as a ‘quagmire,’ the ‘pays pourri’ that had enmired and corrupted the United States. It was the other way around. The U.S. officials had enmired Vietnam. They had corrupted the Vietnamese and, by some extension, the American soldiers who had to fight amongst the Vietnamese in their service. By involving the United States in a fruitless and immoral war, they had corrupted themselves.” [511-512]

 

The appropriate designation for the war wasn’t “the Vietnam problem.” It was “the American imperialism problem.” American imperialism corrupted both Vietnam and the United States. The corruption of the United States continues to the present day.

The Morally Virtuous

 

The Morally Virtuous

Peter Schultz

 

                  Here are two passages from Frances Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake, that reward some attention.

 

“To admit that the war was excessive, destructive or that it was not being won was to admit to personal as well as institutional failure….” [457]

 

“’Don’t you realize that everything the Americans do in Vietnam is founded on a hatred of the Vietnamese?’” An embassy official.

 

                  The first passage points to the fact that Americans in Vietnam did not differentiate institutional and personal virtue. There was a “sense of righteous mission that led the United States deeper and deeper into Vietnam. So, the Americans in Vietnam saw themselves as possessing a moral infallibility that justified their actions, their killing and destruction.

 

                  But what if the second passage is correct? What if what the Americans were doing in Vietnam was, in fact, fueled by “a hatred of the Vietnamese?” Insofar as the passage is correct, it means that those who saw themselves as on a righteous mission were delusion. If their moral virtue were fueled by hatred, then the status of that virtue is called into question. Somehow, some way, the moral virtue of the Americans was fueled by a hatred of the Vietnamese.

 

                  “What had looked like an attempt to ‘save Vietnam from the Communists’ was rather an attempt to save American ‘prestige’ around the world.” [472] And American prestige needed “saving” because America’s virtues covered over American hatred, of the Communists and of the Vietnamese. At bottom, it was hatred that drove American foreign policies during the Cold War.

A Fire in the Lake

 

A Fire in the Lake

Peter Schultz

 

                  In her book, Fire in the Lake, Frances Fitzgerald analyzed America’s involvement and war-making in Vietnam. The following are some of her and some of my reflections on that enterprise.

 

                  “Americans … assumed [that] the Vietnamese [would] trust them, to take their advice with gratitude, to cooperate in their mutual enterprise of defeating the Communists. The Buddhist crisis came as a terrible shock …. Not only the Buddhists but also General Ky and Colonel Loan seemed to resent American interference. The crisis exposed the contradiction between the American desire to get the GVN [Government of Vietnam] on its feet and their desire to maintain some control over GVN politics….” [368]

 

                  “Did their [the Vietnamese] view of the United States as a ruthless, omnipotent force have something to do with their long history of colonial rule? If so, could the Americans, whatever their intentions, cope with these suspicions any better than the French…?” [ibid]

 

                  What are we witnessing here? Are we witnessing the impossibility of a cooperative colonialism? Of a peaceful colonialism? Of a progressive colonialism? Are we witnessing why the United States’ “involvement” in Vietnam, like the French involvement, was bound to fail; that is, to fail to achieve the United States’s best intentions?

 

                  Regardless of how well-intentioned US elites may have been, there was “no possible basis for cooperation between the two governments or between the Vietnamese government and the rest of the non-Communist groups in Vietnam.” [ibid] War was inevitable so long as the US chose to involve itself in Vietnam. It was the only possible outcome. Colonialism, imperialism, regardless of the intentions of the colonizers or imperialists, inevitably lead to war. As Fowler (in The Quiet American) put it: Innocence should be treated as madness and the innocent should be treated as lepers.

 

                  And this includes the best and the brightest. The most crucial knowledge is knowing the limits of the political. Only with that knowledge can well-intentioned but ultimately inhuman politics, such as that the United States practiced in Vietnam, be avoided. Ironically, those with the best of intentions, viz., the best and the brightest, are the most dangerous politically. They are like a “fire in the lake.”

Strategic Hamlets

 

Strategic Hamlets

Peter Schultz

 

                  The strategic hamlet program in Vietnam “was by far the most ambitious of the Diemist land programs,” according to Frances Fitzgerald in her book Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.”  But it turned out that these strategic hamlets were mirages, little more than “fortified settlements that the armed forces could actually surround.” [155] “At least one American admitted that the NLF was not wrong in calling the settlements concentration camps” – without the ovens. “If the American and British officials really envisioned happy and prosperous peasants standing up to defend their villages … their wishful thinking was mighty indeed.” [157] Moreover, it was usually the case that “the circle of artillery and barbed wire enclosed a political void that waited for the NLF.”

 

                  So, on the one hand, the strategic hamlets were actually assisting the NLF, while being sold as the means of defeating them. The Americans and Diem had become allies, as it were, of the insurgents, the NLF and the communists. If this doesn’t qualify as madness, it is difficult to know what would. One of the most ambitious anti-communist programs, supported by the Americans and the Diemists, was not anti-communist at all. In fact, it might be labeled pro-communist.

 

                  Moreover, the strategic hamlet program treated Vietnamese villages and villagers as if they were the enemy. As had happened with the French, when the Americans moved in the Vietnamese became the enemy, along with the communists. Hence, it was delusional to say that the Americans were there to help the Vietnamese. They were there to defeat, which they called “modernization,” traditional Vietnamese, defeating via “modernization” or “Americanization” traditional Vietnam. Which is to say that the strategic hamlets were created in order to get some Vietnamese who were willing to kill other Vietnamese, those labeled “communists.” Talk about “wishful thinking.” The Americans in Vietnam wanted to “train” the Vietnamese; that is, to get some Vietnamese to kill or oppress other Vietnamese, by making some Vietnamese enemies of other Vietnamese. The Americans in Vietnam were facilitating civil war in Vietnam, under the guise of “helping“ the Vietnamese.  

 

                  Such civil wars lie at the roots of imperialism, which is why imperialism always involves inhuman cruelty. The Americans, just like the French, being forced to create or fortify or continue such a civil war in Vietnam needed cover stories to hide what they were in fact doing, and so embraced anti-communism and such fantasies as “the domino theory.” The strategic hamlet program could never succeed in creating “happy and prosperous peasants” but it could succeed in turning Vietnamese against Vietnamese and, thereby, serve the cause of those like the NLF who sought to unify Vietnam. So, not only did the Americans lose in Vietnam, they deserved to lose.

Secrecy

 

Secrecy

Peter Schultz

 

                  L. Fletcher Prouty in his excellent book, The Secret Team, has some interesting things to say about secrecy. For example: “a peculiar and dangerous characteristic … [is] derived [from] secrecy.” It those agents working on Pakistan, for example, are not doing so, but are working on another program, a cover story needs be developed. The story “is false – a lie.” The lie is permissible, necessary, and justified. “So if you are on a classified project, it is all right, in fact … essential, for you to lie. So you lie. The other man lies, everyone lies.” [472]

 

                  “In the Pentagon there are many offices established to do one thing. They really do not do that thing at all, but something entirely different. As a result, [many] cannot say what they are doing; or if they are forced to say something they lie.” [ibid]

 

                  When these persons lie to policy makers about their alleged analyses, they are guaranteeing failure for the simple reason that those policies undertaken are based on lies, i.e., they are not “reality based.” So, for example, a war on drugs, which is actually a way of controlling certain groups of people, e.g., blacks, is bound to fail as a war on drugs because that war is a fantasy; it is not real. It will never be successful vis-à-vis drugs, although it may be successful in incarcerating huge numbers of black people.

 

                  The Vietnam War, billed as an anti-Communist war, was bound to fail because the “communists” in Vietnam weren’t real. They were a figment of American imaginations, a label pinned on some Vietnamese to justify the war that American elites wanted to wage there. The war was real, but the communists were not. Ho Chi Minh was not, except in the imagination of some Americans, a communist, just as bin Laden to many Muslims was not a ”terrorist.” And, so, a war on terror and terrorists was bound to fail, just as the war on communism and communists in Vietnam was bound to fail.

 

                  No doubt this will sound strange to most people. But the longer you look at politics, the stranger the world becomes. For example, why is it that otherwise decent people are perfectly willing to engage in or support what have to be described as indecent, even savage acts? Why did decent, god-fearing Brits, for example, support the brutality that took place in Kenya in the 1950s? Why is it that decent, god-fearing Americans supported slavery and wars against indigenous people? How can such duplicities coexist and do so frequently? Is such duplicity intrinsic to the political? Considered empirically, that would seem to be the case.

 

                  In order to hide such duplicity, cover stories are needed, just as they are needed to hide the duplicitous character of the actions of government agencies and officials. American elites wanted to make war in Vietnam, to demonstrate their power there, and they needed cover stories which took different forms, e.g., anti-Communism or the domino theory. As Prouty pointed out with regard to the Pentagon, America elites could not say why they were making war Vietnam and, so, when they were forced to say something, they lied. Although deadly and destructive, this was merely normal political behavior. In fact, it was so normal that some politicians, like Ronald Reagan, did not even know they were lying. They believed their lies, which is more frightening than being bald-faced liars.

 

                  Truth-telliing plays no role in government and politics. Political success, such as it is, is impossible without duplicity, without lies, without making the truth disappear. And, so, those who speak the truth are subversives, are intrinsically and always enemies of the state, enemies of the establishment. Hence, Socrates’ fate, which he accepted and even counseled others to accept, e.g., Crito. Insofar as duplicity is intrinsic to the political, there is no way out, which Socrates recognized. Unless he lied, he knew he would be found guilty – because, truth be told, from a political viewpoint he was. And Socrates always sought and told the truth.

Why Presidents Cannot Just Say No

 

Why Presidents Cannot Just Say No

Peter Schultz

 

                  Nothing should be more suspect than action.

 

                  “When [the] country … enters the … world of covert operations, it creates a national Frankenstein … [so] that major factions within the Government do not know how something happened, who authorized it, and why it was done. The system begins to run itself from the moment of data input…. From the agents’ first bit of information … everything [happens] out of response-mechanisms to the [threat]. Therefore, the system must do something…. Nowhere [is] there anything built in to say ‘Stop’.” [The Secret Team, Prouty, 209-210]

 

                  JFK, in the runup to the Bay of Pigs invasion, abandoned the National Security Council [NSC] and “He allowed himself and his principal advisers to be made captives of the proponents of the plan.” Secrecy made deliberations “within the … NSC system” impossible – which is what the CIA and plan’s proponents were counting on.

 

                  And this is what “the single vision” finds desirable and is reflected by Hamilton’s praise for “energy in the executive” as the leading character of good government. Action, not deliberation, is thought to be the key to good government. And secrecy serves action while sacrificing deliberation or by sacrificing deliberation. “In the area of covert operations it is especially important to have someone of high authority in the position to say ‘No…’” The presidency, which was built for action, for “energy,” is not such an authority.

 

                  Left up to presidents, final decisions will rarely be “No.” Presidents should, it is commonly thought, be strong, should act with “secrecy and dispatch,” as Hamilton put in the Federalist. And, so, Trump’s Venezuelan war is unsurprising, as was Obama’s Afghan war, as was Bush’s Iraq war, as were Nixon’s, LBJ’s, and JFK’s Vietnam wars. Presidents rarely “Just Say No.” [Possible exceptions: JFK’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis and his call for introspection and reflection in his American University address.]

Incompetence and Politics

 

Incompetence and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

                  John Paul Vann, a leading figure during the Vietnam War who dissented from the conventional wisdom regarding that war, proposed that the Americans, if they took over the war, could reform the Vietnamese military, thereby winning that war.

 

                  But what if it was the Americans and their incompetence that was losing that war? So, instead of the conventional wisdom being that “the war couldn’t be won,” the truth would be that “the Americans couldn’t win the war” because of their incompetence, an incompetence hidden behind the humongous, overwhelmingly powerful national security state of the United States.

 

                  A common thought is that progress and incompetence are incompatible, that progress is proof of competence. But what if, for example, the development of the United States into the powerful and prosperous nation it has become serves to hide an intrinsic incompetence among US elites? By this view, the existence of slavery in the United States contributed to development of the United States into a great nation, as well as hiding the incompetence that accompanied the development of that greatness. Perhaps progress and incompetence often go hand-in-hand, and, thanks in large part to slavery, the US progressed despite its incompetence.

 

                  By this view, incompetence is a key variable of American politics. So, because this phenomenon must be hidden, duplicity becomes the coin of the realm, so to speak. And centrality of incompetence appears repeatedly, for example, in Vietnam, on 9/11, in Bush’s invasion of Iraq, in Obama’s war in Afghanistan, in Cuba, Libya, Ukraine, as well as in systemic failures such as mass incarceration, the immigration crisis, the border crisis, and repeated economic failures.

 

                  Could It be that incompetence is more pronounced, more important in the political arena than, say, corruption? Could it be more important, more decisive than, say, venality? In fact, could it be that focusing on venality is a way of hiding the incompetence, the intrinsic incompetence of our elites? And insofar as that incompetence is due to the ignorance of our elites, it cuts deeper into their claims that they are legitimate rulers because ignorance, when unrecognized, is easily hidden behind claims of expertise, moral decency, or patriotic fervor. The war in Vietnam was waged by a US military that relied on large amounts of “intelligence” or data about their war, as well as claims of being fervent US patriots. Under these claims of data-driven expertise and of being committed patriots, the incompetence of the military and political elites pretty much disappeared. Even the Pentagon Papers focused on the duplicity of these elites without indicating that that duplicity was covering up a pervasive incompetence. Perhaps then it would be advisable to focus not so much on “the character issue,” as on “the incompetence issue.” Incompetent experts and incompetent patriots are problematic in ways that overwhelming power cannot offset.