Armies of Liberation

The election is over but the battle rages on. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann still doubts the result and wondered aloud “Did John Kerry concede too soon?” Much of the electorate is suffering from “post election stress disorder.” Pundits and partisans are stepping up to next face-off: Arlen Spector and judicial appointments. In this divided nation though, an important consensus has been reached. The Vietnam Veterans came home to glory, thirty years later. The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and John F. Kerry deserve the credit.

Ernest Lefever described the American attitude toward Vietnam: “The two diametrically opposed interpretations of Vietnam continue to vie for the American psyche. Until the issue is resolved, we will suffer from a kind of historical schizophrenia.” During the recent campaign, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Vietnam Veterans served with honor. It was an admission long overdue by the Left.

The parade of Vietnam Veterans across the stage at the Democrats National Convention received a standing ovation, the first of its kind from the protesting class. The Democrats saw John Kerry’s Vietnam service as his most attractive quality. Some Republicans countered that Kerry’s antiwar efforts in the 1970’s maligned two million American service members. The Swift Boat Veterans questioned if John Kerry’s service was as honorable as that of his peers. But all agreed that Vietnam Veterans are national heroes.

Swift Vet John O’Neil shined a spotlight into the shadows of national shame when he declared: We are not the war criminals John Kerry has described. In his 1971 Senate testimony, Kerry had quoted hearsay from a (Jane Fonda sponsored) anti-war conference and he charged widespread atrocities and American war crimes in Vietnam, enflaming national sentiment against the war. But none of the witnesses’ testimony was ever verified and several were proven to be impostors.

Forty years later, John Kerry “reporting for duty” exuded a great pride in his Vietnam service. He had no apology in hand for the fellow soldiers he had said were “a generation of monsters.”

Because of the Swifties, Americans learned or recalled how the Vietnam Vets were reviled upon their return. Americans appreciated for the first time the irony of wearing POW/MIA bracelets while marching for a unilateral withdrawal of American forces.

Some of these stories leaked out on blogs: “My father had red paint poured on him when he came back from Viet Nam.” Dave recounted. “You can’t live a normal life when you’re being spit on, when you have bags of feces thrown at you, or when some idiot is dumping red paint on you or calling you a baby killer.”

In the ensuing decades, the American media had wrongly and consistently portrayed Vietnam Vets as damaged victims and drug crazed social failures. Yet suicide rates, drug abuse rates and incarceration rates are no higher for Vietnam Vets than for non-vets, Mackubin Thomas Owens reports. A 1980 study found that 91% of these war heroes were “glad they had served their country.” In broadcasting the proud faces of the Vietnam Veterans today, O’Neill showed America that the crazed brother hidden in the attic is really the neighboring Grampa, the one who shovels out the old ladies when it snows.

Like looking at a fun house mirror, America saw a reflection of itself distorted by time yet true today. The Iraq war is like Vietnam: O’Neill and his comrades, decorated veterans, pointed out the similarities.

The Media: The Swift Vets prompted a reexamination of the role of the media in undermining national will. The 1968 Tet Offensive was a stunning US victory but was proclaimed a turning point toward doom by Walter Cronkite: “For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate…The only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people.” The victory was a turning point, the beginning of American opposition to the war.

Cronkite’s pessimistic analysis is similar to the current media’s declaration of quagmire at the onset of the Afghan War and at the first dust storm in Iraq. Now like then, many journalists are champions of failure. CBS’s Harry Smith, like many of his colleagues, believes “we’re sinking deeper into the sand in Iraq.” The theme of the inevitability of defeat oozes through the media.

The Policy: Reaction to the Swifties claims were divided between those who saw the Vietnam War as misguided American imperialism and those who saw it as a noble and worthy endeavor, improperly executed, and part of the larger war against communism.

In decades since Vietnam, the once discredited domino theory gained new legitimacy when clusters of countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America tipped to democracy. In the last 40 years, 120 countries have made this transition while Indochina and the Middle East remained enclaves of brutal authoritarianism.

Since 9/11, it has become clear that the fascism of Wahabbism and Diobandism is spawned in repressive states, that terrorism has less to do with economic poverty than with political poverty. A free Iraq for a safer America is a statement that has credibility in the 21st century.

The Aftermath: The discussion that ensued from the Swifties ads brought into focus the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Vietnam. In a 1971 debate with John O’Neill, Kerry discussed the ramifications of his proposed policy on South Vietnamese civilians: “I realize that there would be certain political assassinations, and that might take place…. then I think to talk about four or five thousand people is lunacy in terms of the overall argument.” In reality, there were a hundred thousand immediate political assassinations.

A million ultimately died. A million fled. A million were imprisoned. These were the millions of civilians the soldiers in Vietnam were trying to protect all along; this was the Communism they were fighting to destroy. Whole nations and the families within them suffered mightily, and suffer still. The notion that once the US pulled out the world was right again was belied by the reexamination of the Cambodian genocide and decades of misery in the region.

The Hard Left appears to have as little regard today for the Iraqis who stand with the US. After reviewing the consequence of withdrawal from Vietnam, others renewed their determination to prevail in Iraq.

In recent months, pundits have asked with incredulity “Why are we refighting the Vietnam War when there’s an actual war to discuss?” America is slowing coming to see that its all the same war: World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf One and Iraq War. It is an ongoing battle for the continued existence of America, for a political system based on equality and opportunity. A wiser America has incorporated the lessons of Vietnam and ignored the media, understanding both the policy and the consequences of its abandonment. The Vietnam Veterans deserve all the same honor and gratitude as the doughboys. This is the new national consensus and we have the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and John F. Kerry to thank for the realization, long over due.

Works Cited

Vietnams Ghosts by Ernest Lefever http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.95/pub_detail.asp

Patriotism and the lack thereof: Ragin Dave

http://www.4rwws.blogspot.com/2004_09_05_4rwws_archive.html#109449619572899214

Walter Cronkrite broadcast: http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/Cronkite_1968.html

Media Research Center: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20041110.asp#2

Harry Smith quote: http://www.mrc.org/notablequotables/2004/nq20041011.asp

Olbermann: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20041110.asp#1

Mackubin Thomas Owens “But Was It True” National Review Feb 23, 2004 pg 34-39

Kerry Quote: http://www2.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=KerryONeill