Last month, Vietnam marked the 58th anniversary of the Mỹ Lai massacre, when US soldiers killed hundreds of defenseless civilians. US public memory largely ignores the history of atrocities like Mỹ Lai, making it easier to repeat them in the future.
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Burns and Novick avoid confronting the question of imperialism – the notion that U.S. foreign policy is deliberately committed to the exploitation of peasants and workers around the world, that it is on the wrong side of the class struggle. Without the concepts of class struggle and imperialism, Burns and Novick will not be able to get at the roots of the political divide over Vietnam.
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s Vietnam War, the 18-hour PBS documentary, is bleak. Unfortunately, this perspective is applied equally to antiwar protesters and policymakers, creating a film that is both antiwar and anti-war movement. The popular movement to end the war was one of the truly redemptive stories of the Vietnam War. Yet, Burns and Novick offer at once a thorough indictment of the war, and a dismissal of most of the people who committed themselves to ending it.
Political courage might seem to be in short supply, but it was inside a young boxer from Louisville
On the plane to Hanoi last December, I opened my copy of the NYT to find an article by Dave Philipps: "After 60 Years, B-52's Still Dominate the U.S. Fleet." The piece stuck with me as I traveled through north Vietnam, trying to unravel U.S. amnesia towards the people of this country and what they call "the American war." Philipps ends with a quote from a former South Vietnamese Navy officer, Phuoc Luong. "In Vietnam we didn't use it (B-52s) enough. That's why we lost."
When lies are propounded about the American war in Vietnam, they legitimize and justify present USA and future dangerous adventures and prevent us from escaping the dangerous “logic of war” as promoted by our rulers and media.
Jimmy Carter called war waged in Vietnam by the U.S -- a war that killed 60,000 Americans and 4,000,000 Vietnamese, without burning down a single U.S. town or forest -- "mutual" damage. Ronald Reagan called it a "noble" and "just cause." Barack Obama promotes the myth of widespread mistreatment of returning U.S. veterans, denounces the Vietnamese as "brutal," and has launched a 13-year, $65 million propaganda program to glorify what the Vietnamese call the American War.
However, skillful propagandist that Kennedy is, in her effort to whitewash history and try to ferret out something positive in a colossal debacle, there’s something even she can’t hide. Look closely at the newsreel clips as the NVA tanks roll into what was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Not only are the soldiers jubilant, but look at the smiling faces of the Vietnamese masses as they are being liberated from decades of Japanese, French and Yankee occupation and imperialism.
Jon Wiener reviews Bill Ayers' latest book, about the Weather Underground, the U.S. student and anti-war movement, and what happened to SDS - the largest student organization in the history of our country - and a major part of the U.S. Left...And, he is very critical.
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