|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Some Conservative Myths About the Second Indochina War
| Article
# : |
12649 |
|
|
Section : |
Modern Thought
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1987 |
5,498 Words |
| Author
: |
Alan J. Levine
Alan J. Levine is a historian specializing in twentieth-
century international relations and the author of From the
Normandy Beaches to the Baltic Sea. |
Since the late 1970s, we have learned a great deal about what really happened in the course of the Second Indochina War--the struggle Americans characteristically refer to by a misnomer, "the Vietnam War." A genuine scholarly literature has emerged, one calmer, more objective, and more successful than could have been reasonably expected ten or fifteen years ago. One of the first and best of these books, Guenter Lewy's Americans in Vietnam, has supplied an objective overview of the war that compares favorably with anything written about the World Wars or Korea. High-ranking American military officers, and a few South Vietnamese leaders, have also contributed their memoirs; and although these works have their faults, they have generally been more honest and objective than might have been expected in dealing with painful memories of a lost and violently unpopular war.
We have also gained insights into the other side of the war, and the behavior of the victors since 1975, from such former communist sympathizers as Doan Van Tai, Truong Nhu Tang, and Jean Lacoutoure. As a result, much of what was popularly believed about the war in the late 1960s and the 1970s--the antiwar movement's mythology, to be blunt--has been discredited, regardless of whether or not one thinks we should have become involved in Indochina. To be sure, many people are not interested in the truth; there are undoubtedly many people who believe, or pretend to believe, that the Indochina war was an instance of American aggression, that the My Lai massacre was an incident typical of American conduct in the war, and that the "Christmas bombing" of 1972 (which did not in fact take place on Christmas) was one of the great atrocities of world history. But these notions can no longer claim to have a rational foundation, if indeed they ever could.
Over the last decade, however, some new myths about the war have developed among conservatives and others who believe that the war might have been won, and that this or that error, or some individuals or groups, were responsible for the ultimate failure of the American effort in Indochina. Most of these myths are not as patently false or dishonest as many of the now discredited antiwar myths were; some are simply exaggerated rather than incorrect. Nor does refuting them necessarily disprove the general idea that with wiser policies the war could indeed have been won. But they are impediments to clear thinking about the war. This article will attempt to analyze some of the conservative myths about the Indochina struggle.
Diem's
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
