By Ted Glick
After everything, after all 18 hours of Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novicks’
epic 10-part documentary of the Vietnam War, what was their conclusion?
They framed it this way: the war was a terrible thing; leaders on
each side of the war lied to and deceived their people; both sides did
very bad things to the other side and to innocent people in the middle;
and people who had fought each other in brutal battles and survived
could still ultimately find ways to shake hands and even embrace years
afterwards.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees! Although there is
some truth to these points, their 10-part series—and I watched every
one—ended up being an exercise in obfuscation and denial. And what was
so insidious about it is that they actually reported accurately in the
very first episode the truth which should have led to the right
conclusion: that the United States should never have supported
the French in their efforts to maintain brutal colonial rule over
Vietnam after World War II, and that it should never have moved in to
replace the French as a brutal occupying power after the French were
forced to leave in 1954.
Why did the US do this? It isn’t complicated. Two quotes from 1954 make it plain:
“It is rich in many raw materials such as tin, oil, rubber and iron
ore. . . The area has great strategic value. . . It has major naval and
air bases.” - Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles, March 29, 1954
“”One of the world’s richest areas is open to the winner in
Indochina. That’s behind the growing U.S. concern. . . tin, rubber,
rice, key strategic raw materials are what the war is really about. The
U.S. sees it as a place to hold—at any cost.” - US News & World
Report, April 4, 1954
Both quotes are taken from the excellent book published in 1966, “Vietnam! Vietnam!,” by Felix Greene.
“The Vietnam War” series was mesmerizing for me. I learned many
things I didn’t know, and I re-remembered many things I had forgotten.
The war was the issue which changed my life. From 1968 to 1973 it was
the issue that drove me to do things I’ve never done since as part of
what was called the Catholic Left, like breaking and entering into
Selective Service draft boards, an FBI office, and a war corporation
office and production site. It led to my spending 11 months in county
jails and federal prisons and being a defendant in two major political
trials, in Rochester, NY in 1970 and in Harrisburg, Pa. in 1972.
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Source: https://tedglick.com
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