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The Vietnam War and the War in Iraq Lev Navrozov There is a similarity between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq: When it became clear that they were hard to win, there arose a movement in the United States to curse and stop them. I have regarded the American Vietnam War as just, defensive, and noble. A cease-fire in the communist guerrilla war, signed in Geneva on July 21, 1954, provided for elections to determine the country's future. The communists gained control north of the 17th parallel (North Vietnam). Some 900,000 North Vietnamese fled to South Vietnam. To communists, to flee from a communist country is like fleeing from Paradise. Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise and hence were weeping. But to flee from Paradise? So, in 1954 North Vietnam, aided by Mao's China and Soviet Russia, communists began taking over South Vietnam. Why did the United States come to the rescue of South Vietnam? Before 1945, the war was between the Nazi-Fascist-militarist-Japanese axis and the Allies, led by Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Mao. After 1945, the strife was between the democracies and the communists, including those of Eastern Europe, which Stalin seized. The United States and Western Europe won World War II. Now they could lose the world to the communists, for whom one-third of voters voted in Italy and one-fourth in France, and who were on the offensive in Korea and Vietnam.
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In 1963, the United States began airstrikes against North Vietnam. In 1965, on-the-ground U.S. troops became combatants in Vietnam. North Vietnam, Soviet Russia, and China won the war on April 30, 1975. The war's toll included—combat deaths: U.S., 47,369; South Vietnam, over 200,000; other allied forces, 5,225. We were already living in New York. We saw that the U.S. movement against the war had ensured the U.S. defeat. We could understand a war protester if his or her reasoning were along these lines: "What a just and noble war to defend South Vietnam. But look at the losses! We tried to save those South Viets from communist slavery, but every rescue operation must have limits. We cannot all die to save those victims of communism from slavery!" But the reasoning was different: The war that cannot be won quickly without human losses is evil, criminal, murderous! Salisbury of The New York Times "exposed" the American pilots for bombing North Vietnamese cities. My wife worked as an editor for the U.S. "Radio Liberty–Radio Free Europe," broadcasting for Russia, and her native American chiefs submitted to her an article about Jane Fonda represented as a heroine, stopping the Vietnam fratricide.
My wife refused to touch the article and was dismissed. Well, we had not come to the United States for cushy jobs. We had been living in Russia in our three-storied country house of stone because I was the only native Russian able to translate Russian classical literature into English. We had come for the freedom of conscience. Recently, that is over 30 years later, Jane Fonda appeared at a televised Washington meeting of protest against the war in Iraq with the anti-Vietnam war screams and theatricals of over 30 years ago. As for her former husband Tom Hayden, he has written an article, "How to End the War in Iraq." The Vietnam War was preceded by the Korean War when Chinese troops moved into North Korea and began to advance down through South Korea. We were in Soviet Russia and watched the apparent defeat of South Korea when Gen. MacArthur proved his brilliance by landing his troops in the rear behind Chinese lines and thus saved South Korea. So two Koreas proved to be possible, and hence two Vietnams could have been if Gen. MacArthur were in charge of the Vietnam War. The Korean and Vietnam Wars were supported by all Americans who valued freedom and understood that their freedom depend on the prevalence of freedom in the world at large. On the other hand, "the war in Iraq" has been a meaningless charade or a nightmare to all except those who expected to benefit from the Iraqi oil. Why on earth Iraq, if not for its oil? To liberate it — there was no freedom in Iraq! But according to Freedom House, only 47 percent of all countries are free, while 53 percent are not. Why zero in on just one country in 2003 and spend about four years to establish freedom unsuccessfully just in this particular country? Surely no one attacked Iraq as Korea and Vietnam were attacked by communist China and Soviet Russia. As an Islamic country, Iraq sent out or could begin to send out Islamic terrorists in the United States? But the number of Muslims is close to 1 billion. The population of Iraq numbered as of 2003 26 million, and 2 million have fled. Freedom House defines Iraq as "not free." Saddam Hussein had a problem: to keep Sunni, Shia, and Kurds in one state. Today that strife has gone worse, and the number of its victims far exceeds the number of victims for which Saddam, a Sunni, was executed in such a picturesque way. The Sunni were a cultural aristocracy, the Shia the "dark masses," and the Kurds the "separatists." There is little doubt that the future Shia leaders will be far worse tyrants than Sadda, a Sunni lawyer. The execution of prisoners of war such as the Sunni lawyer Hussein does not require either any intelligence or skill, and small wonder if Shia torture all Sunni to death, thus repeating Hitler's annihilation of Jews in Germany — but more savagely. How was, officially, the charade in Iraq started? The Unired States–British intelligence/espionage reported that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction." Such as mustard gas, used in World War I. The report was false. But suppose it would have been true. What about Chinese post-nuclear super weapons hitting U.S. satellites? Freedom House defines as "not free," in particular, the following countries: Algeria, Angola, Burma, Cambodia, Chad, China, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Cuba, Egypt, El Salvador, Guinea, Liberia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Togo, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Zimbabwe. It is clear why China was not invaded, though it is "not free," according to Freedom House, and, indeed, it is less free than Iraq was as of 2003: thus, torture is official in the dictatorship of China. If those U.S. troops that invaded Iraq landed in China, they would have been surrounded, made to surrender, and no, not executed in a picturesque way like Hussein — they would have been possibly tortured to death. But why was no other "not free" country invaded (see the list above) instead of Iraq? Was Iraq chosen because of its oil worth $10 trillion, combined with the millennial Shia-Sunni strife preventing a united resistance? The Iraqi oil has been eluding the failing invaders, but they have been resuming their meaningless charade or nightmare again and again, though the public rating of George W. Bush has been plummeting to an unprecedented low.
* * * You can e-mail me at navlev@cloud9.net.
Editor's note:
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