On Not Repeating Past Mistakes

As we have traversed this period of history encompassing the first and second “gulf wars” and the events of 9/11/2001, we have heard from many corners caveats about repeating past errors. Frequently, where US military action is concerned, we hear about not repeating “the mistakes of Viet Nam.” It seems, however, that this may be one of those phrases that enters the murky waters of “common knowledge” and we cease to seek agreement on its meaning before we toss it into our conversations. I for one have used the phrase and even, I find, assumed that the listener knows what I mean. I think it is not an issue confined to me, however. I think it may be a pervasive cultural phenomenon that we all know what “the mistakes of Viet Nam” were and we use the phrase rather casually. It is my own reflection on my personal use of the phrase that leads me to ponder this question: What are the mistakes of Viet Nam? Today, I’ll talk about the first mistake that I’ve identified. I'll post others later but feel free to add to it in the comments.

Threat Exaggeration

My self-examination ran roughly along a temporal line. What errors did we make first? It seems highly probable that the earlier mistakes laid an important foundation that allowed Viet Nam to become the runaway train it so disastrously became. What preceded our involvement and coaxed us onto our path. Then, as now, we started with threat exaggeration.

Our involvement in Viet Nam fell on the heels of the anti-communist frenzy of the 1950’s. Interestingly, then, as now, we misidentified the threat prior to exaggerating the chosen target. The threat of totalitarian, repressive government was misidentified with the economic system that it accompanied in its major forms in that time period, communism or socialism. The threat was seen as pervasive and as inseparable from totalitarianism. Hysteria ruled, culminating in Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt. The military threat that countries such as the USSR and the PRC posed was grossly overestimated resulting in gross over-reaction on our part. We began to see the threat as so pervasive that we thought ourselves the only people capable of saving the world from certain doom. Our worldview became increasingly paranoid. We developed a mythical view or ourselves as savior to the world and we marched our boys off to fight the falling dominoes in the grand communist conspiracy.

It is hard to say how much the exaggeration is intentional. I believe that it is to some degree but I also recognize that as humans we have some of these tendencies written into our DNA. The tendency to mythologize our tribe as the favored of god is not a uniquely American trait. The tendency for xenophobia and suspicion of the motives of outsiders and other tribes is probably hard wired into us as well. One of the mistakes we make is not acknowledging our programming in order that we may rise above it, when appropriate. Would not a survival benefit have accrued in past times to those whose threat assessment software was tuned a little to the paranoid side? It seems obvious that personal survival and even tribe survival would be enhanced by threat exaggeration as opposed to threat minimization.

To accomplish realistic threat assessment, we have to ask ourselves the pertinent questions. What evidence do I have that the threat has been appropriately identified? What evidence do I have to support the assessment of the threat level?

In the 1950’s we laid the foundation for Viet Nam by misidentifying the threat as communism rather than totalitarianism. Half a century later we still operate on this mistaken assumption. We will support the most brutal of totalitarian regimes for the sake of democracy, as long as they don’t pursue socialist/communist policies. Out of the other side of our mouths, we deplore all the same actions by brutal regimes that operate under the banner of socialism/communism. In order to support our misguided belief we live with the obvious conflict that capitalist propaganda, capitalist disrespect for human rights, capitalist torture, and capitalist repression of dissent is all “good” merely because it isn’t communism.

Our collective paranoia is institutionalized in organizations like the CIA. They get paid to be paranoid. Reason tells us we need wise leaders who can evaluate evidence and consider the source. Think then, about a regime taking power for whom even our institutionalized cold war paranoia is not paranoid enough! Is it any wonder they have brought us to this point?

When the First Indochina War ended with the Geneva Conference in 1954, the country was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh controlled the North and the south was given to EMPEROR Bao Dai, who had been installed as Emperor by the Japanese. The condition of the treaty was for democratic elections to take place in 1956 to restore a unified Viet Nam. Wow! That sounds like the kind of stuff we like! Elections! In 1955, the megalomaniacal Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem deposed Emporer Bao. When Ho Chi Minh said lets talk about those elections, it was the south that refused to adhere to the treaty signed in Geneva. So the US rode in to save the democratic elections, right! Of course not, because our fear and paranoia turns us away from the lofty democratic goals to which we give lip service. If totalitarianism was our enemy, we would have found elections a reasonable path. Our real enemy was the exaggerated threat of communism and so no democratic deal was strong enough to keep us from living out our domino theory destiny.

So here we find ourselves today. Is the threat radical terrorist, who happen to identify with the religion called Islam or is it Islam? The Joseph McCarthy’s of the 21st century tell us that it is Islam. They say it is violent religion and you can see that in the koran. They often say this with a bible, probably the most violent work of religious literature, in hand. They tell us congressional representatives who are Muslim can’t be trusted. They tell us that the enemy is pervasive among us. Be afraid! They tell us that it isn’t these extremists we need to go after but rather the states that identify with this religion are our ultimate target. Then, based on this hysteria, they lead us into foreign adventures doomed to failure. They trample democratic principles, at home and abroad, under the banner of the paranoia they’ve created.

Once again, the seed of our undoing lies in an inability to localize the actual threat and to control our own paranoid tendencies. Our paranoia has led us back to THE VERY SAME CONCLUSION that we drew in the pre-Viet Nam era; That we must become the aggressors in order to make the world safe for democracy and we must limit freedom in order that the world may be free like us! Anyone who wishes to examine the runaway paranoia and ask for a more realistic threat assessment is treated with the same tribal instinct that was leading us astray 50 years ago. Their loyalty to the tribe is questioned. Their loyalty to the King is questioned. They become presumed members of the conspiracy against us. Ultimately, they are derided and dismissed.

The voice of reason is easily lost in the cries of battle and the exhortations to rally round the flag. The ability to reason is easily overwhelmed by our urge to paranoia and tribal protection. We watched our brave young men sacrificed on the altar of our communist paranoia then and we vowed to learn. We vowed not to repeat our mistakes. This is just the first of the lessons that we as Americans have to admit we didn’t learn from Viet Nam.