History, Vietnam, and Iraq

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

That saying by philosopher Georges Santayana has become the bromide of our times: ÒThose who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." But an historiographer [philosophers of the writing of history] the good Harvard professor was not. And if one consults the historians, as many as not would say there are no lessons from history. Not that Òhistory is bunkÓ, as Henry Ford said, meaning that as an individualist mechanical genius he could make his own fate. No, what many historians would argue is our reconstruction of the past ø so limited and wanting ø is of a time and place which is not now... Or as some dead white Frenchman has said, historical analogies are odious.

As someone who spent a good deal of time on the ground, thinking and writing about ÒVietnamÓ, I am constantly shocked to learn some new element about events there during those years I thought I knew so well. Some are important, some trivial. And they are constantly mutating. When I left Hanoi midsummer 1951 believing the French had lost the war after a year reporting Òtheir warÓ, I was certain that it would be decided [as the Korean War was being decided at that time] by when the Chinese Communist entered. For decades after the French withdrawal in 1954, I believed I had miscalculated [as I have many times in trying to predict events]. Then, after the bitter border war between China and Communist Vietnam in 1979 and the opening of Chinese archives [and their spokesmenÕs mouths], I learned, indeed, the Chinese were major participants in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. It could be argued, indeed, it was Chinese intervention that sealed the French fate.

Almost all the current references to SantayanaÕs dictum are linked to parallels between the American catastrophe in Vietnam and our current Iraq involvement. Alas! I am daily reminded of similarities. I hear an American officer in shock elaborating on the terroristsÕ senseless cruelty; violence against their own people as well as against American forces. Again, we apparently have to again learn the lesson that terrorism is terrorism, that the terrorist seeks to maximize it against the defenseless in order to make his point, namely, that only by capitulation can the hapless population get peace. Or I hear the argument about force levels and ringing in my memory is my counter at a Saigon lunch for Secretary of Defense McNamara circa 1965. I had blurted out we could have a half million US forces in the country and still be ambushed in the same places as the French and the RVN [the Republic of Vietnam] if we didnÕt improve our intelligence. There were at the time, by the way, howls of derision, and a supercilious smile from the Secretary.

Or I hear the echoes of a longstanding argument with an old friend ø now gone ø about his vaunted ÒscienceÓ of counterinsurgency. My side of the argument: there can be no such ÒscienceÓ because in the nature of things, insurgencies are so particularized that little in common that can be codified. Nothing really ÒconnectsÓ 1960s urban Tupumaros in Montevideo, the Philippines Moros in the early 1900s, and the Assassins in Persia in the 11th and 12th centuries, or the Karens in Burma in 1948, except some meaningless clichŽs [e.g., the counterinsurgency soldiers should not steal chickens from the peasants in order to win their hearts and minds].

Vietnam was a war fought against an enemy fully backed by one of the then two world superpowers and a neighboring allied Communist neighbor, enveloped in a bitter civil war that was already more than two decades old before the U.S. entered in force. Vietnam was an impoverished country with a distorted colonial economy. American forces and strength were induced into the conflict piecemeal permitting the enemy to sharpen his talons. Washington tied its own hands with a refusal to acknowledge the essential role of adjoining sanctuaries.

There are analogies with the U.S.Õ present position in Iraq ø but very faint. There are, of course, experiences from which we can draw lessons. But just as generals have sometimes been accused of fighting Òthe last warÓ rather than adapting to new situations, the fate of the US effort in Iraq will be decided on the basis of our current abilities, our pragmatic evaluation of a complex and difficult situation,

The lessons of history are that there are no lessons of history. [After all the same Santayana wrote: "Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.Ó] We would be better served to drop this clichŽ and get on with the job of finding out what is happening in Iraq in the here and now and finding out how to cope with it.