The Vietnam War could have been avoided
Initially, Ho Chi Minh was very impressed with the leaders like Wilson and FDR and their pro-people, anti-colonial agenda, then the way America completed the Marshall Plan in rebuilding Europe and Japan after the devastation of the World War II, and most of all the way America gave independence to the Philippines in 1946. In declaring independence of Vietnam from the French colonial rule in 1945 Ho used the American Declaration of Independence verbatim. 1
Ho Chi Minh was rejected by Truman, under the heavy pressures from the ‘power elite’, as a communist leader and his letters to the Truman administration for help and cooperation were all kept hidden from the American public for the next 25 years. Those earnest letters to America, a democratic capitalist country, were a testament to the fact that this leader even though a communist leader could have been engaged with constructively and diplomatically to bring him within the fold of a liberal agenda. He was a communist because at that time he thought that was the best way to address the sufferings his people were going through. If a better way out was shown to him, like China later, his country could have been a partner in the global market as it is today. Just the way China later was brought out to the world market. This knowledge was there among the elites as these were an informed group. They rejected a leader like Ho because he could not be bought and brought to their service.
Truman was urged to ‘scare the hell out of the country’ to increase the military spending recklessly. He did and he went for a fierce confrontational approach. Instead of pressuring France to let go of its colonial grip on Vietnam and helping the country, a former ally in the Second World War, to become a healthy viable society as FDR would have done, Truman sent military reinforcements to the French occupation and to suppress the rebellion. A stage was set for a long bloody war, that could have avoided following the path of Wilson and FDR.
A State Department official knowledgeable about Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh – an extremely popular leader that forged an unbreakable bond with his people – suggested America offer 500 million dollars to Ho Chi Minh to help uplift the war-torn devastating economic condition Vietnam was facing. This would allow Ho to draw away from China and the Soviet Union while avoiding Vietnam war. His sound advice fell on deaf ears of the war-hawk neocons at that time. 2
They did not want peace, they wanted a military solution to the Cold War. It did not work. America got involved in a two-decade-long military engagement and war with Vietnam in which more than 60,000 Americans lost lives, about 3 million people were killed in the Southeast Asia region, and the American taxpayers ended up paying 2000 times that of that meager 500 million dollars the American elites refused to pay Ho Chi Minh. The only beneficiary was the military-industrial-complex. America lost the war disgracefully and the defeat degraded America’s backbone of leadership in the world. A high price for deviating from a principled path, a path that would lead to a win-win state of affairs for all sides involved.
The war essentially was caused by fear and prejudice mongering by the ‘power elite’ to vilify and dehumanize the communists and by arousing fear in deliberately portraying the communist bloc as far more powerful and capable militarily with an evil agenda to enslave the world. The Soviet Union and much less China were far less capable militarily than America was at that time. These fear and prejudice mongering techniques are used much the same way regarding radicalism in the Middle East today as it was used it during the Cold War.
These were then as they are today an effective ploy to serve the vested interests and elites of America. The Cold War ended, but all the manipulative and exploitative techniques are in place since and getting sharpened.
If the real causes of Communism were addressed then and as it should be regarding the causes of radicalism now, a more effective and expedient way to conflict resolution and peace could be achieved. Causes of Communism and causes of radicalism are similar: dispossession, poverty, subjugation, humiliation, and desperation to get out of human sufferings and humiliation. If the extreme exploitation and human sufferings during the industrial revolution did not take place, perhaps Karl Marx would not suggest a rigid ideology that goes against human nature to address injustices. The pendulum swung from one extreme to the other. The first extreme was created by the extreme exploitation of the industrial revolution. If extreme greed, corruption, and market manipulation did not lead the American capitalism to dysfunctional state of the 1929 stock market crash followed by the worst economic depression of the 1930s, the measures of the New Deal, a system of socialistic capitalism, would not be developed. The goal of each was to address injustice and human sufferings. If policy-makers and elites of a society become inhuman and inconsiderate in nature to disregard an extreme state of injustice and sufferings and try to cover up by ruthless repression, then extreme outcomes like ruthless Communism and terrorism are inevitable.
Radicalism is a form of rebellion that emerged in the Middle East after enduring decades of oppression, bloodshed, death, and destruction, and atrocities of Zionist groups like the Haganah [1920], the Irgun [1931], and the Stern Gang and finally the state of Israel [1948] perpetrated against the weak and vulnerable Arab population of Palestine. The King-Crane Commission, appointed by President Wilson, did not witness any Arab radicalism or terrorism in 1919. This issue has never been addressed by the so-called civilized Western world, particularly by the United States of America to answer why Arab radicalism emerged in the mid-1960s? And the cause and consequence are deliberately flip-flopped by the pro-Israeli groups.
During the early hours of the Cold War when diplomacy, development, and constructive engagement were most needed to hit hard at the root causes of Communism, instead militarism and confrontation were sought to inflame the volatile situation. After few decades when the American public was fed up with the violent agenda and the reckless nuclear arms race of the American government, the tide started to turn in the right direction. The ideas were also left behind by Kennedy’s plan of having peace with the Soviet, portraying the latter as a nation that has similar needs, aspirations, and fear and ‘share the same planet’. Had he lived he would have brought the Cold War to an end much sooner. His vision and agenda — of reducing military spending and eventually stopping nuclear arms race – hit deep into the consciousness of the nation.
This spirit of diplomacy, development, and constructive engagement was picked up by the popular movement that started a few years after Kennedy’s death. However, this was completely ignored by the power elite for a while. Washington, under the heavy pressures from the popular demand, embarked on a diplomatic and constructive path of détente with the arch enemies. The Cold War came to an end soon with the true American victory in which the intractable enemies were turned into global partners. This is reminiscent of the American victory with the Marshall Plan after the WWII. The defeated and devastated arch enemies then, Germany and Japan, were helped to turn into democracies and industrial giants in our time. This indeed was a breathtaking diplomatic achievement in the twentieth century, a true victory for America.
The paramount lesson here is that when America fails to address the root causes of a conflict such as poverty, dispossession, humiliation, and sufferings both during the Cold War as well as now in the countries in which democracy and good governance were destroyed by America to install puppet regimes and support their repressive rules. By creating an un-democratic culture to serve the interests of its elites then as it is now, American policy-makers have done an enormous disservice to America.
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