home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: jaske@abacus.bates.edu (Jon Aske)
- Subject: Chomsky (Z-9/92): Vain hopes, part 1/7
- Message-ID: <1992Sep3.213404.23838@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: ?
- Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:34:04 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 228
-
- The following article by Noam Chomsky appeared in:
-
- Z Magazine, September 1992
-
- and is reprinted here with the magazine's permission.
-
- Z is an independent, progressive monthly magazine of critical
- thinking on political, cultural, social, and economic life in
- the United States. It sees the racial, sexual, class, and
- political dimensions of personal life as fundamental to
- understanding and improving contemporary circumstances; and it
- aims to assist activist efforts to attain a better future.
-
- Z Magazine is published monthly except on issue for July/August
- by the Institute for Social and Cultural Communications.
- Subscriptions: One Year $25; Two Years $40; Three Years $55;
- Canada and Mexico $40/year; students/low income $18/yr; foreign
- (surface) $50. Write to: Z Magazine, 150 W Canton St., Boston MA
- 02118, (617)236-5878, Fax: (617) 247-3179.
-
- Each issue of the magazine is about 100 pages with no
- advertisements.
-
- =================================================================
-
- Vain Hopes, False Dreams (Part 1 of 7, 12.5KB)
- ========================
-
- In the July/August issue of _Z_, several articles dealt with
- the deterioration of conditions of life in American society and
- the loss of hope, trust, or even expectations for the political
- system. Reviewing some of these all-too-obvious elements of the
- current scene, I wrote that "The public is not unaware of what is
- happening, though with the success of the policies of isolation
- and breakdown of organizational structure, the response is
- erratic and dangerous: faith in ridiculous billionaire saviors
- who are little more than `blank slates' on which one can write
- one's favorite dreams, myths of past innocence and noble leaders,
- conspiracy cults..., unfocused skepticism and disillusionment --
- a mixture that has not had happy consequences in the past."
-
- At times of general malaise and social breakdown, it is not
- uncommon for millenarian movements to arise to replace lost hopes
- by idle dreams: dreams of a savior who will lead us from bondage,
- or of the return of the great ships with their bounty, as in the
- cargo cults of South Sea islanders. Some may yearn for a lost
- golden age, or succumb to the blandishments of the new Messiahs
- who come to the fore at such moments. Those more cognizant of
- the institutional causes of discontent may be attracted to an
- image of hope destroyed by dark and powerful forces that stole
- from us the leader who sought a better future. The temptation to
- seek solace, or salvation, is particularly strong when the means
- to become engaged in a constructive way in determining one's fate
- have largely dissolved and disappeared.
-
- The billionaire savior has retreated from the scene. But it is
- surely striking that his challenge to the one-party, two-faction
- system of business rule, with its broad popular appeal, should
- have coincided so closely with the revival of fascination with
- tales of intrigue about Camelot lost. The audiences differ, but
- the JFK-Perot enthusiasms are similar enough to raise the
- question whether the imagery of the leader maliciously stolen
- from us has more of a claim to reality than the promise of the
- figure who suddenly appeared, quickly to fade away. The question
- is an important one, particularly to the left (broadly
- construed), which has devoted much of its valuable energy and
- resources to the Kennedy revival at a time when it has been
- successfully removed from the political arena, along with the
- large majority of the public that is its natural constituency.
-
- The core issue in the current Kennedy revival is the claim that
- JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam, a fact suppressed by the
- media; and was assassinated for that reason, it is prominently
- charged. Some allege further that Kennedy was intent on
- destroying the CIA, dismantling the military-industrial complex,
- ending the Cold War, and opening an era of development and
- freedom for Latin America, among other forms of class treachery
- that led to his downfall. This 1991-2 drama proceeded at several
- levels, from cinema to scholarship, engaging some of the
- best-known Kennedy intellectuals as well as substantial segments
- of the popular movements that in large part grew from opposition
- to the Vietnam war. Much as they differ on parts of the picture
- and other issues, there is a shared belief across this spectrum
- that history changed course dramatically when Kennedy was
- assassinated in November 1963, an event that casts a grim shadow
- over all that followed.
-
- It is also striking that the withdrawal thesis, which is at the
- heart of the Camelot revival of 1991-2, gained its prominence
- just on the 30th anniversary of Kennedy's steps to escalate the
- Indochina conflict from international terrorism to outright
- aggression. The anniversary of Kennedy's war against the rural
- society of South Vietnam passed virtually without notice, as the
- country mused over the evil nature of the Japanese, who had so
- signally failed to plead for forgiveness on the 50th anniversary
- of their attack on a military base in a US colony that had been
- stolen from its inhabitants, by force and guile, just 50 years
- earlier.
-
- There are several sources of evidence that bear on the withdrawal
- thesis: (1) The historical facts; (2) the record of public
- statements; (3) the internal planning record; (4) the memoirs and
- other reports of Kennedy insiders. In each category, the
- material is substantial. The record of internal deliberations,
- in particular, has been available far beyond the norm since the
- release of two editions of the _Pentagon Papers_ (_PP_). The
- recent publication of thousands of pages of documents in the
- official State Department history provides a wealth of additional
- material on the years of the presidential transition, 1963-4,
- which are of crucial significance for evaluating the thesis that
- many have found so compelling. What follows is an excerpt from a
- much longer review of the four categories of evidence in a
- broader context (_Year 501_, South End, forthcoming).
-
- While history never permits anything like definitive conclusions,
- in this case, the richness of the record, and its consistency,
- permit some unusually confident judgments. In my opinion, the
- record is inconsistent with the withdrawal thesis throughout, and
- supports a different conclusion. In brief, basic policy towards
- Indochina developed within a framework of North-South/East-West
- relations that Kennedy did not challenge, and remained constant
- in essentials: disentanglement from an unpopular and costly
- venture as soon as possible, but _after_ victory was assured
- (by the end, with increasing doubt that US client regimes could
- be sustained). Tactics were modified with changing circumstances
- and perceptions. Changes of Administration, including the
- Kennedy assassination, had no large-scale effect on policy, and
- not even any great effect on tactics, when account is taken of
- the objective situation and how it was perceived.
-
- 1. Kennedy's War
- ----------------
-
- When JFK took over in 1961, the US client regimes faced collapse
- in both Laos and Vietnam, for the same reason in both countries:
- The US-imposed regimes could not compete politically with the
- well-organized popular opposition, a fact recognized on all
- sides. Kennedy accepted a diplomatic settlement in Laos (at
- least on paper), but chose to escalate in Vietnam, where he
- ordered the deployment of Air Force and Helicopter Units, along
- with napalm, defoliation, and crop destruction. US military
- personnel were sharply increased and deployed at battalion level,
- where they were "beginning to participate more directly in
- advising Vietnamese unit commanders in the planning and execution
- of military operations plans" (_PP_). Kennedy's war far
- surpassed the French war at its peak in helicopters and aerial
- fire power. As for personnel, France had 20,000 nationals
- fighting in all of Indochina in 1949 (the US force level reached
- 16,700 under JFK), increasing to 57,000 at the peak.
-
- As military operations intensified, concerns arose over the
- effects of "indiscriminate firepower" and reports "that
- indiscriminate bombing in the countryside is forcing innocent or
- wavering peasants toward the Viet Cong" (_PP_). Kennedy's more
- dovish advisers, notably Roger Hilsman, preferred
- counterintersurgency operations. The favored method was to drive
- several million peasants into concentration camps where,
- surrounded by barbed wire and troops, they would have a "free
- choice" between the US client regime (GVN) and the Viet Cong.
- The effort failed, Hilsman later concluded, because it was never
- possible to eliminate the political opposition entirely. Other
- problems arose when the wrong village was bombed, or when bombing
- and defoliation alienated the peasants whose hearts and minds
- were to be won from the enemy whom they supported.
-
- Kennedy's war was no secret. In March 1962, US officials
- announced that US pilots were engaged in combat missions (bombing
- and strafing). In October, a front-page story in the _New York
- Times_ reported that "in 30 percent of all the combat missions
- flown in Vietnamese Air Force planes, Americans are at the
- controls," though "national insignia have been erased from many
- aircraft...to avoid the thorny international problems involved."
- The press reported further that US Army fliers and gunners were
- taking the military initiative against southern guerrillas, using
- helicopters with more firepower than any World War II fighter
- plane as an offensive weapon. Armed helicopters were regularly
- supporting operations of the Saigon army (ARVN). The brutal
- character of Kennedy's war was also no secret, from the outset.
-
- The specialist literature, notably province studies, generally
- agrees that the US-imposed regime had no legitimacy in the
- countryside, where 80% of the population lived (and little enough
- in the urban areas), that only force could compensate for this
- lack, and that by 1965 the VC had won the war in much of the
- country, with little external support.
-
- At first, JFK's 1961-2 aggression appeared to be a grand success:
- by July 1962, "the prospects looked bright" and "to many the end
- of the insurgency seemed in sight." The US leadership in Vietnam
- and Washington "was confident and cautiously optimistic," and "In
- some quarters, even a measure of euphoria obtained" (_PP_).
-
- In his semi-official history of Kennedy's presidency, Arthur
- Schlesinger observes that by the end of 1961, "The President
- unquestionably felt that an American retreat in Asia might upset
- the whole world balance" (_A Thousand Days_, 1965). "The
- result in 1962 was to place the main emphasis on the military
- effort" in South Vietnam. The "encouraging effects" of the
- escalation enabled Kennedy to report in his January 1963 State of
- the Union message that "The spearpoint of aggression has been
- blunted in South Vietnam." In Schlesinger's own words: "1962 had
- not been a bad year:...aggression checked in Vietnam."
-
- Recall that Kennedy and his historian-associate are describing
- the year 1962, when Kennedy escalated from extreme terrorism to
- outright aggression.
-
- Turning briefly to the second category of evidence, public
- statements, we find that Schlesinger's report of the President's
- feelings is well-confirmed. JFK regularly stressed the enormous
- stakes involved, which made any thought of withdrawal
- unacceptable. To the end, his public position was that we must
- "win the war" and not "just go home and leave the world to those
- who are our enemies." We must ensure that "the assault from the
- inside, and which is manipulated from the North, is ended"
- (Sept., Nov. 1963). Anything less would lead to the loss of
- Southeast Asia, with repercussions extending far beyond. As the
- "watchman on the walls of world freedom," he intended to tell his
- Dallas audience on Nov. 22, the US had to undertake tasks that
- were "painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia
- today. But we dare not weary of the task." The internal record,
- to which we turn next, shows that he adopted the same stance in
- his (limited) involvement in planning.
-
-
-
-
-
-