Note: This is an article that I wrote for a class a year ago which has been updated in order to show the lessons of history that can be useful in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

French Foreign Legionnaires in Indo-China

The effects of the wars Indo-China, Algeria and Vietnam on the French and American military organizations internally and in relationship to their nations piqued my interest in 2005. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan forced me to start asking the question of what short and long term effect that these wars might have on the U.S. military.  As such I wondered what historical precedent that there was for the question. My interest was furthered by my deployment with Marine and Army advisors to Iraqi Army and Security forces in 2007-2008.  My search led to the French experiences in Indo-China and Algeria and the American experience in Vietnam.  Recently with the Iraq war winding down and ongoing war in Afghanistan which has gone from apparent victory to mounting concern that the effort could fail as the Taliban and Al Qaida have regained momentum amid widespread corruption by the Afghan government and weakness of NATO forces.

Thesis

The counterinsurgency campaigns conducted by the French and American militaries in Vietnam and Algeria had deep and long lasting effects on them.  The effects included developments in organization and tactics, relationship of the military to the government and people, and sociological changes.  The effects were tumultuous and often corrosive.  The French Army in Algeria revolted against the government. The US Army, scarred by Vietnam went through a crisis of leadership and confidence which eventually resulted in end of the draft and formation the all volunteer military.  The effects of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are yet unknown but could result in similar situations to the militaries and governments involved,

Historiography

Foreign Legion in Algeria

There is a wealth of data regarding these wars. There are several types of materials. The accounts of soldiers, diplomats and reporters who experienced these events contained in memoirs and diaries. The best include David Hackworth’s About Face and Steel My Soldiers Hearts; and General Harold Moore’s We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. French works include Jules Roy’s The Battle of Dien Bien Phu and General Paul Aussaresses’ The Battle of the Casbah. There are innumerable popular accounts written by NCOs and junior officers.  These accounts may contain a wealth of information, but are limited by a number of factors. First, the authors, veterans of the wars, only saw part of the overall picture and first-hand experience in war can skew a writer’s objectivity. Those who have been through the trauma of war interpret war through their own experience.  Physical and psychological wounds can have a major impact on the interpretation of these writers as can their experience and political ideology. Finally few of these writers are trained historians. Despite this they can be a valuable resource for the historian.

Another source is found in the official histories written by the military forces involved in the wars. Often these incorporate unit histories and individual narratives and analyze specific battles and the wider campaigns, but do little in regard to broader conditions that affected operations.  While a good source, many are not as critical of their institutions as they should be.

Histories by trained historians and journalists provide another view. The most insightful of the journalist accounts include Bernard Fall’ Street Without Joy and The Siege of Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place. A limitation of all of these is that they are often heavily influenced by the political and societal events. This means that earlier accounts are more likely to be reactive and judgmental versus critical and balanced. Later accounts have the benefit of access to the opposing side and documents not available to earlier writers.  Alistair Horn in A Savage War of Peace provides one of the most informative and balanced accounts of the war in Algeria. Martin Winslow does the same regarding Dien Bien Phu in The Last Valley.

Another source is the writings of participants who critically examine their participation in the wars.  Many of these, French and American provide insights into the minds of leaders who are reflective and critically examine what happened to their military institutions in these wars. The best of these is French Colonel David Galula whose books Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958 and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice provide first-hand accounts of the subject combined with critical reflection. Galula’s works have been important to John Nagl, General David Petreus and others who helped write the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency manual. Andrew Krepinevich in The Army and Vietnam provides a critical analysis of the U.S. Army in Vietnam.  Other sources, both online and print, such as RAND, provide excellent analysis of selected topics within the scope of this essay, especially COIN.

French at Dien Bien Phu

The ability to dispassionately and critically examine and evaluate these sources over a period of several years was and integrate them with my own experience has been a critical to me.  It has changed the way that I look at sources, and caused me to be much more aware of bias, the limitations of sources and the need to have a multiplicity of sources and points of view and to be suspicious of contemporary reports and accounts of the war in Afghanistan regardless of the source.

Analysis of the Issue

Viet Minh Supply Columns were Never Stopped by French Air power or Artillery

The conflicts in French Indo-China, Algeria and Vietnam had major effects on the French and American military institutions. These effects can be classified in a number of ways. First, the manner in which each military waged war, including tactics employed and use and development of weapons systems was changed.  The use of airpower, especially helicopters and use of riverine forces provided an added dimension of battlefield mobility but did not bring victory. As John Shy and Thomas Collier noted regarding the French in Indo-China: “French mobility and firepower could take them almost anywhere in Vietnam, but they could not stay, and could show only wasted resources and time for their efforts.”[1]

Joint US and ARVN Operation

The use of intelligence and psychological warfare, including the use of torture became common practice in both the French and American armies.  The wars had an effect on the institutional culture of these armed services; neither completely embraced the idea of counterinsurgency and for the most part fought conventionally. Galula notes how the “legacy of conventional thinking” slowed the implementation of proper counterinsurgency tactics even after most commanders learned that “the population was the objective.”[2] Krepinevich notes that “any changes that might have come about through the service’s experience in Vietnam were effectively short-circuited by Army goals and policies.”[3] Finally the wars had a chilling effect on the relationship between the both militaries and the state, veterans from each nation often felt betrayed or disconnected from their country and people.  Unfortunately instances of all of these have occurred or can be seen in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

French Prisoners after Dien Bien Phu: Many Survivors Would be Fighting in Algeria within Two Years

The French Army had the misfortune of fighting two major insurgencies back to back.  The French military was handicapped even before it went into these wars. The Army came out of World War II defeated by the Germans, divided by loyalties to Vichy or one of the Free French factions. They were humiliated by the Japanese in Indo-China, while in Algeria France’s crushing defeat was devastating.  “Muslim minds, particularly sensitive to prestige and baraka, the humiliation made a deep impression.”[4] French society was as divided as the Army; the economy in shambles, the government weak and divided.  The Viet-Minh had prepared well making use of time and training to get ready for war.  “Once full-scale hostilities broke out, the French, for budgetary and political reasons could not immediately make the large scale effort to contain the rebellion in the confines of small-scale warfare.”[5]

In both Indo-China and Algeria the French attempted to fight the budding insurgencies in a conventional manner.  This was particularly disastrous in Indo-China when on a number of occasions battalion and regimental combat team sized elements were annihilated by Viet-Minh regulars.  Between October 1^st and 17^th 1950 every French garrison along the Chinese border was over-run.  The French lost over 6000 troops and enough equipment to outfit “a whole additional Viet-Minh division.” It was their worst colonial defeat since Montcalm at Quebec.[6] In Algeria when the fight began in earnest France’s “ponderous ponderous N.A.T.O forces found themselves at an impossible disadvantage,”[7] unable to have any influence off the main roads.

French Troops and Tanks in Indo-China: Road Bound Forces were often Defeated by Viet- Minh Forces

In Vietnam the French did not absorb the lessons of fighting a well established insurgent force. French forces hoped to draw the Viet-Minh main forces into battles of attrition where their superior firepower could be brought to bear. Such was the case at Na San in December 1952 where the French established an “Air ground base” deep in Viet-Minh territory to draw Giap’s forces into open battle.  This worked, but just barely. General Giap, short of artillery and not planning on a long battle frittered away his troops in mass charges.  However, the French, because of Na Son assumed they had found the key to victory. In their embrace of the “air ground base concept, French staff officers were following an intellectual tradition that had long been prone to seduction by elegant theories.”[8] The result was the disaster at Dien Bien Phu the following year.  The destruction of the elite Group-mobile 100 near Pleiku in 1954 was the coup de grace. In Indo-China the French made limited use of helicopters, used paratroops widely, and developed riverine forces. One thing they were critically short of was significant tactical air support.[9]

The most inventive French creation in Indochina was the GCMA/GMI forces composed of mountain tribesmen led by French NCOs and Junior Officers.  They were designed to provide “permanent guerilla groups rooted in remote areas” to harass and interdict Viet-Minh forces.[10] Trinquier noted that at the time of the Dien Bien Phu defeat that these forces had reached over 20,000 trained and equipped maquis in the Upper Region of Tonkin and Laos. These forces achieved their greatest success retaking Lao Cai and Lai Chau May 1954 as Dien Bien Phu fell.[11] Trinquier stated that “the sudden cessation of hostilities prevented us from exploiting our opportunities in depth.”[12] The GMI units and their French leaders were abandoned fighting on for years after the defeat. One account noted a French NCO two years after the defeat cursing an aircraft patrolling the border “for not dropping them ammunition so they could die like men.”[13] In the end the French left Indo-China and Giap remarked to Jules Roy in 1963 “If you were defeated, you were defeated by yourselves.”[14]

Algeria was different being part of Metropolitan France; there the French had support of European settlers, the pieds-noir. Many French soldiers had come directly from Indo-China. There French made better adaptations to local conditions, and realized that they had to win the population and isolate the insurgents from it and outside support. As Galula said, victory is the destruction of the insurgent’s political and military structures, plus “the permanent isolation from the population, not forced upon the population, but by and with the population.”[15] The lessons learned by the French in both Algerian and Indo-China were lost upon the Americans.

US Heavy Forces including Armor had Little Utility in Many Parts of Vietnam

The United States military, especially the Army approached the Vietnam War with a conventional mindset, referred to as the “Army concept.” [16] It not only approached the war in this manner, but it trained and organized the South Vietnamese forces, ARVN into the American model. Americans re-organized ARVN into divisions “based upon the U.S. divisional force structure.”[17] Due to the imposition of an American template and organizational structure upon it, ARVN was not structured appropriately for the threat that it faced.”[18] The results were as to be expected. Large numbers of American troops poured in taking the lead against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong . The American method of counterinsurgency was costly.  It was “almost a purely military approach”[19] which ignored political and social realities on the ground. Instead of focusing on protecting the Vietnamese people and denying the Communists a safe haven the Army in particular believed that massive firepower was the best means to be“utilized by the Army to achieve the desired end of the attrition strategy-the body count.”[20] In the end the American defeat was a “failure of understanding and imagination.”[21] The one shining success was the Marine Corps experimentation with “Combined Action Program” platoons which lived in the villages with militia for long periods of time. This program produced great results “in eliminating local guerillas”[22] but was killed by the Army.

NVA Main Forces

These wars tore the heart out French and American armies. For the French the defeats inflicted a terrible toll.  In Indo-China many French career soldiers felt that the government’s “lack of interest in the fate of both thousands of missing French prisoners and loyal North Vietnamese…as dishonorable.”[23] Divisions arose between those who served and those who remained in France or Germany and created bitter enmity between soldiers.  France would endure a military coup which involved many who had fought in Vietnam and Algeria. Having militarily won that war, were turned into what Jean Lartenguy called The Centurions had been turned into liars.”[24] They were forced to abandon those who they had fought for and following the mutiny, tried, imprisoned, exiled or disgraced. Colonial troops who remained loyal to France were left without homes in their “independent” nations.  They saw Dien Bien Phu as the defining moment. “They responded with that terrible cry of pain which pretends to free a man from his sworn duty, and promises such chaos to come: ‘Nous sommes trahis!’-‘We are betrayed.’”[25]

US Veterans of Vietnam Would Return to a Deeply Divided Country that turned its Back on Them for Years

The U.S. Army left Vietnam and returned to a country deeply divided by the war.  Vietnam veterans remained ostracized by the society until the 1980s.  As Harold Moore recounts “in our time battles were forgotten, our sacrifices were discounted, and both our sanity and suitability for life in polite American society were publically questioned.”[26] The Army endured a massive reorganization that resulted in the formation of the All-Volunteer force, which would redeem itself and emerge from the ashes in the Gulf War. The Americans would not learn the lessons of revolutionary warfare and counterinsurgency until forced to do so in Iraq in 2004-2007. These lessons however were not applied to Afghanistan and the Taliban which seemed to have been defeated have regained the initiative, policy is being debated amid discord in the west and there are reports of American and NATO forces becoming discouraged by the course of the war and concern that their efforts will be in vain. This is a dangerous situation to be in and if we learn from anything from our own history as well as that of foreign military forces in Afghanistan we need to be very careful in implementing strategy to get whatever we do right.

Training Team Base in Afghanistan: Some of these Bases Have proven Vulnerable to Well Planned and Coordinated Taliban Attacks

Conclusion

The effects of these wars on the French and American military establishments were long lasting and often tragic. The acceptance of torture as a means to an end sullied even the hardest French officers. Men like Galula and Marcel Bigeard refused to countenance it, while others like Paul Aussaresses never recanted.  Americans would repeat the tactic at Abu Ghraib rallying the Iraqis against them and nearly losing the war because of it.

For the Americans, the effects of Vietnam continued at home. Race riots tore at the force while drug addictions and criminal activities were rampant.  Many incompetent leaders who had “ticket punched” their careers kept their jobs and highly successful leaders who became whistle blowers like Hackworth were scorned by the Army institution.  The years following Vietnam were a severe test of the US Military and took years for the military to recover.  Likewise It took years before either the French or American veterans again felt a part of their countries.  They ended up going to war, and when it was over; feeling abandoned, their deepest bonds were to their comrades who had fought by their side.

What are the lessons to be learned from these campaigns as well as from the various accounts?  Andrew Krepinevich prophetically noted that the failure to learn the lessons of Vietnam “represents a very dangerous mixture that in the end may see the Army again attempting to fight a conventional war against a very unconventional opponent.”[27] Obviously, there are lessons to be learned, especially in understanding the nature of revolutionary war as well as the culture and history of our opponents. The U.S. has made some improvement in this regard but there is still much to be learned, especially since after the war the Army was “erecting barriers to avoid fighting another Vietnam War.”[28] From these wars we learn that nations and incompetent governments who mismanage wars can alienate themselves from the soldiers that they send to fight, with serious consequences.  As far as historiography we learn that certain historical fallacies are evident when one reads the accounts critically and recognize the bias and limitations of the various sources.

[2] Galula, David. Counterinsurgency in Algeria: 1956-1958. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA. 2006. First published by RAND in 1963. p.244

[3] Krepinevich, Andrew F. “The Army and Vietnam,” The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1986 p.213

[4] Horn, Alistair. “A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962,” a New York Review Book published by the New York Review of Books, New York, 1977, 1987, 1996, and 2006 p 41

[5] Fall, Bernard B. “Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina.” Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA, 2005, originally published by Stackpole Publications 1961 p.27

[6] Ibid. p.33

[7] Horn. p.100.

[8] Windrow, Martin. “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam,” Da Capo Press, Novato, CA 2006, originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 2004 p.63

[9] Fall, Bernard B. “The Siege of Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place.” Da Capo Press, New York an unabridged reprint of the 1^st Edition reprinted in arrangement with Harper and Row Publishers, New York. 1967 pp. 456-457  Fall discusses in depth the lack of French Air support and the antecedents that led to the shortage following World War II.

[10] Pottier, Philippe(2005)’Articles: GCMA/GMI: A French Experience in Counterinsurgency during the French Indochina War’, Small Wars & Insurgencies,16:2,125 — 146 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310500079874

[11] Simpson, Howard K. “Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot,” Potomac Books Inc. Washington DC 2005, originally published by Brassey’s Inc. 1994 pp. 170-171

[12] Trinquier, Roger. “Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency,” translated from the French by Daniel Lee with an Introduction by Bernard B. Fall. Praeger Security International, Westport CT and London. 1964 and 2006. Originally published under the title “La Guerre Moderne” by Editions Table Ronde. p.87

[13] Windrow. p.652.

[14] Roy, Jules. “The Battle of Dien Bien Phu” Carrol and Graf Publishers, New York 1984. Translated from the French by Robert Baldrick. English translation copyright 1965 by Harper and Row Publishers, New York. p.xxx

[15] Galula, David. “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice.” Praeger Security International, Westport CT 1964 and 2006 p. 54

[16] Krepinevich. p.213

[17] Ibid. p.24

[18] Nagl, John A. “Learning to East Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2005 p.138

[19] Shy. p.856

[20] Krepinevich. p.202

[21] Spector, Ronald H. “After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam,” Vintage Press, a division of Random House, New York, 1993 p.314

[22] Millett, Allan R. and Maslowski, Peter. “For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America.” The Free Press, a division of Macmillian, Inc. New York, 1984 p.555

[23] Windrow. p.655

[24] Ibid. p.657

[25] Ibid.

[26] Moore, Harold G and Galloway, Joseph L. “We were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang: The Battle that Changed Vietnam,” Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY 1992  p. xx

[27] Krepinevich. p.275

[28] Ibid. p.274

1st Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment in Indo-China

Introduction

The effects of the wars Indo-China, Algeria and Vietnam on the French and American military organizations internally and in relationship to their nations piqued my interest in 2005. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan forced me to start asking the question of what short and long term effect that these wars might have on the U.S. military.  As such I wondered what historical precedent that there was for the question. My interest was furthered by my deployment with Marine and Army advisors to Iraqi Army and Security forces in 2007-2008.  My search led to the French experiences in Indo-China and Algeria and the American experience in Vietnam.

The counterinsurgency campaigns conducted by the French and American militaries in Vietnam and Algeria had deep and long lasting effects on them.  The effects included developments in organization and tactics, relationship of the military to the government and people, and sociological changes.  The effects were tumultuous and often corrosive.  The French Army in Algeria revolted against the government. The US Army, scarred by Vietnam went through a crisis of leadership and confidence which eventually resulted in end of the draft and formation the all volunteer military.

Primitive but Effective- Viet Minh Supply Column The French Could Never Stop them

There is a wealth of data regarding these wars. There are several types of materials. The accounts of soldiers, diplomats and reporters who experienced these events contained in memoirs and diaries. The best include David Hackworth’s About Face and Steel My Soldiers Hearts; and General Harold Moore’s We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. French works include Jules Roy’s The Battle of Dien Bein Phu and General Paul Aussaresses’ The Battle of the Casbah. There are innumerable popular accounts written by NCOs and junior officers.  These accounts may contain a wealth of information, but are limited by a number of factors. First, many only saw part of the overall picture and first-hand experience can skew objectivity. Those who have been through the trauma of war interpret war through their own experience.  Physical and psychological wounds can have a major impact on the interpretation of these writers as can their experience and political ideology. Finally few of these writers are trained historians. Despite this they can be a valuable resource for the historian.

Another source is official histories. Often these incorporate unit histories and individual narratives and analyze specific battles and the wider campaigns, but do little in regard to broader conditions that affected operations.  While a good source, many are not as critical of their institutions as they should be. Histories by trained historians and journalists provide another view. The most insightful of the journalist accounts include Bernard Fall’ Street Without Joy and The Siege of Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place. A limitation of all of these is that they are often heavily influenced by the political and societal events. This means that earlier accounts are more likely to be reactive and judgmental versus critical and balanced. Later accounts have the benefit of access to the opposing side and documents not available to earlier writers.  Alistair Horn in A Savage War of Peace provides one of the most informative and balanced accounts of the war in Algeria. Martin Winslow does the same regarding Dien Bien Phu in The Last Valley.

Isolated and Besieged Dien Bien Phu

Another source is the writings of participants who critically examine their participation in the wars.  Many of these, French and American provide insights into the minds of leaders who are reflective and critically examine what happened to their military institutions in these wars. The best of these is French Colonel David Galula whose books Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958 and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice provide first-hand accounts of the subject combined with critical reflection. Galula’s works have been important to John Nagl, General David Petreus and others who helped write the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency manual. Andrew Krepinevich in The Army and Vietnam provides a critical analysis of the U.S. Army in Vietnam.  Other sources, both online and print, such as RAND, provide excellent analysis of selected topics within the scope of this essay, especially COIN.

The ability to dispassionately and critically examine and evaluate these sources over a period of several years was and integrate them with my own experience has been a critical to me.  It has changed the way that I look at sources, and caused me to be much more aware of bias, the limitations of sources and the need to have a multiplicity of sources and points of view.

Effects of Insurgencies on the Armies that Fought Them

The conflicts in French Indo-China, Algeria and Vietnam had major effects on the French and American military institutions. These effects can be classified in a number of ways. First, the manner in which each military waged war, including tactics and weapons systems was changed.  The use of airpower, especially helicopters and use of Riverine forces provided an added dimension of battlefield mobility but did not bring victory. As John Shy and Thomas Collier noted regarding the French in Indo-China: “French mobility and firepower could take them almost anywhere in Vietnam, but they could not stay, and could show only wasted resources and time for their efforts.”[1] The use of intelligence and psychological warfare, including the use of torture became common practice in both the French and American armies.  The wars had an effect on the institutional culture of these armed services; neither completely embraced the idea of counterinsurgency and for the most part fought conventionally. Galula notes how the “legacy of conventional thinking” slowed the implementation of proper counterinsurgency tactics even after most commanders learned that “the population was the objective.”[2] Krepinevich notes that “any changes that might have come about through the service’s experience in Vietnam were effectively short-circuited by Army goals and policies.”[3] Finally the wars had a chilling effect on the relationship between the both militaries and the state, veterans from each nation often felt betrayed or disconnected from their country and people.

Foreign Legion in Algeria

The French Army had the misfortune of fighting two major insurgencies back to back.  The French military was handicapped even before it went into these wars. The Army came out of World War II defeated by the Germans, divided by loyalties to Vichy or one of the Free French factions. They were humiliated by the Japanese in Indo-China, while in Algeria France’s crushing defeat was devastating.  “Muslim minds, particularly sensitive to prestige and baraka, the humiliation made a deep impression.”[4] French society was as divided as the Army; the economy in shambles, the government weak and divided.  The Viet-Minh had prepared well making use of time and training to get ready for war.  “Once full-scale hostilities broke out, the French, for budgetary and political reasons could not immediately make the large scale effort to contain the rebellion in the confines of small-scale warfare.”[5]

In both Indo-China and Algeria the French attempted to fight the budding insurgencies in a conventional manner.  This was particularly disastrous in Indo-China when on a number of occasions battalion and regimental combat team sized elements were annihilated by Viet-Minh regulars.  Between October 1^st and 17^th 1950 every French garrison along the Chinese border was over-run.  The French lost over 6000 troops and enough equipment to outfit “a whole additional Viet-Minh division.” It was their worst colonial defeat since Montcalm at Quebec.[6] In Algeria when the fight began in earnest France’s “ponderous ponderous N.A.T.O forces found themselves at an impossible disadvantage,”[7] unable to have any influence off the main roads.

Surrender at Dien Bien Phu

In Vietnam the French did not absorb the lessons of fighting a well established insurgent force. French forces hoped to draw the Viet-Minh main forces into battles of attrition where their superior firepower could be brought to bear. Such was the case at Na San in December 1952 where the French established an “Air ground base” deep in Viet-Minh territory to draw Giap’s forces into open battle.  This worked, but just barely. Giap, short of artillery and not planning on a long battle frittered away his troops in mass charges.  However, the French, because of Na Son assumed they had found the key to victory. In their embrace of the “air ground base concept, French staff officers were following an intellectual tradition that had long been prone to seduction by elegant theories.”[8] The result was the disaster at Dien Bien Phu the following year.  The destruction of the elite Group-mobile 100 near Pleiku in 1954 was the coup de grace. In Indo-China the French made limited use of helicopters, used paratroops widely, and developed Riverine forces. One thing they were critically short of was significant tactical air support.[9]

The most inventive French creation was the GCMA/GMI forces composed of mountain tribesmen led by French NCOs and Junior Officers.  They were designed to provide “permanent guerilla groups rooted in remote areas” to harass and interdict Viet-Minh forces.[10] Trinquier noted that at the time of the Dien Bien Phu defeat that these forces had reached over 20,000 trained and equipped maquis in the Upper Region of Tonkin and Laos. These forces achieved their greatest success retaking Lao Cai and Lai Chau May 1954 as Dien Bien Phu fell.[11] Trinquier stated that “the sudden cessation of hostilities prevented us from exploiting our opportunities in depth.”[12] The GMI units and their French leaders were abandoned fighting on for years after the defeat. One account noted a French NCO two years after the defeat cursing an aircraft patrolling the border “for not dropping them ammunition so they could die like men.”[13] In the end the French left Indo-China and Giap remarked to Jules Roy in 1963 “If you were defeated, you were defeated by yourselves.”[14]

Algeria was different being part of Metropolitan France; there the French had support of European settlers, the pieds-noir. Many French soldiers had come directly from Indo-China. There French made better adaptations to local conditions, and realized that they had to win the population and isolate the insurgents from it and outside support. As Galula said, victory is the destruction of the insurgent’s political and military structures, plus “the permanent isolation from the population, not forced upon the population, but by and with the population.”[15] The lessons learned by the French in both Algerian and Indo-China were lost upon the Americans.

The United States military, especially the Army approached the Vietnam War with a conventional mindset, the “Army concept.” [16] It not only approached the war in this manner, but it trained and organized the South Vietnamese forces, ARVN into the American model. Americans re-organized ARVN into divisions “based upon the U.S. divisional force structure.”[17] ARVN was not structured appropriately for the threat that it faced.”[18] The results were as to be expected. Large numbers of troops poured in, American counterinsurgency was costly.  It was “almost a purely military approach”[19] which ignored political and social realities on the ground. Massive firepower was the means “utilized by the Army to achieve the desired end of the attrition strategy-the body count.”[20] In the end the American defeat was a “failure of understanding and imagination.”[21] The one shining moment was the Marine Corps experimentation with “Combined Action Program” platoons which lived in the villages with militia for long periods of time. This program produced great results “in eliminating local guerillas”[22] but was killed by the Army.

For both the French and Americans these wars tore the heart out of their armies. For the French the defeats inflicted a terrible toll.  In Indo-China many French career soldiers felt that the government’s “lack of interest in the fate of both thousands of missing French prisoners and loyal North Vietnamese…as dishonorable.”[23] Divisions arose between those who served and those who remained in France or Germany and created bitter enmity between soldiers.  France would endure a military coup which involved many who had fought in Vietnam and Algeria. Having militarily won that war, were turned into what Jean Lartenguy called ‘the Centurions” had been turned into liars.”[24] They were forced to abandon those who they had fought for and following the mutiny, tried, imprisoned, exiled or disgraced. Colonial troops who remained loyal to France were left without homes in their “independent” nations.  They saw Dien Bien Phu as the defining moment. “They responded with that terrible cry of pain which pretends to free a man from his sworn duty, and promises such chaos to come: ‘Nous sommes trahis!’-‘We are betrayed.’”[25]

Joint US-ARVN Operation

The U.S. Army returned to a country deeply divided and Vietnam veterans remained ostracized until the 1980s.  As Harold Moore recounts “in our time battles were forgotten, our sacrifices were discounted, and both our sanity and suitability for life in polite American society were publically questioned.”[26] The Army endured a massive reorganization that resulted in the formation of the All-Volunteer force, which would redeem itself and emerge from the ashes in the Gulf War. The Americans would not learn the lessons of revolutionary warfare and counterinsurgency until forced to do so in Iraq in 2004-2007.

Conclusions and Possibilities

The effects of these wars on the French and American military establishments were long lasting and often tragic. The acceptance of torture as a means to an end sullied even the hardest French officers. Men like Galula and Marcel Bigeard refused to countenance it, while others like Paul Aussaresses never recanted.  Americans would repeat the tactic at Abu Ghraib rallying the Iraqis against them.

For the Americans, the debacle continued at home. Race riots tore at the force while drug addictions and criminal activities were rampant.  Incompetent leaders kept their jobs and highly successful leaders who became whistle blowers like Hackworth were scorned by the Army institution. It took years before either the French or American veterans again felt a part of their countries.  They ended up going to war, and when it was over; feeling abandoned, their deepest bonds were to their comrades who had fought by their side.

What are the lessons to be learned from these campaigns as well as from the various accounts?  Andrew Krepinevich prophetically noted that the failure to learn the lessons of Vietnam “represents a very dangerous mixture that in the end may see the Army again attempting to fight a conventional war against a very unconventional opponent.”[27] Obviously, there are lessons to be learned, especially in understanding the nature of revolutionary war as well as the culture and history of our opponents. The U.S. has made some improvement in this regard but there is still much to be learned, especially since after the war the Army was “erecting barriers to avoid fighting another Vietnam War.”[28] From these wars we learn that nations and incompetent governments who mismanage wars can alienate themselves from the soldiers that they send to fight, with serious consequences.  As far as historiography we learn that certain historical fallacies are evident when one reads the accounts critically and recognize the bias and limitations of the various sources.

In Iraq the U.S. adapted, albeit belatedly to the nature of the insurgency and took advantage of Al Qaeda Iraq (AQI) over-reach in the manner that they abused the Iraqi people.  The situation turned dramatically in September of 2007 when Al Qaeda killed the most prominent Sunni Sheik outside of Ramadi.  The Sheik had begun to work with Americans on security issues and his death turned much of the Sunni populace in Al Anbar and other provinces against AQI for the first time allying them with the Sh’ia dominated government.  Changing focus the U.S. Forces focused on safeguarding the population and building up the capabilities of Iraqi forces.  Within months because of the increased security and stability in Al Anbar the U.S. Marine trained and Iraqi led forces of the 1^st Iraqi Division were able to be moved to Basra where they retook the city from insurgent forces and to Diyala where they helped the government gain the upper hand.  Success in Iraq did not come easy, American forces suffered their greatest losses since the Vietnam War in the cities, villages and countryside of Iraq.  The U.S. is now in the process of drawing down as the Iraqis take over their own security.  The process is not perfect as there still tension between Sunni and Sh’ia factions as well as Kurds and other minority ethnic groups.  However it is still going better than most experts predicted.

The Author and Advisors with Iraqi Border Troops near Syria

Afghanistan is another matter.  After early success in overthrowing the Taliban and isolating Al Qaeda the Americans and NATO pretty ran a status quo operation attempting to legitimize the Karzai government, eliminate the Opium poppy crops and establish government presence and security in outlying areas.  There was a problem in this; both the Taliban and Al Qaeda used border sanctuaries in Pakistan and financial support from worldwide Moslem groups to continue the fight.  As Al Qaeda and the Taliban built themselves up the Afghan government lost support. This loss of support was in large part due to rampant government corruption as well as to the perception of U.S. and NATO forces being occupiers and not liberators.  This perception of the U.S. and NATO forces was in large part because they had ignored the lessons of French Indo-China, Algeria, Vietnam and Iraq.  Isolated from the population the bulk of NATO forces performed in a reactionary manner and often used aircraft and artillery to respond to Taliban forces often killing non-combatants by mistake. Each time this happened, the Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders used the results to further bolster their image and portray the allies as the oppressors.  As the Taliban took back much of the country they also returned to oppressive means to subdue the population by fear and intimidation.

Taliban Insurgents

The new American commander, General Stanley McChrystal has asked for more forces in order to run a proper counter-insurgency campaign which focuses on the security of the population to isolate the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Whether General McChrystal gets his forces and whether they are enough to turn the tide before all political and public support in the U.S. and NATO countries is lost is another matter.  Right now the situation is tenuous at best.  There are means to win this war despite the history of Afghanistan which suggests that this is not possible.  The key is he Afghan population, if they believe that the U.S. and NATO are n their side, that we respect them, their culture, religion and that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are the real oppressors the war can be won.  This requires patience, forethought and deliberate measures to secure the population, build up a government that they can trust and de-legitimatize Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  If that does not happen, the U.S. and NATO run the risk of repeating the story of the French in Indo-China.   Unlike AQI and Iraqi insurgents the Taliban are very capable of running military operations capable of defeating small to medium sized units in isolated locations.  They know the terrain, often have the support of the people, are highly mobile and not dependant on roads and can mass quickly at critical points.  Last year the Taliban launched a large scale assault on an American COP which came close to overrunning it.  They were repelled with heavy casualties but the incident demonstrated a capability that is growing.  What I would be concerned about is the total destruction of an isolated post or a convoy which could be used to demoralize western nations.  While I do not think that the Taliban could pull off the defeat of a major US or NATO base or force as the Viet-Minh did at Dien Bien Phu but the threat should not be minimized.

USMC Training Team in Afghanistan

How we learn the lessons of past insurgencies and revolutionary wars is important in Afghanistan.  The stakes are higher than most would want to admit. A withdraw would be seen by militants outside of Afghanistan would be emboldened just as the Algerians were by the loss of the French in Indo-China. It would again provide Al Qaeda with a safe haven and secure base of operations.  The stakes are high.  Who knows what will happen?

Bibliography

Aussaresses, Paul, “The Battle of the Casbah: Counter-Terrorism and Torture,” translated by Robert L Miller.  Enigma Books, New York, 2005. Originally published in French under the title of “SERVICES SPECIAUX Algerie 1955-1957” Perrin 2001

Fall, Bernard B. “The Siege of Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place.” Da Capo Press, New York an unabridged reprint of the 1^st Edition reprinted in arrangement with Harper and Row Publishers, New York. 1967

Fall, Bernard B. “Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina.” Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA, 2005, originally published by Stackpole Publications 1961

Galula, David. “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice.” Praeger Security International, Westport CT 1964 and 2006

Galula, David. “Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958.” RAND Corporation, Santa Monica CA 2006. Originally published by RAND 1963

Hackworth, David H. and Sherman, Julie. “About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior,” a Touchstone Book published by Simon and Schuster, New York. 1989

Horn, Alistair. “A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962,” a New York Review Book published by the New York Review of Books, New York, 1977, 1987, 1996, and 2006

Karnow, Stanley. “Vietnam, a History: The First Complete Account of Vietnam at War,” The Viking Press, New York, 1983

Krepinevich, Andrew F. “The Army and Vietnam,” The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1986

Millett, Allan R. and Maslowski, Peter. “For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America.” The Free Press, a division of Macmillian, Inc. New York, 1984

Moore, Harold G and Galloway, Joseph L. “We were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang: The Battle that Changed Vietnam,” Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY 1992

Nagl, John A. “Learning to East Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2005

Nolan, Keith William. “The Battle for Hue: Tet 1968,” Presidio Press, Novato CA, 1983

Pottier, Philippe (2005) Articles: GCMA/GMI: A French Experience in Counterinsurgency during the French Indochina War, Small Wars & Insurgencies,16:2,125 — 146 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310500079874

Roy, Jules. “The Battle of Dien Bien Phu” Carrol and Graf Publishers, New York 1984. Translated from the French by Robert Baldrick. English translation copyright 1965 by Harper and Row Publishers, New York.

Sheehan, Neil. “A Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam,” Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York, 1989

Shy, John and Collier, Thomas W. “Revolutionary War”in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age,” Peter Paret editor. Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J. 1986

Simpson, Howard K. “Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot,” Potomac Books Inc. Washington DC 2005, originally published by Brassey’s Inc. 1994

Spector, Ronald H. “After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam,” Vintage Press, a division of Random House, New York, 1993

Trinquier, Roger. “Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency,” translated from the French by Daniel Lee with an Introduction by Bernard B. Fall. Praeger Security International, Westport CT and London. 1964 and 2006. Originally published under the title “La Guerre Moderne” by Editions Table Ronde.

West, F.J. “The Village,” Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, New York. 1972.

Windrow, Martin. “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam,” Da Capo Press, Novato, CA 2006, originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 2004

[2] Galula, David. Counterinsurgency in Algeria: 1956-1958. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA. 2006. First published by RAND in 1963. p.244

[3] Krepinevich, Andrew F. “The Army and Vietnam,” The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1986 p.213

[4] Horn, Alistair. “A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962,” a New York Review Book published by the New York Review of Books, New York, 1977, 1987, 1996, and 2006 p 41

[5] Fall, Bernard B. “Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina.” Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA, 2005, originally published by Stackpole Publications 1961 p.27

[6] Ibid. p.33

[7] Horn. p.100.

[8] Windrow, Martin. “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam,” Da Capo Press, Novato, CA 2006, originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 2004 p.63

[9] Fall, Bernard B. “The Siege of Dien Bien Phu: Hell in a Very Small Place.” Da Capo Press, New York an unabridged reprint of the 1^st Edition reprinted in arrangement with Harper and Row Publishers, New York. 1967 pp. 456-457  Fall discusses in depth the lack of French Air support and the antecedents that led to the shortage following World War II.

[10] Pottier, Philippe(2005)’Articles: GCMA/GMI: A French Experience in Counterinsurgency during the French Indochina War’, Small Wars & Insurgencies,16:2,125 — 146 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592310500079874

[11] Simpson, Howard K. “Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot,” Potomac Books Inc. Washington DC 2005, originally published by Brassey’s Inc. 1994 pp. 170-171

[12] Trinquier, Roger. “Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency,” translated from the French by Daniel Lee with an Introduction by Bernard B. Fall. Praeger Security International, Westport CT and London. 1964 and 2006. Originally published under the title “La Guerre Moderne” by Editions Table Ronde. p.87

[13] Windrow. p.652.

[14] Roy, Jules. “The Battle of Dien Bien Phu” Carrol and Graf Publishers, New York 1984. Translated from the French by Robert Baldrick. English translation copyright 1965 by Harper and Row Publishers, New York. p.xxx

[15] Galula, David. “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice.” Praeger Security International, Westport CT 1964 and 2006 p. 54

[16] Krepinevich. p.213

[17] Ibid. p.24

[18] Nagl, John A. “Learning to East Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2005 p.138

[19] Shy. p.856

[20] Krepinevich. p.202

[21] Spector, Ronald H. “After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam,” Vintage Press, a division of Random House, New York, 1993 p.314

[22] Millett, Allan R. and Maslowski, Peter. “For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America.” The Free Press, a division of Macmillian, Inc. New York, 1984 p.555

[23] Windrow. p.655

[24] Ibid. p.657

[25] Ibid.

[26] Moore, Harold G and Galloway, Joseph L. “We were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang: The Battle that Changed Vietnam,” Harper Collins Publishers, New York NY 1992  p. xx

[27] Krepinevich. p.275

[28] Ibid. p.274

L’enquête d’un journaliste sur un soldat disparu nous ramène quarante ans en arrière. A cette époque, de jeunes résistants qui venaient de s’opposer à l’occupant nazi s’engagent pour continuer ce combat en Indochine… mais voilà que certains d’entre eux réalisent qu’ils deviennent à leur tour, sur ce sol, une force d’occupation… et décident, par fidélité à leur idéal, de rejoindre les troupes Viêt Minh qui luttent contre le colonisateur.

Ces deux albums, maintenant édités en intégrale, ouvrent une page trop méconnue de notre histoire « officielle ». Ils nous parlent de liberté d’information, de fidélité, de mémoire. Une superbe occasion de lutter contre toutes ces amnésies qui encombrent encore nos « devoirs de mémoire ».

Un ouvrage à méditer, malgré des couleurs jugées trop criardes selon certains lecteurs et un fin que d’autres auraient voulu plus sobre.

Les oubliés d’Annam,  (D : Lax ; S : Franck Giroud), Dupuis, Collection « Aire Libre », octobre 1990, intégrale publiée en octobre 2000

“In 1972, the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth (Universe Books) suggested that at exponential growth rates, the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead, and natural gas by 1993. The end was nigh.” – From the Reason website.

Sleepless nights & billions required

Bill Gates cant sleep at night. He is a worried man. He is spending billions (ok … ok … not billions for now … just hundreds of millions) to solve this problem. Ted Turner is equally worried. Ted Turner ‘thinks’ that people will eat people - instead of food, which will become scarce. He has already given away billions – and waiting in line to give away more. David Packard (of Hewlett Packard) was an equally worried man. His foundation has given hundreds of millions each year.

What’s worrying them? Linux? Naah Why worry? Is anyone else making money?. Mobile phones OS. That is Nokia’s problem. Google? They are a long way off. Let them get closer.

So, what is it? It is the thought of all the Asians, Browns and the Blacks in the world having sex. And the children they will have. The Packard family, Bill Gates, Ted Turner are not alone in having the population crisis and the people bomb on their mind.

Kill The Problem At The Root

Before the chemical process for synthesis of chloroquine phosphate (for malaria treatment) was invented, the most popular synthetic compound was quinacrine. Quinacrine fell out of favour as patients did not tolerate quinacrine well and after a course of quinacrine, acquired a yellow complexion. Choloroquine phosphate became the anti-malarial drug of choice.

What happened to quinacrine. The world forgot about it. Except a small Swiss company, Sipharm Sesseln AG. This company was making quinacrine for two Americans – Stephen D.Mumford, and Elton Kessel.

What were these two doing with quinacrine.

They want to change the world with quinacrine – by sterilising women in the Third World.

“This explosion in human numbers, which after 2050 will come entirely from immigrants and the offspring of immigrants, will dominate our lives. There will be chaos and anarchy,” said Stephen Mumford.

They had read Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. They were worried. Just imagine living with Blacks, Indians, Vietnamese, Banglas, etc!

Urgh! And urgh again! Yech … yech …

How much money did Mumford and Kessel make? Nothing at all! They were true believers – in their own race. They just wanted to use this cheap drug technology to stop reproduction of other races.

They were funded by rich anti-immigration individuals in the US – and they used a untested and unapproved method of sterilisation. When poor women came for health examination (especially pelvic), these two and their associates, injected quinacrine, which causes an internal bodily reaction which impairs subsequent reproduction. This method may also cause cancer, heavy menstrual bleeding, pain and fever. Very soon they notched up impressive numbers – more than 1,00,000 such sterilisations in Vietnam, another 1,00,000 in India, and another 1,00,000-2,00,000 in the rest of the world.

This story won awards. The writer’s name – Alix M. Freedman. When this story broke out on WSJ, there was heat. To certify the safety of this procedure, anti-immigration groups put up a an Indian doctor.

What did the manufacturer have to say about the risk of the product? Sipharm Sesseln AG President Fritz Schneiter told her (Alix M. Freedman) “But it isn’t our role to check if this is safe or not. We aren’t the conscience of the world.”

Where did this madness begin. There are many threads to this story.

One thread …

In the beginning

In 1937, this young ‘genius’ (supposedly) scored 800 all correct answers in his GMAT test (reputedly, a first in the history of GMAT) – and joined Harvard Business School. Harvard milked this story to sell its struggling business school. In the next 60 years, (as the urban legend goes) only 3 others scored 800 points – all Indians (confirms IIT, Mumbai website).

During WW2

The young ‘genius’ was Robert S. McNamara (ironically, S. stands for Strange). During WW2, he was a part of the Statistical Control Office. Statistics is what the legendary Edward Deming used to increase production and improve quality during WW2 in the USA. Robert McNamara, Col. Charles B. “Tex” Thornton and 8 others were a team that were in-charge of war transportation and logistics. They made these ‘boring’ jobs glamorous – and used their academic excellence to create an aura around themselves.

At Ford Motors

After WW2, this team joined Ford Motors. The Ford PR team promoted them as the Whiz Kids, the American press lionized them, even as Ford’s business results were ordinary. This Ford connection was to prove relevant to McNamara’s activity later, we will see. The Ford in charge of the company was Henry Ford II, a direct descendant of the racist Henry Ford, who bankrolled Hitler and funded research into Eugenics – whose most famous practitioner turned out be Joseph Mengele.

The Kennedy Presidency

In 1961, Robert McNamara became Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s presidency was marred by more scandals than any other. Joseph Kennedy, JFK’s father made his fortune from bootlegging, many Wall Street Scams – and reputed shorted the market, which resulted in the Great Depression. On the other side was the inspired leadership of Ho Chi Minh.

The story picks up speed

In 1954, the Viet Minh defeated the French Army at Dienbienphu. Eisenhower outlined the infamous Domino Theory – based on Anglo Saxon paranoia that the whole world was against them (unfortunately, not true) and an assumption that Asia was retarded and incapable of making a suitable political choice – and that the Anglo Saxons knew better. The French handed over their mess to the Americans and walked away in 1956. And thus started McNamara’s War.

Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread

Kennedy-McNamara turned this into a war. Lyndon Johnson (on advice of McNamara) increased American involvement against the Vietnamese – without permission from the US Congress, which is essential as per US constitution. Then began the lies, duplicity, covert operations – directly monitored by McNamara. No wonder, McNamara boasted that “each hour of testimony requires 3 to 4 hours of preparation.”

The Vietnamese had the support of the Russians and the Chinese. American troops increased to 500,000 in this unconstitutional (and hence, illegal) war. Cost to the USA – more than 200,000 dead or disabled. Cost to Vietnam – incalculable.

What McNamara Learnt From Vietnam

Americans lost the Vietnam War. Against a determined enemy (like the Viet Cong), the technological edge that America had was not very useful. Worse, American technological edge, was only temporary. The experience of the Vietnam War, preyed on McNamara’s mind. The Vietnam War brought home the reality that India and China could raise an army bigger than the entire population of United States.

McNamara’s unique contribution to the Vietnam War was ‘body count’

he was so impressed by the logic of statistics that he tried to calculate how many deaths it would take to bring North Vietnam to the bargaining table … (later) he wanted to know why his reckoning had been wrong, why the huge casualties that he had helped inflict had failed to break the will of the men in Hanoi …

His ruminations about this began at the Americans’ April meeting in Washington, where he, Cooper and General Vesser agreed that casualties did not seem to weigh heavily with North Vietnam …. “Was there any consideration of the human cost in Hanoi as they made these decisions?” McNamara asked. “Is the loss of life ever a factor?” He noted that while 58,000 Americans had been killed, the most authoritative estimate — in a September 1995 article by General Uoc — put the number of Vietnamese deaths at 3.6 million. “It’s equivalent to 27 million Americans!” McNamara exclaimed.

To explain this to himself, he remembered … There were some people to whom life was not the same as to us, he reasoned as he stood one evening in the hotel lobby. (Ellipsis, bracketed text mine).

He was right. Only he could have killed an equivalent of 27 million Americans – and still talk about the value of life, with a straight face. For American neo-colonial objectives.

Against America’s temporary technology superiority, the population superiority that the Indians and the Chinese had was permanent. India’s subsequent rise in technology (with engineering skills in software, pharma, automobiles, etc.) and the Chinese rise in manufacturing proved some of McNamara’s ‘fears’ true. McNamara’s legendary quantitative skills made him a convert to The Population Crisis propaganda.

The Population ‘Crisis’ Ideology

You win, we lose.

That is what Lester Thurow proposed in his book, The Zero Sum Game. The ‘rise’ of India and China is a threat to America – and the West? In Anglo Saxon terms, the ‘rise’ of India and China is a zero-sum gain.

If India and China prosper, the West will lose, goes the paranoid thinking. Contributory growth as opposed to supplanting growth is an alien concept in Anglo Saxon strategy. Hence, the theory that population is the biggest problem for India and China – was ‘created’ as a development strategy.

How the Developing World was sold this dud

Initially the Carnegie Endowment and the Ford Foundation worked with USAID, (part of the US Government) to sell this theory – specially to the Chinese and the Indians. Since, there was no ‘apparent’ economic or political interest of the Americans, this paranoid construct was given respect as a theory. This lack of ‘apparent’ self interest also helped the ‘Ugly American’ (The Ugly American, by Eugene Burdick William Julius Lederer) to cover his face.

Next, the American economic aid started coming with the ‘population control’ strings attached. It took a while for the dots to start getting connected. At the first whiff of a scandal, USAID, Ford Foundation and Carnegie Endowments handed over this project to the UN, World Bank and IMF. This gave the Population Control programme, the respect it did not deserve.

Paul Ehrlich, Robert McNamara, Club Of Rome – False Doomsdayers

Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1960 coincided with the start of Robert McNamara’s World Bank stint. Together, the “smartest man” (Lyndon Johnson’s description of Robert McNamara) and Paul Ehrlich did a hatchet job on this. Economists Herman Kahn and Max Singer (of the Hudson Institute) did come out with a alternative model which disproved this theory. Yet in the midst of the din, the furore and the determined PR push by various UN bodies, the World Bank and the IMF, poor Third World countries never examined this theory critically.

The Western world synchronised and the infamous Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth predictions were released …

“the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead, and natural gas by 1993. The end was nigh” intoned the The Club Of Rome (from Reasononline …).

This psuedo-academic report was jointly authored by heavyweights – Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III.

The venue for the release of this report was carefully chosen – Smithsonian Institute, to give it an air of solidity and authority. This report itself was released with much fanfare, publicity and PR. Yale economist Henry C. Wallich noted,

“the quantitative content of the model comes for the authors’ imagination, although they never reveal the equations that they used.”

Economist Julian Simon rubbished this theory and made the famous Simon-Ehrlich US$100 bet – against the population doomsdayers. Julian Simon won the bet. Of course, he may bet either because he believed in the continued dominance of the western mode of exploitation or the inability of the rest of the world to stop this exploitation.

The bottom line was that these economists (the Ehrlich’s, The Club Of Rome, The McNamara’s, etc.) wanted the poor of this world to feel guilty about sex, about electricity, about having cattle, drinking milk and eating food.

Western critics (like critics Hermann Kahn and Max Singer) of the population theory were saying “Why bother? Our technology and military, economic might ensure that they (the poor) never lay their hands on the goodies!”

Popuation Crisis and The Population Problem

Nothing but re-packaged Eugenics programs of Pre-WW2. Hitler made these programs notorious. Hence, family planning and population crisis and population problem became other names for the same programs that killed more than 10 million Jews, Roma Gypsies and others. The repackaging and reselling was supervised by World Bank – under Robert McNamara.

McNamara’s two wars – on Vietnam and population control (of India and China) have both been a disaster. Strange, that a ‘genius’, supported and backed by the world’s only ’superpower’ and the largest economy, could not achieve much against backward and developing nations like Vietnam, India and China.

What Is The Impact

The Chinese Communist dictatorship rammed this policy down the poor Chinese throat – and still does. Vietnam has made its citizens into guinea pigs. India was ideologically committed to this and practically did little. Call this ambivalence – except for a brief while during the 1975-1977 Emergency. During the Emergency phase, Sanjay Gandhi in India very much did, what had happened in the US and Europe earlier under the Eugenics laws. Forcible sterilisations and human rights abuses. The ethical ramifications are real and present.

The greater damage in India (and in the rest of the world) is the disrespect it has created for humanity amongst the administrative class and the advantaged. The population problem is ‘others’ – and western altruistic ethics and racist ideologies sanction solutions for the ‘greater good.’ Indian ethical system and constructs approve of purusharth पुरुशार्थ – धर्म dharm (righteousnss) arth, अर्थ (wealth), काम kaam (desire, including sexual desire) and मोक्ष moksh (deliverance, freedom, liberty at various levels, political, social, from life and death, from death by a thousand cuts) and disapproves violence against the living as they are vaasudevaiya kutumbakam (all living are God’s creation). The other damage is the to the self esteem of country.

Of course, once a population gets on this train, it is difficult to get off. In another 25-40 years, China will face the reality of slowing population growth, an aging population, increased health costs, increased capital spending to increase productivity. In short, the insurmountable problems that Western societies and Japan are wrestling with.

In India three aspects have kept this policy from being implemented. Children are seen as nandlala नंदलाला and balagopal बालगोपाल (instead of naughty children controlled by satan, shaitan) – popular expressions of respect for a new life. Combine this with the democratic backlash against the population policy in India in 1977 elections, and you have a case of lost political will. What has driven the final nail in the coffin is the healthy disrespect (some would even say contempt) for western ideas that non-English speaking Indians (which is more than 90% of India) have for western ideas.

The Economics of Population Control

The population theory does not stand up to any economic logic. Humans beings are the biggest factor in the production process. How can people become a problem? More people mean more production, bigger markets, lower costs, larger tax base, et al. False data, false assumptions, false propaganda (deliberate use of an oxymoron to make a point) have all been used to ’sell’ this theory. Lower population growth is increasing health costs, aging populations, decreasing competitiveness. The Western societies were able to progress over the last 100 years at the expense of developing world.

The fight between these western proponents and western critics of the population control theory was not about equity or about ecology. The proponents were working hard to ensure that the poor did not demand or ask for resources.

The critics (cynics) were in fact saying that the poor were too weak to challenge the powerful rich countries – and what the west must do to keep them weak.

The Green Arguments & Population Control

By the later 1990’s the Green lobby, global warming, Ozone layer, environment had become an issue. The Kyoto protocol negotiations began. As usual, the Western world (led by the Anglo Saxon Bloc) dumped this problem onto the developing world. Secure a greener earth – at the cost of the poor.

Cattle in India started getting blamed for global warming (Indian cattle fart too much!). UN and FAO got involved in this psuedo scientific study.

While 10% of the earth’s population, in the developed world (largely the western world) does not adequately price or cost the ecological damage they cause, into their production, the post facto price is borne by the rest of the world (90% of the world population). This damage is then inversely blamed on increasing population of the under-developed world!

An exquisite instance of acrobatics in inverting logic.

Amartya Sen, Gandhiji, Food, Population and Greed

In a landmark study in famines, economic policy and food availability, (by) Amartya Sen says,

“There has been a good deal of discussion recently about the prospect of food supply falling significantly behind the world population. There is, however, little empirical support for such a diagnosis of recent trends”. Further, he goes onto say, “… famines can take place without a substantial (decline in) food availability decline is of interest mainly because of the hold that food availability approach has in the usual famine analysis…” (Italics and ellipsis mine).

Gandhiji had something to say – “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed”.

The West in its greed wants to leave nothing for others – and this entire population conspiracy has been invented so that the victim delivers himself on sacrificial altar of western greed.

History of Population Control – Many Fathers

Another thread. Malthusian stories and Social Darwinism.

Population pressures leading to destruction and chaos was still-born concept – propagated by Thomas Robert Malthus from (yes, you guessed it right), an Anglo Saxon economist whose theories have remained just that – malignant theories. One of the landmark studies on this is by Paul Jalsevac in his study, “The Inherent Racism Of Population Control.”

But more insidious was the Eugenics program. This psuedo-scientific program was initiated, yes again, by another Anglo Saxon, Sir Francis Galton (related to Charles Darwin, the British co-originator of the Evolution Theory). The Eugenics programme was designed to create a ’superior’ race of people – and ‘eliminate’ defective people and births. It gained many high profile adherents – and finally responsible for many medical, psychiatric and political abuses.

Eugenics In The USA

It attracted big ticket backers. John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellogg cornflakes) was an early sponsor and formed a “partnership” with the Race Betterment Foundation. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, in 1904 – a centre for Eugenic research. In 1937, before, the start of WW2, when it became apparent that Hitler had hijacked Eugenics and where Eugenics was going, the Carnegie Foundation changed direction – and renamed the Eugenics Record Office to Genetics Record Office. After WW2, in 1952, the USA needed some ’special weapons’. The Carnegie Foundation stepped in to assist the research. What were these ’special weapons’ - new birth control methods.

Henry Ford was a supporter of Eugenics – and one of the most notorious Eugenics practitioner was Michael Teitelbaum – who worked with the Ford Foundation till the 1970’s – shaping population policy matters for world consumption. Clarence J Gamble, (of Proctor & Gamble) fame, advocated population control amongst the poor, Puerto Ricans, Negros – as they were a problem. The wives of Edward Henry Harriman, (financier and railway tycoon) and HB Dupont, were some of the others who participated in the Eugenics projects.

Today, the newly renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America receives funding from the US Government, billionaires like the Hewlett family and the Packard family, Ted Turner of CNN fame, Bill Gates of Microsoft amongst others.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough

These abusive actions were possible due to legal sanction by the US Courts. A celebrated Supreme Court judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, decided that

“…the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices …” (Italics and ellipsis mine)

of getting sterilised, lobotomised, committed to mental asylums on flimsy grounds, become guinea pigs for dubious medical research.

This judgement’s admirers were found all the way till Germany. Was Oliver Wendell Holmes very far from Nazi Germany? Not if you consider the Binding-Hoche study (Karl Binding was a lawyer and Alfred Hoche, a doctor). The Binding-Hoche study suggested that the German state had already lost its best people during WW1 – and hence the country was filled with ‘human ballast’. To remedy this situation, they suggested that these ‘inferior elements’ should be eliminated – much like what the American Chief Justice said. During the Nuremberg trials, the Nazis did cite the US practices of sterilisations, lobotomies, euthanasia as a defence.

Yes, instead of acting as parens patriae, which would be the first duty of the court, the US Supreme Court colluded with the executive to deny basic rights to the incapable, in the land of the free. This was much like slavery was approved by the US Supreme Court in the Dredd Scott vs Sandford case. Chief Justice Taney not only ruled that slavery was legal, but barred slaves from approaching the US Supreme Court.

Eugenics In Europe

The most notorious on Eugenics in Europe was Hitler who killed 60 lakh Jews and another 40 lakhs of Gypsies and assorted segments of the population. Montagu Norman, the Chief Of Bank England, who supervised the economic drain from India was another famous follower of Eugenics. Much before these practitioners of Eugenics, were others. Such racist concepts were tried by Germany – in Paraguay. Germany decided to breed a race of superior White Germans, in the colony of Nueva Germania. Heading the Nueva Germania project was Elizabeth Nietzsche – brother of Frederick Nietzsche.

In Britain, Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, first head of UNESCO, brother of Aldous Huxley, joined the population propaganda machine. Julian Huxley called himself a ’scientist’ and

“advocated a much greater use of … Eugenic Insemination, … deep-frozen sperm banks containing donations by eminent men, Nobel Prize Winners … from which a prospective mother could choose … Huxley hoped that many of the users of such a sperm bank would opt for intelligence and he calculated that if the mean IQ of the population could be raised by as little as 1.5 per cent this would lead to a 50 per cent increase in the number of people with an IQ of 160 or more …” (from the galtoninstitute website).

This kind of psuedo-science was used by UN and the various population control propagandists to further their agenda.

This Doesn’t Happen Now

A law inspired by Eugenics was in force and utilised in the state of Orgeon, till 1980. 33 states in the USA approved eugenics laws during 1900-1925. An estimated 60,000-1,00,000 people were forcibly sterilised using these laws. Switzerland repealed forced sterilisation laws against the Romani Gypsies only in 1972.

New names for old ills continue. The new exercises in this could be the SARS and the Bird Flu. A few humans or birds die (due to respiratory complications) and entire continents are devastated. Is this another form of ‘conditioning’ for future bio-terrorism or bio-warfare? These new kinds of global hysteria use ‘neutral’ bodies – like the UN and World Bank to whip up fear, rumours and over reaction.

You still don’t believe that this happens even now?

The largest donors to the population control organisations in the last 10 years are (hold onto you chair or whatever) Bill Gates (of Microsoft-Windows fame), Ted Turner (of CNN-Time Warner) and David & Lucille Packard Foundation (co-founder of Hewlett Packard). It is re-run of the same story. Population Control is funded by the rich (in the USA) as they feel threatened by the poor of this world, especially if the colour of the poor is different.

Post Script

On February 16, 2008, I read a post in Business Standard, one of India’s leading business newspaper. It carried a preview of a book by Nandan Nilekani, a business leader and director of Infosys. Nandan Nilekani says, his book traces (apart from other subjects) how India has “gone from seeing population as a burden to population as a source of human capital.” That is the good news.

Farcically, in the same breadth, Nandan also overestimates the importance of English. Is he implying that without English, India would have been backward like – China, Japan, Germany, Russia, Italy, Korea. In fact dear Nandan, show me one country that has become significant using some other country’s language – in the last 4000 years of history. Look again Nandan, Take A Secondlook. By 15th August, 2008, Nandan Nilekani, was invited to write for Economic Times. This time around, Nandan did not make too much on the importance of English language. Attaboy, Nandan!

The tide is turning. One month after this post(dated Jan 30th, 2008), China decided to take a secondlook at their population policy (on Feb 27th, 2008, link embedded). And on 4th March, Economic Times, India’s leading daily informed,“China takes second look at one-child rule, 4 Mar, 2008, 0231 hrs IST, AGENCIES.” In case the link does not work, click here China Takes Secondlook At One Child Policy.

An alarmed USA Today, wrote China ‘Considers changing one-child policy’. But the New York Times re-assured its readers that “this change the country’s one-child-per-couple family planning policy would not change for at least another decade.” The International Herald Tribune also repeated this reassuring report. The China Daily, at its website also released a similar report.

“Mon Dieu!”

cried the gruff, angry voice of Lieutenant General Henri Navarre, Commander-in-Chief of the French Union Forces in Indochina, when he learned that Dien Bien Phu was surrounded, cut-off, and facing defeat. The impossible had happened. General Giap, Commander of the Viet-Minh forces opposing the French, had moved just under 50,000 combat troops with artillery onto the heights encircling the valley…something French intelligence had thought impossible! Over 55,000 Viet-Minh working night and day ensured an unbroken chain of supply to Giap’s front line forces, as they systematically reduced the French garrison to bloody tatters.

The French had totally underestimated their enemy. Their defeat ultimately was the death knell of French involvement in Indochina.

Is it not strange, how a single moment in history, a solitary decision taken (like the decision to occupy the very remote site of Dien Bien Phu), can change everything for all time?

For example, it was only with the recent opening of the Moscow archives that we learned Stalin, in the first few days after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, summoned Beria and Molotov to a meeting where he suggested they make peace with Hitler – no matter what the cost, or humiliation. He was prepared to surrender much of the Ukraine, Belorussia and all the Baltic states, in exchange for peace.

So, they summoned the Bulgarian Ambassador, Ivan Stamenov. He must act as intermediary to broker a deal with the Nazis. Surprisingly he refused, telling the shocked trio “Even if you retreat to the Urals, you’ll still win in the end!”

So one man’s intransigence, changed history. Because of Stamenov, Stalin ordered the USSR to fight on. Had the USSR surrendered during those first weeks of war, what effect might that have had on the future of Europe or the World?

Of course, Stalin’s panic was reinforced by Nazi propaganda. German arms had been victorious everywhere. He saw himself surrounded by defeat. Therefore he over estimated the ability of Nazi Germany to inflect a final defeat on the USSR.

Similarly, French arrogance led to them occupying a remote outpost hard to supply or maintain, because they did not believe the Viet-Minh capable of doing what they eventually did. The French totally underestimated their opponents, with fatal results.

The conflict between Nazi Germany and the USSR was a clash of opposing ideologies. It took on the mantle of a “Holy War”, the Teutonic Knights attempting to eradicate the Bolshevik Menace, while the Soviets defended Mother Russia, before eventually taking the conflict to the fascist homeland, absorbing Eastern Europe in the process.

The French in Indochina with their imperialistic mind-set, came up against a heady mix of Nationalism and Communism which eventually derailed them. For Giap and the Viet-Minh the liberation of their country and the creation of a socialist republic was nothing less than a religious quest. The French from day one were out of their league – they did not understand the forces they were up against, and consequently they got a good arsekicking.

Another defining moment on the world stage was the introduction of “Glastnost” by Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR during the 1980’s. This was at least in part a reaction to criticism of the soviet cult of personality and the failure of Leninist Ideology. Increased political freedom saw the rise of nationalism, and the release of those ethnic tensions which the Soviet regime had violently repressed. So it came to pass that “Glastnost” and “Perestroika” were the final nails in the coffin of the Soviet Empire.

The Cold War ended. The threat of communism dissipated. The forces of capitalism had won a great victory…or rather (more accurately) communism had imploded, leaving capitalism unfettered to exploit almost the whole world!

Funnily enough, the recent economic problems with the banking sector were predicted by Karl Marx. What Marx didn’t foresee, was the intervention of the state to prevent the collapse of the banks. Where he saw economic collapse, he never imagined that nation after nation would step in and shore-up capitalism. Where he predicted (with Friedrich Engels) that socialism would evolve into communism where:

“class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.”

He did not understand that in accepting political power as the organisation of power of one class for oppressing another, he had only a small part of the overall equation.

And so the end of communism left a big hole in the social fabric of the world. Where did one turn when confronted by exploitation and oppression? Easy. Radical Islam stepped neatly into the ideological vacuum left by the dismemberment of the USSR. Where once the almost “religious” mantra of Karl Marx and his disciples provided hope and a channel for political ambition and aspiration, now the radical cleric uses the message of the prophet Mohammed for much the same ends – all of which are “political”! – hence the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s global vision – the death of capitalism, the eradication of Israel, and the founding of a new caliphate.

The present UK government provides subsidies for training courses in Islamic theology, but not for those in Christian or Jewish (or any other sort of) theology.

Wonder why?

Fear?

French POWs from Dien Bien Phu being marched into captivity

On May 8th 1954 the French garrison of Dien Bien Phu surrendered to the Viet Minh.  It was the end of the ill-fated Operation Castor in which the French had planned to lure the Viet Minh Regulars into open battle and use superior firepower to decimate them.  The strategy which had been used on a smaller scale the previous year at Na Son.

The French had thought they had come up with a template based on Na Son in how to engage and destroy the Viet Minh.  The plan was called the “Air-land base.”  It involved having strong forces in a defensible position deep behind enemy lines supplied by air.  At Na Son the plan worked as the French were on high ground, had superior artillery and were blessed by General Giap using human wave assaults which made the Viet Minh troops fodder for the French defenders.  Even still Na Son was a near run thing for the French and had almost no effect on Viet Minh operations elsewhere while tying down a light division equivalent and a large portion of French air power.

The French took away the wrong lesson from Na-Son and repeated it at Dien Bien Phu.  The French desired to use Dien Bien Phu as a base of operations against the Viet Minh.  Unfortunately the French chose badly. The elected to occupy a marshy valley surrounded by hills covered in dense jungle.  They elected to go light on artillery and the air head was at the far end of the range of French aircraft, especially tactical air forces which were in short supply.  Likewise French logistics needs were greater than the French Air Force and American contractors could supply.  French positions were exposed and not mutually supporting.  The terrain was so poor that French units were incapable of any meaningful offensive operations against the Viet Minh.  As such they could only dig in and wait for battle.  Even so many positions were not adequately fortified and the artillery was exposed. The French garrison was a good force.  It was comprised of Airborne units, Foriegn Legion, Colonials (Marines), North Africans and Vietnamese troops.  Many of the officers including LtCol Langlais and Major Bigeard commander of the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion were among the best leaders in the French Army. Others who served in Indo-China including David Galula and Jaques Trinquier would write books which would help Americans in Iraq.  Unfortunately the French High Command badly underestimated the capabilities and wherewithal of the Giap and his divisions.

Giap rapidly concentrated his forces and built excellent logistics support.  He placed his artillery in well concealed and fortified positions which could use direct fire on French positions. Giap also had more and heavier artillery than the French believed him to have.  Additionally he brought in a large number of anti-aircraft batteries whose positions enabled the Viet Minh to take a heavy toll among French Aircraft.  Giap also did not throw his men away in human assaults.  Instead he used his Sappers (combat engineers) to build protective trenches leading up to the very wire of French defensive positions.  In time these trenches came to resemble a spider web.

Without belaboring this post the French fought hard as did the Viet Minh.  Many French positions were overwhelmed by accurate artillery and well planned attacks.  The French hoped for U.S. air intervention, even the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Viet Minh.  The were turned down.  Relief forces were unable to get through.  The garrison died, despite the bravery of the Paratroops and Legionaries.  The French garrison was let down by their high command and their government and lost the battle due to inadequate logistics and air power.  The survivors endured a forced march of nearly 400 miles by foot to POW camps in which many died.  Many were subjected to torture and group discipline.  Few French caved to the Viet Minh interrogations but some would come away with the belief that one had to use such means to fight the revolutionaries.  French and their Algerian comrades would apply this lessons against each other within a year of their release.  French soldiers and officers were shipped from Indo-China to Algeria to wage another protracted counterinsurgency.  Militarily they had all but won that war when their government pulled out. French troops, especially the Legionaries and Paratroops felt betrayed by their nation, much like many Vietnam Vets felt about the United States government after that war.  I find today that both our government and people are caring for our returning troops in a far better manner than the past.  Even still the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan share almost a spiritual link to our American and French brothers in arms who fought at Dien Bien Phu, the Street Without Joy and places like Khe Sanh, Hue City, the Ia Drang and the Mekong.

LtCol Bigeard at Dien Bien Phu

The lessons of the French at Dien Bien Phu and in Indo-China were not learned by the United States as it entered Vietnam.  In fact the US Army made a conscious effort to ignore the advice of those that they called  “losers.”  It was an arrogance for which we paid dearly, Despite the efforts of General David Petreus and others these lessons have not been completely learned by western military organizations.  Old habits die hard, counterinsurgency done right isn’t sexy.  Despite a lot of institutional resistance from traditionally minded officers we have, thanks to General Petreus had a good amount of success in Iraq. I believe that Iraq will do okay in the long run.  Someday I hope to take up the invitation of Iraqi friends to go back. I am concerned about Afghanistan. It  has the potential to be Vietnam in the mountains.  I do hope and pray that we will figure Afghanistan out.  Will there be a situation where an isolated NATO garrison is overrun?  One would hope not, but we cannot underestimated the Afghans and their ability to adapt to NATO tactics and weapons. A year or so ago the Taliban came close to overrunning an American Coalition Outpost (COP).   Dien Bien Phu is a warning from history not to leave troops in places where their exposure leaves them vulnerable.

Last night at the ball game, Ray and Bill, the Vietnam vets who man the beer stand on the concourse behind home plate gave me a small memento.  A small wooden coming from the Virginia Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America.  On the back side a simple message: “Welcome Home.”  Something that they did not get when they came home.  My dad came home in 1974 after back to back 11 month deployments, one of which he was at An Loc, besieged for 80 days.  He never talked about it.  I go home next week.  My dad is slowly dying and doesn’t have that much longer left, his physician cannot believe that he is still alive.  I have to help my mom with funeral arrangements, some hospice stuff, billing issues with the insurance company and the nursing home.  My dad had expressed his desire to be buried at sea in the Gulf of Tonkin.  He told my brother he wanted this because it had the most beautiful sunsets he had ever seen.  I do hope that we can fulfill that wish.  As a Navy Chaplain I know I can work out the burial at sea, and pray that somehow I will be able to take him where he wants to go.

Thank you dad.  Thank you Ray and Bill and all my Vietnam era friends and mentors, from the California Guard, SSG Buff Rambo, SSG Mickey Yarro and Colonel Edgar Morrison.  Thanks also to SFC Harry Zilkan, SFC Harry Ball, 1st Sergeant Jim Koenig, Colonel Donald Johnson and Sergeant Major John Butler.  I especially thank my former parishioners at the Fort Indiantown Gap Chapel.  Charlie, Ray, General Smoker, Scotty and the rest of you.  Thanks also to my Battle of Hue City brothers, Barney, Limey, General Pace, Sergeant Major Thomas.  Thank you also to the French officers who did so much for their country and were treated so shamefully.  A number of these men have passed on but I will not forget them.  Others I have lost contact with. Please take the time to thank the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in your lives.  May no other veterans have to endure what all of you endured at the hands of your countrymen. May God bless all of you.

Peace, Steve+

April 14, 1865

President Lincoln is shot

At Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.

Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy.

Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray.

On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed, and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth jumped to the stage and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!” Although Booth had broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.

The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a cheap lodging house opposite Ford’s Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, he died–the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth, pursued by the army and secret service forces, was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Of the eight other persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed.

“President Lincoln is shot,” The History Channel website, 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6867 [accessed Apr 14, 2009]

On This Day

1543 – Bartoleme Ferrelo returned to Spain after discovering San Francisco Bay in the New World.

1860 – The first Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, MO.

1902 – James Cash (J.C.) Penney opened his first retail store in Kemmerer, WY. It was called the Golden Rule Store.

1912 – The Atlantic passenger liner Titanic, on its maiden voyage hit an iceberg and began to sink. 1,517 people lost their lives and more than 700 survived.

1918 – The U.S. First Aero Squadron engaged in America’s first aerial dogfight with enemy aircraft over Toul, France.

1946 – The civil war between Communists and nationalist resumed in China.

1953 – Viet Minh invaded Laos with 40,00 troops.

1969 – For the first time, a major league baseball game was played in Montreal, Canada.

1981 – America’s first space shuttle, Columbia, returned to Earth after a three-day test flight. The shuttle orbited the Earth 36 times during the mission.

1985 – The Russian paper “Pravda” called U.S. President Reagan’s planned visit to Bitburg to visit the Nazi cemetery an “act of blasphemy”.

1999 – Pakistan test-fired a ballistic missile that was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching its rival neighbor India.

April 14, 1775

First American abolition society founded in Philadelphia

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American society dedicated to the cause of abolition, is founded in Philadelphia on this day in 1775. The society changes its name to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in 1784.

Leading Quaker educator and abolitionist Anthony Benezet called the society together two years after he persuaded the Quakers to create the Negro School at Philadelphia. Benezet was born in France to a Huguenot (French Protestant) family that had fled to London in order to avoid persecution at the hands of French Catholics. The family eventually migrated to Philadelphia when Benezet was 17. There, he joined the Society of Friends (Quakers) and began a career as an educator. In 1750, Benezet began teaching slave children in his home after regular school hours, and in 1754, established the first girls’ school in America. With the help of fellow Quaker John Woolman, Benezet persuaded the Philadelphia Quaker Yearly Meeting to take an official stance against slavery in 1758.

Benezet’s argument for abolition found a trans-Atlantic audience with the publication of his tract Some Historical Account of Guinea, written in 1772. Benezet counted Benjamin Franklin and John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, among his sympathetic correspondents. He died in 1784; his funeral was attended by 400 black Philadelphians. His society was renamed in that year, and in 1787, Benjamin Franklin lent his prestige to the organization, serving as its president.

“First American abolition society founded in Philadelphia,” The History Channel website, 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=462 [accessed Apr 14, 2009]

La vida cambia, no os hagáis ilusiones. La última vez que escribí aquí aún había suelo de loseta en mi apartamento –o agujero- majariego, aún lo repudiaba con todas mis fuerzas –ahora lo repudio menos-, aún no tenía canas en los pelos del extremo de mi bigote y mi madre aún era razonablemente feliz. Ahora que mi madre ha renunciado a la felicidad y yo estoy a punto de renunciar a la piscina comunitaria, ahora que sobre mis espaldas hay un verano más, una isla más –Malta, amarilla y plácida- y una esperanza menos de medrar en esta santa compañía multinacional, ahora que Ikea y Venta Única son mi santuario –amén de Viarce, con su, como ellos lo llaman, ‘política de precios’-, ahora es cuando yo no pienso en el futuro –que es lo que debería hacer-, sino en Vietnam.

Es que me estoy leyendo un libro sobre la guerra de Vietnam y tengo la cabeza loca con el Vietcong y el Viet Minh, y las mentiras de Johnson a los americanos, y de cómo el concepto de la ‘huída hacia delante’ puede materializarse tanto y justo en medio del horror. Así que el otro día, en el pantano de mi pueblo, esa localidad ahora a camino entre el verano desangelado y el otoño ventoso, tomé prestada yo la canoa hinchable de Javi Malo, o Javi el de Valladolid, como pone en mi móvil, compañía veraniega perenne y de lo más agradable –cuando la Bea asoma la nariz en la Cascajera, cuando los de Valladolid atornillan la vaca en el coche, es que el verano comienza en Aguilar-, y remé paralelo a la orilla, evitando el norte que soplaba como alma que lleva el diablo. Y remando, remando, llegué al codo que hace la playa al final, y que se estira en una lengua de rocas y chopos hasta un extremo donde hace poco situaron un burdo embarcadero de hormigón. Pues allí, en la esquina, a salvo del viento helado, el agua sube hasta la mitad de un puñado de álamos, y yo navegé entre ellos y oyes, me sentía como en los manglares de los deltas survietnamintas, un Flanhagan cualquiera, a punto de ser asaltado por los Vietcongs. Que sepáis que tal momento fue una de las cumbres de mi verano.

Tengo algo yo de quijotesco, y no es que mole, es una manera fina de decir que no estoy en lo que celebro, que se me pira la pinza. Porque estando en cualquier lugar podía yo rememorar las vibrantes páginas de mi libro y empaparme de aquel conflicto, sentirme en medio de la jungla húmeda, descalzo, los pies siempre mojados, la mirada siempre alerta buscando un tono distinto de verde, odiando a los dirigentes, compadeciendo a los campesinos, flipando con el poder del pensamiento paranoide, con la fuerza de la progresión geométrica en cuanto a causas / consecuencias se refiere –un puñetazo en la mesa en el despacho oval de la Casa Blanca podía significar, al final de la cadena, en dos regimientos absurdamente masacrados, y multiplica por diez el número de muertos vietnamitas, todo para nada, todo en pos de un inútil status quo, todo, como siempre, por culpa del miedo. Es lo que pasa cuando quienes ven gigantes en vez de molinos no son pobres diablos, como Quijote o como yo, sino jefes de estado.

La pregunta lógica es: ¿por qué necesito yo leer libros de caballerías, digo de guerras del siglo XX? No lo sé. Sí que sé que hubo un momento en mi vida, cuando era un adolescente con más pedradas en la cabeza que canicas en el bolsillo del campeón del colegio a las canicas, en que pensé que sí, que estar al tanto de individuos cuyas vidas se desarrollan bajo circunstancias definitiva y objetivamente desfavorables, le ayudaba a uno a no quejarse tanto. Desde entonces, las películas de miedo ya no me daban miedo, las novelas me dejaban de interesar y las guerras, las hambrunas y los éxodos dejaron de ser ese aguijonazo abstracto –pero incómodo- en la tele y pasaron a ser algo real –todo lo real que puede ser lo que uno nunca ha padecido en sus carnes-. No veáis si he aprendido desde entonces. Y no veáis si he dejado de quejarme.

En fin, y saco la vista de mi libro y la pongo en la tele, y me entero de que los fantasmas de la guerra fría se asoman a un ridículo punto del mapa de menos de apenas cien quilómetros de ancho. Y resulta que el pensamiento paranoide unido a los daños irreparables en toda una generación que creció en los últimos años del comunismo ruso, ello pasado por el tamiz de la corrupción política y de la prevadicación, da como resultado el nerviosismo internacional. Encima, con los americanos enfrente, especialistas en ponerse nerviosos, así que te entra la misma risa floja que te entraría al ver a un tío con bufanda atlética entrado a tomarse un chismorro a una peña madridista.

A ver si termino mi libro del Vietnam. La sensación de deja vu es un poco incómoda.

Introduction: This month marks 33 years since communist North Vietnamese bagan the total domination and denial of rights of the free and democratic people of South Vietnam.  Our friend and comrade in arms Hoi Ba Tran sent this reminder of those dark days for publication by Peace and Freedom.

To My Younger Generation: Grasp the Past to Pave the Future
By Hoi Ba Tran

Part 1 – Steal The Spotlight

During the nineteen-twenties, thirties and forties, anti-French colonial rule sentiment ran fervently high in Viet Nam (See Note 1 below). Several revolutionary parties sprang up trying to oust French colonists. Most of them failed as a result of tight French  security networks and they were better armed.

Many Viet Nam patriots were caught and received the death sentence while others were transported to Con Dao, a penal island in South China Sea (2), to serve a life sentence in hard labor. On February 10, 1930, an armed revolt was launched against the French around Hanoi by the Viet Quoc Party (3) but they were outgunned by the French and failed. Mr. Nguyen Thai Hoc, Chairman of the Viet Quoc Party and 12 other members of the Viet Quoc were beheaded in Yen Bai, North Viet Nam.

Subsequent to this tragic defeat, most anti-French colonial rule parties retreated to South China waiting for the ripe time to fight again for independence. With some support from the Chinese Kuomintang party, all Vietnamese Nationalist parties united under the name Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi (4). Dang Cong San Viet Nam (5) headed by Ho Chi Minh was also a member.

Hồ Chí Minh

Fifteen years later, an unexpected event occurred that ousted the French. On March 9, 1945, three months prior to my tenth birthday, Japanese forces in Viet Nam launched a flash coup d’etat and toppled the French government. The following day, Japanese envoy granted Viet Nam her independence within Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Although it was not exactly what the Vietnamese had hoped for, at least the brutal French colonial regime was ousted.

Unfortunately, the superficial independence the Japanese granted Viet Nam lasted only five months. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the second one on Nagasaki on August 9,1945. Japan could not withstand the nuclear devastation and capitulated unconditionally on August 14, 1945. This brought World War II to an end.

The capitulation of Japan and the end of World War II was the prelude to an unfortunate chain of events that destroyed Viet Nam. A few days after Japan’s surrender, the first round of bad luck struck Viet Nam when Japanese military officials in Hanoi turned over the government to the Vietnamese local authority. Exploiting this anarchy period, Ho Chi Minh, used his militia forces and armed propaganda units already embedded in Hanoi to topple local governments and seized power.

On August 28, 1945, Ho formally declared the country to be the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) (6) an independent nation as he proclaimed himself President while concurrently being Minister of Foreign Affairs. Ho appointed Pham Van Dong Minister of Finance and Vo Nguyen Giap as Minister of Interior. To deceive the hard line nationalist patriots, Ho invited the Emperor Bao Dai to be high counselor of his new government.

Then on September 2, 1945, at Ba Dinh square, Ho recited the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence which he plagiarized from the American Declaration of Independence in front of hundreds of thousands Vietnamese who were overjoyed with the unexpected and sudden independence. I, this writer, was 10 years old and was among the crowd as a member of the Vanguard Youth Group. I held a small red flag with a yellow star in the middle not knowing at the time it was a communist flag. At the instruction of our leader, we waved the flag and sang the song “Who loves Uncle Ho Chi Minh more than us young children” as taught.

By and large, most people in North Viet Nam were probably overly excited with the independence left by the Japanese not realizing that Ho was a wily, evil person and a devoted member of the International Communist Party until too late.

Following Ho’s assumption of power, he gradually showed his fiendish mentality and inhumane behavior to further his egocentric power. To him, the end justifies the means. When the tide of anti-French colonial rule was at its peak, Ho roguishly disguised himself as a nationalist patriot and exhorted the struggling to dislodge the French. But after having successfully hijacked the independence from the Vietnamese nationalists, Ho struck a deal with France on March 6, 1946 allowing French troops to return to Viet Nam north of the 16th parallel to supplant Chiang Kai-shek troops who were in Viet Nam to disarm the Japanese.

Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 / 蔣中正  GCB

In return, France would recognize Ho’s government. Chiang Kai-shek agreed to withdraw from North Vietnam and allowed the French to replace them in exchange for French concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports. Ho’s plot was to get Chiang’s Army out of Vietnam because Chiang might be sympathetic with Ho’s potential opponents, the nationalist Vietnamese. Through this wily move, nationalist Vietnamese patriots considered Ho a traitor to the cause of revolution.

By June 1946, France proclaimed South Viet Nam to be under French control as Republic of Cochinchina. In the ensuing months, clashes between French and Ho’s forces, the Viet Minh (7), erupted more frequently and in November 1946, a French warship bombarded Hai Phong, a coastal city in North Viet Nam, causing heavy casualty to the Viet Minh. All these events precipitated the war between French forces and the Viet Minh leading to the Dien Bien Phu battle in 1954.

Being a devout communist, Ho followed Maoist policies overzealously. In a three-year period from 1953 to 1956 which Ho executed the Land Reform Campaign, his infamous and barbaric people’s tribunal killed approximately 50,000 so-called wicked landlords and about 50,000 to 100,000 were imprisoned (8) . Ho and his cadres aggressively imprisoned or even liquidated all Vietnamese patriots from non-communist parties in order to monopolize his despotic authority. Petty bourgeoisie elements were also Ho’s targeted enemy. In early 1954, Ho and the Viet Minh received substantial manpower and logistical supports from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to fight the French. Ho and the Viet Minh engaged in a set piece battle with the French at Dien Bien Phu garrison. Both, French and Viet Minh wanted to attain military superiority to use as leverage for the upcoming peace negotiation in Geneva. Unfortunately, the Viet Minh forces outgunned the French and also numerically outnumbered the French defenders at the garrison by five to one to.

French capitulated and agreed to sign an agreement in Geneva to end the war. The Agreement was signed in Geneva on July 21, 1954 between France, the PRC, the USSR, North Vietnamese communist Viet Minh, the United Kingdom, the State of Vietnam ( Emperor Bao Dai), Laos and Cambodia. This Agreement divided Vietnam into two separate countries at the 17th parallel. North Vietnam remained as the DRV, a communist country under Ho Chi Minh.

South Vietnam became a non-communist, independent country called the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) under Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem.

Part 2 – Ho Chi Minh – Patriot or Villain?

After the partitioning of Viet Nam, if Ho Chi Minh had been a true patriot, he should have contented with the independence which the country inherited bloodlessly at the departure of the Japanese. He must have known he was only a self-proclaimed President and not elected by the Vietnamese people. And he should have concentrated his conscientious efforts and committed all resources into rebuilding the war ravaged country as well as the dying economy in North Viet Nam.

He should have fulfilled his slogan he used to appeal millions of Vietnamese patriots who were willing to fight and to die for: Independence – Liberty – Happiness. Why did he not leave people in the South, the RVN, to live peacefully and to pursue their way of life? Why did Ho and the Viet Minh continue to scatter deaths and catastrophe across North and South Viet Nam?

If Ho and the Viet Minh had not been too greedy wanting to gobble up the RVN by force, both countries, the DRV and the RVN would have been peaceful and prosperous. There would have been no war. But it was unfortunate for the Vietnamese people on both sides to have such an evil man like Ho Chi Minh. It was Ho who dragged the DRV of the North and the RVN of the South into a long bloody internecine.

The proxy war between the DRV, the aggressor and, the RVN, in self-defense, ended thirty-three years ago on April 30, 1975. This war had been labeled with various names by U.S. journalists. Some called it the Viet Nam War and others called it the American War, the Civil War and also The Proxy War. I agree with the term “proxy war” because the undisputable fact is: The three superpower nations were principal patrons in this conflict. Two communist giants, the PRC and the Soviet Union (USSR) supplied manpower and military assistance to the DRV to expand communism in Southeast Asia. The U.S. financed, trained and equipped the RVN to contain communist expansion. As the intensity of the war escalated to the apex, the U.S. committed its combat troops to help the RVN. Inherently poor and underdeveloped, the DRV must totally depend on their patrons, the PRC and the USSR for military and economic support to wage war against the RVN. The RVN was no exception either as without logistical aids from the U.S., the defense of the RVN would have been very difficult.

During the war, the DRV had lots of advantages over the RVN. Their despotic regime aligned well with the PRC and the USSR, in this proxy war. All communist regimes were despotic in nature and had no checks and balances in their government. In the DRV, there was no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. There were no sensational-oriented press corps because all news media, from prints to broadcast, were closely censored and strictly controlled by the party. Political opposition in their country would be viewed as reactionary or counter-revolutionary and would bring fatal consequences.

If Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clarke were Vietnamese citizens visiting Washington to praise America while publicly denouncing Ho Chi Minh, they would have been quietly liquidated upon returning to Hanoi.

Jane Fonda in North Vietnam on
a NVA anti-aircraft gun

Of course, there were no anti-war movements to interfere with their war efforts. Their troops were thoroughly and carefully indoctrinated with hatred of America. In their people’s armed forces, the political advisor had more authority than the unit commander did in decision-making and punishing wavering elements. Therefore, superficially, their rear base appeared solid and united. The red bloc ultimate drive was to conquer the RVN and expand communism in the region but tactfully cloaked under the name of “Fighting the Americans To Save Our Country”. The caddish Ho Chi Minh must have been praised for his skill to carry fire in one hand and water in the other!

On the contrary, the RVN, being an ally of the U.S. and the free world, was toddling into a newly adopted Western democracy. After centuries under feudalism, the general public was not ready to deal with the sudden changes and, for the most part, not prepared to exercise their freedom responsibly. During the war, while the public was unprepared and government officials also were not adequately trained to act and serve their constituents in a democratic fashion. Consequently, during the transitional process, there were unavoidable flaws, difficulties and dissatisfactions from the citizenry. Aside from these internal socio-administrative problems, the politburo in Hanoi exploited the situation to intrigue political dissidents, misled students and Buddhists followers to trigger chaos and confusions. Their underground communist cadres shrouded under political and religious dissident cover was the impetus behind anti-war demonstrations in Hue and Saigon leading to the overthrow of the Diem’s regime in November 1963. Following this disastrous event, the RVN encountered a period of political turmoil which to a certain degree, adversely affected the war efforts. It appears the expression “misfortunes never come alone” suited well to an ill-fated country like the RVN. While the situation in the RVN was not so favorable, her major ally, the U.S., was also facing a series of serious domestic political chaos.

Anti-war movements erupted wildly on many America’s streets:

The Kent State University fatal shooting incidence heightened anti-war sentiment.

The Pentagon Papers led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.

President Nixon

Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clarke, and some religious ministers went to Hanoi to praise the communist and denounced U.S. war policy publicly on North Vietnam’s radio.

Public support of the proxy war plummeted dramatically and the U.S. badly needed a strategy to exit Vietnam.

Part 3 – The Beginning of the End

The seriousness of domestic unrest in the U.S. compelled President Nixon to engage in political negotiation with Hanoi. On January 25, 1969, the Paris Peace Talk opened in Paris, France for the U.S. and Hanoi to negotiate an agreement to end the war. Knowing the anti-war sentiment in America had weakened, if not destroyed the U.S.’s will to continue the fight; Hanoi haughtily pushed for a military victory and kept stalling negotiation. After two years of deadlock because of Hanoi’s intransigence, the U.S. sought to talk to Hanoi’s patron, the PRC. Through back channel diplomacy, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Assistant to President Richard Nixon for National Security Affairs met with Chou En-lai, Prime Minister of the PRC in Peking, China to propose a fast solution to the Indochina conflict.

Dr Henry Kissinger

The Memorandum of Conversation between Dr. Henry Kissinger and Prime Minister Chou En-lai clearly shows that the U.S. wanted a quick political fix instead of destroying or defeating the North Vietnamese communist. The meeting was in Peking, China on June 20, 1972. Kissinger and Chou initially talked about world events before embarking on the issues in Indochina, specifically Vietnam. Below are verbatim excerpts from this historical document (9) which determined the fate of the RVN:

- Prime Minister Chou: Yes, that might be one of the historical factors. And an additional one that there are such big competitions in the world. Now let’s go on to the Indochina question – I would like to hear from you.

- Dr. Kissinger: The Prime Minister said he had some observations he would like to make to me. May be we should reverse the places and let him talk first.

- Prime Minister Chou: These are questions on which there are disputes, and we would like to listen to you first to see your solutions of the problem.

- Dr. Kissinger: Is the Prime Minister’s suggestion that after he’s heard me I will be so convincing the disputes will have disappeared, and there will be no further need for him to make observations?

- Prime Minister Chou: I have no such expectations, but do hope the disputes will be lessened.

- Dr. Kissinger: I will make our candid assessment. I know it doesn’t agree with yours, but it is useful for you at any rate to understand how we see the situation. And it will take the situation from the start of the North Vietnamese offensive on March 10.

I believe that I have explained to the Prime Minister what our general objectives in Indochina are. It is obvious that it cannot be the policy of this Administration to maintain permanent bases in Indochina, or to continue in Indochina the policies that were originated by the Secretary of State who refused to shake hands with the Prime Minister. It isn’t… we are in a different historical phase. We believe that the future of our relationship with Peking is infinitely more important for the future of Asia that what happens in Phnom Penh, in Hanoi or in Saigon.

When President Johnson put American troops into Vietnam, you will remember that he justified it in part on the ground that what happened in Indochina was masterminded in Peking and was part of a plot to take over the world. Dean Rusk said this in a statement.

President Johnson

You were then engaged in the Cultural Revolution and not, from my reading it, emphasizing foreign adventures.

So that, the mere fact that we are sitting in this room changes the objective basis of the original intervention in Indochina. For us who inherited the war, our problem has been how to liquidate it in a way that does not affect our entire international position and − this is not your primary concern − the domestic stability in the United States. So we have genuinely attempted to end the war, and as you may or may not know, I personally started negotiations with the North Vietnamese in 1967 when I was only at the periphery of the government, at a time when it was very unpopular, because I believed there had to be a political end to the war.

So from the time we came into office we have attempted to end this war. And we have understood, as I told you before, that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is a permanent factor on the Indochinese peninsula and probably the strongest entity. And we have had no interest in destroying it or even in defeating it. After the end of the war, we will have withdrawn 12,000 miles. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam will still be 300 miles from Saigon. That is a reality which they don’t seem to understand. (Page 28 – 29)

To reassure Chou En-lai the U.S. would normalize relationship with Hanoi in about 10 years, Dr. Kissinger promised:

- Dr. Kissinger: It is on one level. But on the other, when we make an agreement in Indochina, it will be to make a new relationship. If we can make it with Peking why can we not do it with Hanoi? What has Hanoi done to us that would make it impossible to, say in ten years, establish a new relationship? (Page 31)

And below is Dr. Kissinger’s statement in the last paragraph on page 37:

Dr. Kissinger: So we should find a way to end the war, to stop it from being an international situation, and then permit a situation to develop in which the future on Indochina can be returned to the Indochinese people. And I can assure you that this is the only object we have in Indochina, and I do not believe this can be so different from yours. We want nothing for ourselves there. And while we cannot bring a communist government to power, if, as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina. (Page 37)

It was unknown if the PRC exerted any pressure on Hanoi after this Kissinger – Chou meeting. Nevertheless, Hanoi mulishly kept stalling negotiations while continuing to attack South Vietnam. Hanoi’s stubbornness infuriated President Nixon and he ordered a massive bombing campaign in North Vietnam to force Hanoi back to the negotiation table. The eleven-day deadly air raid during Xmas 1972 had accomplished what the U.S. wanted. Hanoi was on their knees and obediently returned to Paris for negotiation. From the operational and strategic point of view, the bombing must have continued to achieve a military victory when Hanoi had exhausted their air defense capability. But we, the U.S., unilaterally decided to stop the bombing, willingly declined a military victory, and was content to further negotiation with Hanoi!!!

Sir Robert Thompson, a renowned British counterinsurgency expert commented on the Xmas bombing campaign: “In my view, on December 30, 1972, after 11 days of those B-52 attacks on the Hanoi area, you had won the war, it was all over! They had fired 1242 SAM’s, they had none left, and what would have come in over land from China would be a mere trickle. They and their whole rear base at that point would be at your mercy. They would have taken any terms. And that is why of course, you actually got a peace agreement in January, which you had not been able to get in October”.

The RVN steadfastly refused to sign the Paris Peace Accord formulated by the U.S. and the DRV because it was dangerously in favor of the DRV. However, under repeated threats juxtaposed with serious promises by President Nixon to severely retaliate against Hanoi in the event of their violation, the RVN had no choice but to sign the agreement on January 27, 1973. A few months following the signing of the Paris Agreement, U.S. Congress passed an Amendment on June 19, 1973, forbidding all U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigned his presidency stemming from the Watergate scandal. On September 1974, U.S. Congress cut military aid to the RVN to the bone causing incalculable destruction to the morale of combat soldiers and the general public. During this time, the PRC and the USSR quadrupled their logistical support to Hanoi paving the way for the April 30, 1975 outcome.

In conclusion, the U.S. had to do what it must do because, as Kissinger explained to Chou in the meeting: “For us who inherited the war, our problem has been how to liquidate it in a way that does not affect our entire international position”, and because of “the domestic stability in the United States”. The fear of communist expansion or the domino theory disappeared with this Sino-U.S. rapprochement. Additionally, this would also open the potentially huge, lucrative market in mainland China for U.S. Corporations and investors. To achieve all these benefits, the U.S. arbitrarily accepted the deal with China in June 1972 at the expense of the RVN.

On the thirty-third anniversary of the close of that embittered chapter, as a former Vietnamese combatant of that war, I earnestly wish to reassure the younger generation of the Vietnamese American:

-In defense of our democracy in South Viet Nam against the communist, your elder generation had given, for the most part, their utmost best under the worst of circumstances. You can shamelessly look at any ignorant or misled bigot straight in the eyes with no inferior complex. These bigots may probably have been dully-influenced by slanted reports, books written by defeatist or liberal writers. You could help direct them to search for recently declassified national security documents and many impartial, honest accounts of the war portrayed by unbiased, honest writers.

To all my Vietnamese brothers-in arms:

-Of course we, the RVN and the ARVN, like most nations on earth, were not perfect. We had our share of inept political leaders as well as incompetent field commanders. We realize there were times our leader’s hands were tied by our major ally. We also understand we sacrificed many best years of our lives fighting despotism to protect liberty and freedom so our citizens could dissent and even undermine our effort. Yet we had fought courageously against overwhelming odds and hundreds of thousands of our friends lost their lives for the just cause. We did not win because the outcome was determined by superpower politics. Obviously it was way beyond the soldier’s responsibility. If we, the RVN, had it our way, unquestionably, the outcome of the war would have been different.

And to my American brothers in arms:

Through negotiation, our politicians settled with major world powers to end the war in Viet Nam politically. Following orders, you must withdraw from Vietnam. The last U.S. military unit left Viet Nam since March 1973. The final collapse of the RVN occurred on April 30, 1975. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the U.S. did not lose the war in Vietnam militarily. You have fulfilled the call of duty admirably. We salute you. We thank you for serving and for helping us in Viet Nam. Ironically, politics dictated the outcome. But don’t be bothered; only ignorant or misled individuals would buy the notion that America lost the war in Vietnam militarily.

(1) Correct spelling of Viet Nam must be two separate words.
(2) Also known as Poulo Condore, a penal island for political or high-risk prisoners.
(3) Viet Nam Quoc Dan Đang or Viet Quoc. Vietnamese Nationalist Party.
(4) Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi aka Vietnamese Revolutionary Allied League.
(5) Vietnamese Communist Party.
(6) Democratic Republic of Viet Nam or Viet Nam Dan Chu Cong Hoa in Vietnamese.
(7) Viet Minh abbreviated for Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi
(8) From Le livre noir du communisme, by Stéphane Courtois et. al, 1997.
(9) For complete details of Kissinger – Chou meeting, please check the link below: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB193/HAK%206-20-72.pdf