[You might think that—after killing such a vast number of people
in a war of aggression based on continuous deceptions—some humility
and even penance would be in order. ]
[[link removed]]

BIDEN LATEST PRESIDENT TO TOUT THE VIETNAM WAR AS PROUD HISTORY  
[[link removed]]


 

Norman Solomon
September 18, 2023
LA Progressive
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ You might think that—after killing such a vast number of people
in a war of aggression based on continuous deceptions—some humility
and even penance would be in order. _

,

 

When Joe Biden flew out of Hanoi last week, he was leaving a country
where U.S. warfare caused roughly 3.8 million
[[link removed]] Vietnamese
deaths. But, like every other president since the Vietnam War, he gave
no sign of remorse. In fact, Biden led up to his visit by presiding
over a White House ceremony that glorified the war as a noble effort.

Presenting the Medal of Honor to former Army pilot Larry L. Taylor for
bravery during combat, Biden praised
[[link removed]] the
veteran with effusive accolades for risking his life in Vietnam to
rescue fellow soldiers from “the enemy.” But that heroism was 55
years ago. Why present the medal on national television
[[link removed]] just
days before traveling to Vietnam?

The timing reaffirmed the shameless pride in the U.S. war on Vietnam
that one president after another has tried to render as history. You
might think that—after killing such a vast number of people in a war
of aggression based on continuous deceptions
[[link removed]]—some
humility and even penance would be in order.

But no. As George Orwell put it, “Who controls the past controls the
future: who controls the present controls the past.” And a
government that intends to continue its might-makes-right use of
military power needs leaders who do their best to distort history with
foggy rhetoric and purposeful omissions. Lies and evasions about past
wars are prefigurative for future wars.

And so, at a press conference
[[link removed]] in
Hanoi, the closest Biden came to acknowledging the slaughter and
devastation inflicted on Vietnam by the U.S. military was this
sentence: “I’m incredibly proud of how our nations and our people
have built trust and understanding over the decades and worked to
repair the painful legacy the war left on both our nations.”

[President Joseph R. Biden Jr. presents the Medal of Honor to former
U.S. Army Capt. Larry L. Taylor (White House, Public Domain)]

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. presents the Medal of Honor to former
U.S. Army Capt. Larry L. Taylor (White House, Public Domain)

In the process, Biden was pretending an equivalency of suffering and
culpability for both countries—a popular pretense for commanders in
chief ever since the first new one after the Vietnam War ended.

Two months into his presidency in early 1977, Jimmy Carter was asked
at a news conference if he felt “any moral obligation to help
rebuild that country.” Carter replied
[[link removed]] firmly:
“Well, the destruction was mutual. You know, we went to Vietnam
without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on
other people. We went there to defend the freedom of the South
Vietnamese. And I don’t feel that we ought to apologize or to
castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability.”

And, Carter added, “I don’t feel that we owe a debt, nor that we
should be forced to pay reparations at all.”

In other words, no matter how many lies it tells or how many people it
kills, being the United States government means never having to say
you’re sorry.

When President George H.W. Bush celebrated the U.S. victory in the
1991 Gulf War, he proclaimed
[[link removed]]:
“By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”
Bush meant that the triumphant killing of Iraqi people—estimated at
100,000
[[link removed]] in
six weeks—had ushered in American euphoria about military action
that promised to wipe away hesitation to launch future wars.

From Carter to Biden, presidents have never come anywhere near
providing an honest account of the Vietnam War. None could imagine
engaging in the kind of candor that Pentagon Papers whistleblower
Daniel Ellsberg provided
[[link removed]] when
he said: “It wasn’t that we were _on_ the wrong side.
We _were _the wrong side.”

Mainstream political discourse has paid scant attention to the deaths
and injuries
[[link removed]] of
Vietnamese people. Likewise the horrendous ecological damage
[[link removed]] and effects
of poisons
[[link removed]] from
the Pentagon’s arsenal have gotten very short shrift in U.S. media
and politics.

Does such history really matter now? Absolutely. Efforts to portray
the U.S. government’s military actions as well-meaning
[[link removed]] and
virtuous are incessant. The pretenses that falsify the past are
foreshadowing excuses for future warfare.

Telling central truths
[[link removed]] about
the Vietnam War is a basic threat to the U.S. war machine. No wonder
the leaders of the warfare state would rather keep pretending.

_NORMAN SOLOMON is the national director of RootsAction.org and
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His most
recent book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of
Its Military Machine, was published in June 2023 by The New Press._

* Joe Biden
[[link removed]]
* Vietnam War
[[link removed]]
* historical fiction
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]