{"id":236091,"date":"2016-04-05T18:09:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T18:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=236091"},"modified":"2016-04-05T18:09:37","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T18:09:37","slug":"vietnam-war-50-learned-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/vietnam-war-50-learned-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam War at 50: Have We Learned Nothing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans<br \/>\nMemorial in Washington in commemoration of the &#8220;50th anniversary&#8221;<br \/>\nof that war. The date is confusing, as the war started earlier and ended far<br \/>\nlater than 1966. But the Vietnam War at 50 commemoration presents a good opportunity<br \/>\nto reflect on the war and whether we have learned anything from it.<\/p>\n<p>Some 60,000 Americans were killed fighting in that war more than 8,000 miles<br \/>\naway. More than a million Vietnamese military and civilians also lost their<br \/>\nlives. The US government did not accept that it had pursued a bad policy in<br \/>\nVietnam until the bitter end. But in the end the war was lost and we went home,<br \/>\nleaving the destruction of the war behind. For the many who survived on both<br \/>\nsides, the war would continue to haunt them.<\/p>\n<p>It was thought at the time that we had learned something from this lost war.<br \/>\nThe War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973 to prevent future Vietnams by limiting<br \/>\nthe president\u2019s ability to take the country to war without the Constitutionally-mandated<br \/>\nCongressional declaration of war. But the law failed in its purpose and was<br \/>\nactually used by the war party in Washington to make it easier to go to war<br \/>\nwithout Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Such legislative tricks are doomed to failure when the people still refuse<br \/>\nto demand that elected officials follow the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>When President George HW Bush invaded Iraq in 1991, the warhawks celebrated<br \/>\nwhat they considered the end of that post-Vietnam period where Americans were<br \/>\nhesitant about being the policeman of the world. President Bush said famously<br \/>\nat the time, \u201cBy God, we\u2019ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for<br \/>\nall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They may have beat the Vietnam Syndrome, but they learned nothing from Vietnam.<\/p>\n<p>Colonel Harry Summers returned to Vietnam in 1974 and told his Vietnamese counterpart<br \/>\nColonel Tsu, &#8220;You know, you never beat us on the battlefield.&#8221; The<br \/>\nVietnamese officer responded, &#8220;That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He is absolutely correct: tactical victories mean nothing when pursuing a strategic<br \/>\nmistake.<\/p>\n<p>Last month was another anniversary. March 20, 2003 was the beginning of the<br \/>\nsecond US war on Iraq. It was the night of \u201cshock and awe\u201d as bombs<br \/>\nrained down on Iraqis. Like Vietnam, it was a war brought on by government lies<br \/>\nand propaganda, amplified by a compliant media that repeated the lies without<br \/>\nhesitation.<\/p>\n<p>Like Vietnam, the 2003 Iraq war was a disaster. More than 5,000 Americans were<br \/>\nkilled in the war and as many as a million or more Iraqis lost their lives.<br \/>\nThere is nothing to show for the war but destruction, trillions of dollars down<br \/>\nthe drain, and the emergence of al-Qaeda and ISIS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/original.antiwar.com\/paul\/2016\/04\/04\/vietnam-war-at-50-have-we-learned-nothing\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week Defense Secretary Ashton Carter laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in commemoration of the &#8220;50th anniversary&#8221; of that war. The date is confusing, as the war started earlier and ended far later than 1966. But the Vietnam War at 50 commemoration presents a good opportunity to reflect on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-236091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}