Guest post: This issue of Trump vs McCain is a hard one
Originally a comment by Omar on McCain and Palin.
Despite having intelligence that 80% of the Vietnamese people supported Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh army, US Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy favoured the most unheroic and antidemocratic minority side, leading to a war in which there were about 5 million Vietnamese killed overall, and probably about 15 million injured. So this issue of Trump vs McCain is a hard one.
Does one support Trump, the man McCain calls “Captain Bonespurs” for his Vietnam draft-avoidance on somewhat dubious and debateable medical grounds, or does one support McCain: the man who fought heroically for the totally rotten cause of the murderous neo-colonial puppet regime of the Saigon Mafia? You know, the war that killed about 10% of the then 38 million Vietnamese? And given the extra dimension that the said McCain got taken prisoner by the heroic fighters for Vietnamese independence, and endured all they inflicted on him as a captured enemy and fighter for Vietnamese neocolonial subjugation; while The Great Orange Pussygrabber was sitting out the war in his New York luxury penthouse and grabbing every passing pussy that took his fancy?
Philosophers and theologians could have a hard time sorting through all the issues in that, particularly if there was a diversion like some gripping drama on the TV, and they had at the same time fallen victim to an influenza plague, and their water pipes had all frozen and burst, and their prize poodles, Alsatians and Chihuahuas had all turned rabid and savage. Stuff like that.
While post-WW2 Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh guerrilla army was fighting the French colonialist bastards who had originally invaded Vietnam and overthrown its government in the 1860s, the US was aiding the French. To put that another way, the US either fought for Vietnamese colonial French subjugation, or for a US-cooked up puppet regime. (By which I mean that of Ngo Dinh Diem, whose little ways became a trifle more that the US could stand, and so good old JFK gave the green light for his assassination. Considerable irony in that, given subsequent events in Dallas, Texas.)
Like all colonialists, imperialists and invaders down through history, those French ones the US supported early on did not give a damn for Vietnamese democracy, and were dead-set against it, because they only had eyes for Vietnam’s resources, like its rubber and minerals. And McCain fought on the anti-democratic side in the murderous 10,000-day Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, and Trump perhaps unintentionally and incidentally, aided the cause cause of Vietnamese national liberation and democracy by avoiding the US draft and getting on with his more favoured activities.
Did McCain volunteer or get drafted?
And what about Eisenhower and/or Kennedy? Trump seems like a worse president than anyone, but has he actually done as much harm?
I suppose you could, although I wouldn’t, argue that North Vietnam was no worse than South Vietnam. You can certainly question the wisdom of the United States taking part in this civil war.
But to paint the North as somehow more democratic than the South? Profoundly delusional.
Who, exactly, was “liberated” in the fall of Saigon? Anyone at all?
Trump vs McCain. That’s easy. One of them is dead.
Pity they can’t switch places.
We hold soldiers responsible for how they fight, but not where or who. The Vietnam war was a disgrace, but that’s entirely on the politicians who decided to go to war. We need soldiers who will put their lives on the line, knowing that they won’t always know all of the reasons why, trusting that their faith in those in charge is not misplaced. Even when long experience shows that their faith is in fact often misplaced.
I respect those that protested the draft, but I don’t blame those that didn’t for the mess in Vietnam – or any other misguided war.
There are plenty of other good reasons to dislike McCain that don’t involve his military history.
I agree with those who find this post’s premises difficult to accept. The North was not seeking to establish some sort of utopian paradise of liberty, and John McCain was not a general, nor a policymaker during this war; he was a front-line soldier. We can condemn specific soldiers for specific actions, of course, but the blame for actual policy decisions (especially those that were then justified with thick propaganda, in order to diminish protest) falls upon those at the top, not the grunts.
“….good old JFK gave the green light for his assassination.”
This too is historically questionable.
If I recall rightly ( I read this years ago), Arthur Schlesinger reported Kennedy as being “sombre and shaken” when the news of Diem’s assassination reached him. A surprising reaction if Kennedy really had foreknowledge of the event.
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Yes, we fought the Vietnam War to help the French get, and I quote, “rubber and minerals”. This motivation has eluded every serious historian until now, but the truth is finally out.
People who are rightly upset by waterboarding, feeling it is a blight upon our country that we used such measures, not buying the argument that it caused no permanent physical damage, apparently think North Vietnam was some sort of peaceful democratic paradise, even thought they beat and severely tortured prisoners of war on a daily basis.
And it turns out JFK was super cool with assasinating Diem, so, ha ha, we shouldn’t feel sorry he got assasinated, amitrite? Yes, that’s totally right, except for the fact that as zackoz notes Kennedy had no idea Diem would be assasinated. Diem was a murderous out of control nutjob, and when people around him had signaled they’d like to depose him, we said we would not interfere with a coup. Kennedy believed Diem would be exiled, not killed.
After Vietnam was unified, over 400,000 people were sent to reeducation camps, and 800,000 “boat people” fled to other countries. You know, the usual stuff that happens when your country is united in Peace.
Every serious historian knows the US fought the war in Vietnam because it saw itself in an existential battle with Communism. Now, you can certainly argue we overreacted, that this was the wrong battle to fight, that we made a bad situation much worse, and so on. But when you say we we helping the French get rubber and minerals and JFK approved the assasination of Diem on a lark, well, you don’t sound very serious.
Note that McCain traveled to Vietnam, worked with their government, and urged people in the US to pursue a path of peace between the two nations. They’re paying tribute to him in Vietnam:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-mccain-vietnam-tributes-us-embassy-hanoi-memorial-pow-north-vietnamese/
So maybe he’s not quite the war criminal being alleged here after all?
And people try to lionize him for refusing to go home unless his fellow POWs were released, but, come on, I’m sure everyone here would also refuse early release and continue to be tortured for five and a half years if they knew French access to rubber and minerals was on the line.
Look, I’m not saying McCain was the greatest American who ever lived. I voted for Obama and against him in 2008, and I thought he was bitter during and after that election and made a lot of bad decisions. I’m a strong liberal, but , sorry, I’m not going to act like a virtue-signaling fool and claim McCain willingly slaughtered Vietnamese people for rubber and minerals.
The amount of land used for growing rice almost quadrupled in the 20 years after 1880, while Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) had 25 gigantic rubber plantations. By the 1930s Indochina was supplying 60,000 tons of rubber each year, five per cent of all global production. The French also constructed factories and built mines to tap into Vietnam’s deposits of coal, tin and zinc. Most of this material was sold abroad as exports. Most of the profits lined the pockets of French capitalists, investors and officials.
(Sorry. Disregard my post #8. Wrong button.)
Skeletor @#7:
I was referring there in the threadstarter to the First Indochina War (the French 1945-54 one) and not the later American (1955-75) one. President Kennedy was involved in providing American support and justification for the second one.
Of course, everyone knows that the French were only interested in their mission civilisatrice (or ‘civilising mission’) in Vietnam. It was their version of the white man’s burden so stoically borne on the shoulders of valiant British empire builders and colonists. And those coolies were bloody lucky, for had not the British and French taken up that heavy but noble burden, their places could have been taken by the dastardly Wussians or Japanese. (Actually, come to think of it, that happened when the Japanese took over French Indochina in the Second World War, and gave the coolies there the idea that those French were not as strong as they portrayed themselves to be.)
Have a look at this piece, compiled by serious historians, where you will read:
“French imperialists claimed it was their responsibility to colonise undeveloped regions in Africa and Asia, to introduce modern political ideas, social reforms, industrial methods and new technologies. Without European intervention, these places would remain backward, uncivilised and impoverished.
“The amount of land used for growing rice almost quadrupled in the 20 years after 1880, while Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) had 25 gigantic rubber plantations. By the 1930s Indochina was supplying 60,000 tons of rubber each year, five per cent of all global production. The French also constructed factories and built mines to tap into Vietnam’s deposits of coal, tin and zinc. Most of this material was sold abroad as exports. Most of the profits lined the pockets of French capitalists, investors and officials.”
The Michelin tyre company was in there, big time.
After the assassination of Diem, Kennedy’s political consultants and media managers quite possibly made it their business to get the message out that Kennedy did not know about it, was upset, and only approved his removal from office, not his murder. But that same JFK was very much a party to the betrayal of the 1954 Geneva Agreement that ended the first Indochina War, whereby Vietnam was to be temporarily partitioned at the 17th Parallel, and a nationwide (North and South) plebiscite was to be held to decide the whole country’s future as one nation. That was the significance of the Eisenhower intelligence indicating that if that vote was taken, Ho Chi Minh would have got 80% of it. So the democratically elected American government, and the democratically elected JFK, made damn sure that democracy was prevented in Vietnam.
BTW: You should not have too much trouble chasing up more information than you already have, but if you do, just ask your school librarian or your teacher to help you.
That link again:
https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/