Obama Takes Leave Of His Senseless
January 11, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Is Barack Obama right — was the Vietnam War “senseless”?
Here’s what Obama said yesterday after John Kerry endorsed him (we’ve bolded the word we’re focusiing on):
“Well, first of all, I want to thank John Kerry. I want to thank John Kerry for his support in this campaign, but more importantly for his service to this nation. This is a man who knows how much people who love their country can change it. This is a man who sacrificed the comforts of youth to fight in the jungles of Vietnam, the young lieutenant who extended his hand to a brother in arms, pulling him from a river, as bullets screamed by. This is a hero who returned to a Washington where politicians continued a senseless war day after day, life after life, because they were too afraid to challenge the conventional thinking, too consumed with their own careers and ambitions. This is the patriot who saw all of this and said, “No more,” who posed a question to our leaders that challenged the conscious of a nation, who believed in his heart that change does not come from the halls of power, but from the power of a movement thousands of voices strong.”
“Senseless”? The Vietnam War can be described many ways – but is “senseless” one of them? It was a war that split our country, brought tragic deaths to thousands of Americans, was poorly executed from Washington, and was betrayed by many of our own folks back home. But is it correct to say the war itself made no sense? Does even Hillary Clinton believe the Vietnam War was senseless?
And should a potential commander-in-chief be calling any American war “senseless”?
We asked Extreme Mortman senior historian Richard Andrews whether Obama can get away with it — whether it’s within the realm of rhetorical norms.
Richard instructs:
Nope.
Reagan said Vietnam was a “noble cause”.
Ask Obama: “Was Reagan wrong?”
Vietnam was our test. We allowed ourselves to be vanquished; but we regrouped, and we came back stronger.
Afghanistan was the Soviets’ test. They crunpled, then collapsed.
Indeed. The Soviets invasion and occupation of Afghanistan — now that was senseless.
Ontario Emperor said,
January 11, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
Actually, “senseless” is too strong a word even for the Soviet war in Afghanistan. While the policy was extreme, it was in the Soviets’ strategic interest to control the countries south of it.
The closest that I can think of to a “senseless” war would be the Falklands-Malvinas war between the UK and Argentina. The islands were not of strategic interest to either country; it was merely a matter of national pride.
Ark Ashamed of Bill said,
January 14, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Obama is implictly saying that defending a client state from an invasion intended to impose a socialist revolution on it is “senseless.”
The simple truth is that the Second Indochina War was a war of Communist aggression intended to seize South Vietnam and impose a socialist revolution on it, one that would kill thousands of people. A larger goal was to impose Vietnamese hegemony on all of Indochina–Ho Chi Minh’s party was the Indochina Communist Party. As Mark Moyar points out in “Triumph Forsaken,” when the Communists were planning the war in the late 1950s it was intended to start the spread of Communism throughout Southeast Asia. After all, Ho Chi Minh had helped to found Communist parties there in the 1930s when he was a Comintern agent.
Furthermore, the Vietnam War was the centerpiece of the wars of national liberation phase of the Cold War. It would not have taken place without the financing and arms provided by Red China and the Soviet Union, and Obama is implicitly saying that the resistance to Communist expansionism known as the Cold War was “senseless.”
The core of the so-called antiwar movement were radicals (many of whom had been raised in Stalinist households) who saw the Vietnamese Communists as fellow socialists who would defeat the American “Empire.” These radicals now run the Democratic Party.
Obama’s use of the adjective “senseless” indicates that he sees nothing wrong with Communism despite the fact that, as “The Black Book of Communism” points out, it is an ideology that killed 100 million people.
Katy said,
March 7, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
“And should a potential commander-in-chief be calling any American war ’senseless’?”
Yes. Why not? I am afraid to imagine the idea that a potential commander in chief, the man who will be leading the US armed forces, would not question and pass judgement on past wars, current wars and future wars. Isn’t that what we pay the president to do? To analyze and come to the correct conclusion about US policy. How can we expect him to do that in a bubble- without looking at the past?