It’s been generations since the Vietnam War, or what may be called the war that most Americans want to forget. In part, that’s because the U.S. lost to Vietnam. At the time, it was almost unthinkable. How could a tiny Third World country best a global superpower? The secret was simple: the Vietnamese refused to lose.
Years ago, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was a hawk at war who advocated tonnage of bombing against the nationalists trying to unify the country. Years later, after a lifetime away from the halls of power, McNamara decried the war like fervor of those years in the documentary The Fog of War. McNamara, speaking of World War Two, said, “We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo.” He added, “General Curtis LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost”. McNamara asked, “But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”
Vietnam was an imperial war created by lies and sustained by lies. Sound familiar? Today Afghanistan is a narco-state, something that the Taliban wouldn’t tolerate. It’s as far from democracy as possible, and both Iraq and Afghanistan have governments based on stolen elections. Is this worth the lives, health or sanity of your loved ones? From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
