The "Invasion" of South Viet Nam
From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 6:29 AM
I wonder if I might be able to collect some thoughts on Noam Chomsky’s claims that the U.S. invaded South Viet Nam. To some Chomsky is a anti-U.S. foreign policy lunatic fringe propagandist while others label him one of the most important intellectuals alive. I perused the VSG discussion board going back to the last decade but found no discussion regarding the “invasion.” I’m not really sure what to think about Chomsky’s claims as there is not an abundance of literature available on the issue, that is why I ask the VSG.
Specifically I’m interested in his claims that
The U.S. lied about North Vietnamese aggression to justify their “attack” on South Viet Nam. Chomsky says that until 1959, four years into the U.S. campaign of violence against the non-violent Viet Minh, the North Vietnamese adhered to the Geneva Accords.
The NLF was willing to accept South Vietnam as an independent country in hopes of one day working towards integration, while the South Vietnamese government claimed to be the government of all Viet Nam.
The U.S. bombed North Vietnam in 1965 to persuade the North to send troops to the South, which in turn would justify U.S. claims of protecting the South from North Vietnamese aggression.
The U.S. army planned to round up rural South Vietnamese villages into concentration/reeducation camps under the guise of the Strategic Hamlet Program.
The U.S. government was so afraid of the North reunifying the country successfully, so scared of the communist North providing a successful model for economic and social development to the world that they had to destroy South Viet Nam.
An interview in which Chomsky discusses the “invasion” at length can be found at http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/198210--.htm
I look forward to your comments.
Peace in Viet Nam
Ryan Nelson
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From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Ryan,
Where does one begin to address Chomsky's points? Many of them have a grain of truth -- but sometimes that grain is pretty small. It's a commonplace, for example, in Vietnamese language historical writing in Vietnam, to say that the United States invaded (xam luoc) Vietnam. One could easily construct an argument that would support such a view. After all, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam claimed to represent all of Vietnam, it did not invite the US in, ergo an invasion took place.
But some of Chomsky's assertions are pie in the sky. One can pick apart his sentences, phrase by phrase, and show how slanted they are. For example:
Chomsky says that until 1959, four years
> into the U.S. campaign of violence against the non-violent Viet Minh,
> the North Vietnamese adhered to the Geneva Accords.
This statement calls the campaign again the Viet Minh "American," reinforcing the idea that Diem was nothing but a puppet. This view is also common in the Vietnamese language writing in Vietnam, but a revisionist view within Vietnam and outside of it suggests that Diem actually had more agency. Chomsky describes the Viet Minh as "non-violent," as if the Viet Minh were Gandhian in inspiration. It is a clever move on Chomsky's part, but even Chomsky must realize how absurd such a statement is.He has conveniently omitted mention of any date, for before 1954, the Viet Minh, in in struggle against the French (and Hoa Hao, and Cao Dai, for that matter) felt forced to resort to arson, assassination, intimidatidation, and so on -- classic reactions in a situation of asymmetric warfare. And after 1954? I, for one, doubt that the Viet Minh turned into Boy Scouts after 1954, but they attempted to clamp down on the use of such tactics. As for "North Vietnamese" adhering to the Geneva
Accords -- is this your gloss, or Chomsky's own words? If the latter, it is clever meaninglessness, as no entity called "North Vietnam" ever abided by the Geneva Accords (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam did).
By framing the issues completely as a war of imperialist aggression, Chomsky conveniently omits mentioning that 1954 left Vietnam with a civil war that had not been completely resolved -- particularly in the South.
I could go on and on with problems with Chomsky's analysis. At a time in the past when there was insufficient emprical research in archives to support or rebut such analysis, Chomsky's views could seem persuasive to a larger public. This was particularly true given the lingering questions over official US positions on basic issues -- e.g. did the US have a role in killing Diem? Was the Tonkin Gulf Incident a fabrication? Was the US intervention in Vietnam necessary? Etc . . . In the end, while I am personally glad that Chomsky was a voice against the war, and provided an alternative way of conceptualizing the war, I am appalled that so many seem to take his outdated analysis so seriously.
Shawn McHale
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From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 5:19 AM
Thank you for your thoughts and clarifications, Shawn. The "invasion" part seems to be clear cut. However, as you've pointed out, the history leading up to invasion seem to be complicated but interesting.
The interview I cite in which Chomsky makes such claims about an "invasion" does not elaborate on the violenct tactics of the Viet Minh pre or post 1954 (whether or not he addressed this in other literature I'm not sure. If so, probably not to the length he discusses U.S. violence). Though I'm not an expert on the Viet Minh I'm aware they were not always as friendly as boy scouts.
I probably should have used a better adj. than non-violent to describe the Viet Minh 4 years after the Geneva Conf. Rather I should have said, according to Chomsky, they did not commit acts of violence against South Viet Nam until 4 years after 1954.
And it's Chomsky, not I, who claims the North Vietnamese adhered to the Geneva Accords. If this is false, are you aware of any specific examples (I'll settle for a literature recommendation)?
A couple of questions I have about your analysis.
Did the DRV not break with the Geneva Accords by refusing to hold election in 1956 for fear of losing to the communists? Not sure.
And when the South did hold election, was it not done in such a flawed way as to break or manipulate the Accords? Not sure.
I enjoyed your comments. Keep up the enlightenment.
Peace in Viet Nam
Ryan Nelson
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From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:15 AM
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, ryan nelson wrote:
> Thank you for your thoughts and clarifications, Shawn. The "invasion" part seems to be clear cut. However, as you've pointed out, the history leading up to invasion seem to be complicated but interesting.
>
> The interview I cite in which Chomsky makes such claims about an "invasion" does not elaborate on the violenct tactics of the Viet Minh pre or post 1954 (whether or not he addressed this in other literature I'm not sure. If so, probably not to the length he discusses U.S. violence). Though I'm not an expert on the Viet Minh I'm aware they were not always as friendly as boy scouts.
>
> I probably should have used a better adj. than non-violent to describe the Viet Minh 4 years after the Geneva Conf. Rather I should have said, according to Chomsky, they did not commit acts of violence against South Viet Nam until 4 years after 1954.
>
> And it's Chomsky, not I, who claims the North Vietnamese adhered to the Geneva Accords. If this is false, are you aware of any specific examples (I'll settle for a literature recommendation)?
>
> A couple of questions I have about your analysis.
>
> Did the DRV not break with the Geneva Accords by refusing to hold election in 1956 for fear of losing to the communists? Not sure.
>
> And when the South did hold election, was it not done in such a flawed way as to break or manipulate the Accords? Not sure.
>
If we compare the elections that were held during the 1954-75 period, I don't think you would find that the elections held under the DRV were in closer compliance with the Geneva Accords than the elections held under the RVN.
- Steve Denney
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From: Ed Martini <edmartini@mac.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:35 AM
For what it's worth, Marilyn Young's _The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1975_ also describes U.S. actions as "The American Invasion of South Vietnam, 1965-66" (chapter eight). Her discussion, for those unfamiliar with it, is set in the context of possible U.S. military options after the Gulf of Tonkin incident(s), including a possible invasion of the DRV.
It's always seemed to me that part of Chomsky's appeal is that he sought to discredit the "quagmire" theory of American involvement in Southeast Asia, which removed any sort of agency and too much responsibility from American policymakers. In doing so, however, as Shawn points out, he clearly denied any sort of agency to the South Vietnamese, especially Diem.
In a broader sense, Fred Logevall's _Choosing War_ is an interesting updating of the issue. While Fred's concern is clearly not a broad indictment of American imperialism, it does suggest that the war was clearly one of choice for Johnson and the U.S.
So despite Chomsky's shortcomings with regard to historical evidence, I believe one reason he continues to be part of the historiography of the war is that he offers an alternative explanation to the still-hegemonic quagmire myth, even as he offers similarly oversimplified counter-arguments.
Ed Martini
Western Michigan University
From: Pierre Asselin <asselin@hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 5:51 PM
Dear all:
Perhaps we should be more careful when referring to “Viet Minh aggression” in the South after 1954. Immediately after the signing of the Geneva accords, policymakers in Hanoi (i.e., leaders of the “Viet Minh”) instructed operatives in both halves of Vietnam to engage in no activities that could compromise the accords, political violence specifically. However, a number of southern operatives ignored the directive and proceeded to commit violent acts directed at the Saigon regime which, in conjunction with other circumstances, precipitated the resumption of war in Indochina and, eventually, direct American military intervention. If the instances of communist, revolutionary violence that took place in the South immediately after 1954 were not sanctioned by Hanoi, can we legitimately call that violence “Viet Minh aggression”?
Pierre
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From: Peter Hansen <phansen@ourladys.org.au>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 6:44 PM
I think that violent confrontation extended beyond Southern operatives.
Campaigns to prevent people - particularly Catholics - from joining the
post-Geneva Accords exodus to the South in 1954-5 often involved physical
coercion. Incidents such as that at the village of Ba Lang (Thai Binh) and
several other places listed in the reports of the International Control
Commission document these instances.
Peter Hansen
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From: Edward Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Reply-To: Edward.Miller@dartmouth.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 7:22 PM
Dear List:
Ed Martini makes several good points about the ways in which the agency of
various actors (both Americans and Vietnamese) have been denied by various
interpretations of the war put forward by Chomsky and others. I certainly
agree that Chomsky's early writings on the war were offered as a response to
the "quagmire" thesis put forward by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and others.
However, I would like to know: what is the basis for describing the quagmire
thesis as "still hegemonic"? It seems to me that this thesis was pretty
well demolished by the release of the Pentagon papers which, whatever else
you might say about them, showed that the US did not inadvertently sink into
intervention (as Schlesinger had claimed); on the contrary, every key US
decision had been made carefully and deliberately. It seems to me that the
quagmire thesis has never recovered from this, and that the overwhelming
majority of writings on the war since the early 70s have stressed the agency
of US leaders--indeed, they have stressed this to a fault, in my view.
On a different point: Pierre makes an important observation about how we
should be careful with the use of terms such as "Viet Minh aggression" when
describing DRV strategy during the 1950s. New evidence strongly suggests
that there were significant differences over strategy between some leaders
in Hanoi and cadres in the South during the 1950s. At the same time, I
believe Hanoi did authorize its cadres in the south to use force in
"self-defense" beginning in about late 1956 (if memory serves), and that
fighters in the south were quite aggressive--I think the word is
appropriate!--in using this to justify assassinations of RVN officials and
other violent acts during 1957-1959. From this perspective, the Party's
resumption of armed struggle appears in retrospect to have been a gradual
process which began well before 1959, and Party leaders in Hanoi were far
from uninvolved in this process.
Ed Miller
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From: Ed Martini <edmartini@mac.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 1:24 PM
Ed makes good points here. I should have been clearer about what I meant.
I agree that the quagmire theory has been discredited since the Pentagon Papers, but I do feel that it continues to dominate popular U.S. views of the war, if not among academics.
I looked today, but could not find a great quote on Schlesinger's quagmire approach from Daniel Ellsberg's "The Quagmire Myth and the Stalemate Machine," in which he uses the PPs to surgically dissect the quagmire narrative. It's something about the broad cultural appeal of the narrative--it affirms a faith in elected leaders and the decisions they make--something like that. I'll try to track it down.
My students regularly come in to my classes with the assumption that US went into Vietnam with good intentions and was simply "bogged down." (I certainly hope my course disabuses them of this notion.) When the news media and elected officials, for instance, compare Vietnam and Iraq (both now and in 1990-91), it seems to me they're very much working within the context of the quagmire model. (We won't get bogged down, "quick and decisive," etc.) In many ways, public discourse about U.S. involvement in Iraq is now fitting the quagmire theory as well, where "confused" decision making and poor planning and foresight led somewhat mistakenly and unintentionally to the current mess.
Despite its serious implications for the agency of decision makers, the power of the quagmire myth to me rests in its ability to obscure the origins of the war and the reasons why the United States was interested in Vietnam in the first place. It places greater emphasis on the "process" of decision-making than on the content or consequences of those decisions.
Hegemonic was perhaps too strong, but I do believe it's still a very powerful and politically attractive tale for many Americans.
Ed Martini
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