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SUPPLEMENT: "Year of Vietnam", The 'Refighting of the War'

By VVAW

Indochina was liberated almost three years ago. The war was over, won by the people who had been fighting for freedom and independence for over 20 years. The U.s. ruling class, decisively beaten in that war, spent the next three years doing everything it could to ignore the war in hopes that somehow it would fade from the memory of the American people. Veterans of the war, and embarrassing reminder of what had happened there, were equally ignored.

But 1978 is different. Suddenly, it is the "Year of Vietnam"--refought, revisited, and revised. At least 10 major movies, including "Boys of Company C" and the multi-million dollar epic "Apocalypse Now," a Francis Ford Coppalo extravaganza due out in September, have been shown or will soon hit the screens. Books such as Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, Gloria Emerson's Winners and Losers, and Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, all out last year in hardcover, are being reprinted in paperback making them accessible to many more people. TV columnists are talking about plans for a fall series which would deal with Vietnam (maybe "Light at the End of the Tunnel?")

Newspapers have caught the Vietnam fever. There have been series about Vietnam revisited. Even Vietnam vets and the problems they face have been the subject of a number of articles and columns. Papers blast away at the so-called 'bloodbath" in Cambodia, the "Once Peaceful Land" (and it was peaceful for the handful of rich parasites who survived by pimping off the people). Articles have appeared to say how the Vietnamese offensive during Tet of 1968, when they seized city after city and were even inside the American embassy in Saigon, was in fact a major victory for the U.S. military which was only turned into a loss by the way it was reported in the U.S. media. Marines who were in Hue, held by the Liberation Forces for 25 days, tell a different story--see the article on this page.

As part of this blitz, no less a personage than Ex-general William Westmoreland, a loser in Vietnam and a loser again in his attempt to begin a political career, is now appearing on college campuses to explain the Vietnam war to the new generation which, he says, "doesn't remember what the war was about." Wherever he goes the message is the same; the American military was tremendous and could overcome any obstacle, but in Vietnam they were handcuffed.

After trying to ignore the war and hoping it would just fade into the dusty hallways of history, the class that runs this country has decided that they have to get out a position on the war. It's more than just the money to be made off movies on the war, or even Westmoreland's ability to rip off $1500 for each of his lectures. Ignoring the war--and ignoring the veterans of the war--didn't work; the lessons that people learned about resisting an unjust war, whether inside the military or in the streets, the lessons about what a small and underdeveloped country with a strong political leadership and direction can defeat a large, powerful and technologically advanced country--these lessons aren't about to fade. Yet, as the rulers look into their future ( and ours) and see that they are going to need us to fight another of their rotten, profit-making wars a couple years down the road, they see they have to clear up the question of Vietnam first. Too many people, vets and non-vets alike, recall Vietnam and say they won't go off to fight another one like that.

What can this flock of bosses do? They've got to deal with millions of Americans who repudiated the war, and a mountain of evidence that points to U.S. designs in pushing the war. No longer can they get away with saying that we were really "defending democracy" in Indochina. Practically no one but the most hardened and blinded fool is likely to go along with the lie any longer. So they are forced to change their propaganda. "well, maybe we made a little mistake," they say; " the war was an error and we really shouldn't have done it. But you can be sure we won't make that kind of mistake again. Now put on your flack jackets and get ready for Panama (or South Africa or the Middle East or wherever the next war might start)."

From their point of view, the Vietnam War was a mistake because they lost. But in fact it was much more than simply a "mistake." It was a necessity for a system whose economy is based on either expanding--finding markets, resources, and labor as cheap as possible--or collapsing. There were further political reasons, too. The U.S. had long been a power in Asia and could not afford to lose its foothold in Southeast Asia. Even more important, the U.S. ruling class looked around the world and saw struggles for national liberation on the upswing. With the need to exploit labor, resources and markets, they could see what an effect these struggles might have in the future--and determined that they must stop the trend by fighting in Vietnam.

They lost. But that same system, no matter what admissions the politicians might make, has the same needs today and will have them in the future. All of Carter's pious words don't change the fundamental need of the system to move toward another war, whether a war in Panama or South Africa, or finally a war with the USSR to see who grabs the rich spoils of industrial Europe. Exposing that system and its needs, and fighting against the next war is one of the primary aims of VVAW. Based on our experience of fighting for the rich, we now say FIGHT THE RICH, NOT THEIR WARS!