Whose Script Are They Shooting By?
Howe, Irving
To some people the growing escalation of the Vietnam War means a rain of napalm, mangled children, human torment, and the dread prospect of a new world war. To others it means something else....
...It was not going beyond the 17th Parallel in Vietnam, but went beyond...
...It said it was there merely to help a legitimate government defend itself, and it has ended up by supporting a mili tary clique that is not a government, is not legitimate, and is not really defending itself...
...It was not going to get involved in a major war on the Asian land mass but it did...
...terms, what happens next...
...that their troubles are just beginning...
...that it end bombings of North Vietnam and announce its readiness to negotiate with the NLF while beginning on its own an immediate de-escalation of the fighting...
...Military planners" and certain kinds of corrupted social scientists work out a "scenario" calculating move and countermove, expectation and counter-expectation— what will happen if "our side" gets a bit closer to the brink and how the "other side" is likely to respond...
...the dangers it brings to humanity increase...
...There seems to be no guiding principle to what he is doing...
...For as James Reston wrote in the New York Times on July 1, 1966, the Johnson Administration will probably never regain the confidence it has lost in its judgment and veracity...
...What prospect is there of the peace that proceeds from reconciliation...
...Touring the Midwest the President has resorted to the cheapest kind of demagogy—"the American people are determined to see this through," attacks on Nervous Nellies (Nellie ain't my name, but nervous I certainly am...
...It was merely going to respond to enemy attacks on its bases, but it went over to the offensive...
...What is being done to give South Vietnam a government more representative than the Ky junta...
...And, in truth, as long as the present policy is pursued, it is not out of the question, for the politics and psychology of escalation have their own inner logic...
...This means that, at the best, thousands of people will die, will be wounded by random bombs and burned by napalm...
...Will not a remnant of the Vietcong, even if reduced to terrorism and to sorties from remote hideouts, remain unsubdued for years, making life abnormal and justifying martial law...
...Even when allowances are made for the uncertainties and moral ambiguities of warfare, the guile of this Administration, exercised in the name of high and even noble principle, is hard to match...
...But granting that it works out . . . what can victory mean...
...What then are the consequences...
...And no one can be certain that it will not be all in vain—that the hope will not be as illusory as similar forecasts made during the earlier stages of the war...
...That we may not succeed is in no way a reason for not continuing to speak out...
...Probably a further step in the game of risk, so that now Secretary of State Rusk, the zombie war rior, hints that a military invasion of North Vietnam is not out of the question...
...The Johnson Administration said it was not seeking a military solution to the war, and it is now obviously seeking precisely that...
...At other moments Johnson and Humphrey, that pitiful echo, declare—in accents reminiscent of Manifest Destiny—that we are to bring "the Great Society" to Asia (at a time when our own country is convulsed by riots resulting from the des peration and humiliation of millions of Negroes...
...Surely there is no longer any reason, if ever there was, to trust the protestations of the Johnson Administration that it wishes to apply restrained pressure simply in order to bring about negotiations...
...Will not the Americans find...
...What would the consequences of military "success" be...
...Living as we do in the United States, we have a special responsibility to demand that the government of this country execute a sharp about-face...
...Since it seems clear Hanoi and the Vietcong will not be strongarmed into accepting U.S...
...Both sides, the United States and the Communists, share a terrible responsibility...
...there is immense power but little confidence in anything . . . (emphasis added—I...
...The war grows in magnitude and horror...
...They justify this game by saying that the enemy will have to negotiate if certain pressures are put upon it and thereby the war will be brought to an end...
...The brutal repression of the Buddhists, the obviously hollow nature of the promised elections, Ky's refusal to share power with other elements—these signs are not promising...
...It all becomes grotesque and ugly...
...With the bombing of targets on the outskirts of Hanoi and Haiphong, it has now done almost everything it said or indicated it would not do except bomb China, and the end of this melancholy chapter in American history is not yet...
...Suppose, however, the other side isn't shooting by the same script...
...Suppose it plays by another "scenario...
...The prospect is dismal: a long, bleeding war, growing casualty lists, intellectual deceit and schizophrenia...
...The President was not even faithful to his bad resolves: He said he would not negotiate, and then offered to do so, and spoiled that by refusing to negotiate with the major elements of the enemy he faced...
...Some military men," reports the New York Times, June 30, 1966, "take the position that innocent bystanders are always being harmed in war...
...The more escalation intensifies, the more ideology and rhetoric get out of hand...
...I do not see how they could be very different from those sketched out by the New Statesman in an editorial for July 1, 1966: The most optimistic estimate is that South Vietnam will be "under con trol" in another 12 to 18 months...
...It is the logic of gambling with life...
...there is certainly little faith here [Washington] in the official spoken word...
...H.) This indictment is so telling that almost nothing need be added—except this: Suppose, simply to pursue the devil`s argument, we play for a moment the game of "scenario" and follow the logic of the defenders of the Johnson Administration...
Vol. 13 • September 1966 • No. 5
