thedrifter
01-19-07, 10:00 AM
Religious Left: Vietnam! Vietnam!
By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 19, 2007
Perhaps even more than the secular left, the religious left has insisted that every U.S. military action, actual or proposed, over the last 30 years is a disastrous reprise of the Vietnam War. And these activivist prelates work very hard to ensure that the calamitous collapse of non-communist Indochina is reenacted in other regions, with the U.S. and its allies in full retreat. The desired result, no matter how murderous for the actual inhabitants of the abandoned country, will be a victory for "peace."
Over 5,000 years of recorded history should provide some other war situations from which to draw historic parallels. But religious activists of a certain age first cut their teeth in the streets and upon the campuses, hurling epithets at Lyndon Johnson and, later, Richard Nixon. Reliving the anti-Vietnam war protests is an easy return to the exhilierations of their youth.
As a chief example, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar not only protested against the war as a young activist. He went on to serve in the infamous 94th U.S. Congress that actually refused further aid to a drowning South Vietnam in 1975.
In his official ecclesial response to President Bush's proposed "surge" of troops in Iraq, Edgar imagined,with questionable accuracy, that President Ford had proposed a similar surge in Vietnam.
"He wanted hundreds of millions of dollars for something called the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975," Edgar recounted. "My recollection is that the administration wanted to send 20,000 more ground troops to secure Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam."
Actually, Ford's legislation asked, without specifying 20,000 or any other number, that the U.S. military be permitted to assist with the evacuation of refugees from onrushing communist North Vietnamese troops. All U.S. combat troops, of course, had withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973, and Congress had prohibited any reintroduction of U.S. forces. This, of course, meant that the U.S. could not uphold its pledge to South Vietnam in the 1972 Peace to intervene if North Vietnam violated the agreement. By 1975, North Vietnam had 350,000 troops in South Vietnam, surging towards Saigion.
Communist North Vietnam's "surge" into South Vietnam is not what Edgar recalled, of course. Instead, he remembered his own supposedly heroic role in fighting Ford's request, with Tip O'Neill whispering advice into his ear. "But, at last, the fall of Saigon made Ford's request a lost cause," Edgar noted triumphantly. "We were determined not to allow any more money to be spent on more troops for a war we were not winning."
Edgar observed, with relish, that a contemporaneous White House photo captured the architects of "the proposed troop surge" in South Vietnam: President Ford, with his then chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Dick Cheney. Aha!
"The architects of the waning days of the Vietnam War are many of the same planners who pushed our troops into the current war in Iraq," Edgar complained. "Apparently history has taught them nothing."
And apparently Edgar, from the vantage point of his time warp, is unable to detect any differences between Vietnam in 1975 and Iraq in 2007.
Edgar is not alone, of course, in his preoccupations. In a column for Jim Wallis' Sojourners, Reformed Church in America general secretary Wesley Granberg-Michaelson also waxed on about Vietnam and Iraq.
"In early 1970 Senators Hatfield and McGovern introduced legislation to cut off appropriations for U.S. combat military involvement in Vietnam by a date certain in the future," remembered Granberg-Michaelson, who was then a young aid to Senator Hatfield. "The point was to establish a specific date that would terminate the combat role of the U.S. military."
Granberg-Michaelson insisted: "I recall this history simply to point out that this would seem to be the only realistic option for Congress today, in my judgment, if it wishes to oppose the president’s policy effectively."
He admitted that this is "risky business," but necessary if the U.S. is to withdraw from a "moral quagmire."
In his riposte to President Bush, United Methodist Board of Church and Society general secretary Jim Winkler eagerly summoned up Martin Luther King's warnings about the Vietnam War.
"As we remember the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are reminded of his prophetic words decrying the Vietnam War," Winkler remembered. "Dr. King stated that given the widespread destruction caused by that war, the people of Vietnam must have seen us as 'strange liberators.' So, too, is the United States viewed today by the people of Iraq."
Winkler and other religous left officials are organizing a January 27 rally in Washington, D.C., in which "America Says NO More Troops." The website is www.americansayno.org. In another recent commentary, Winkler demanded that all U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq by the end of THIS month.
"I propose a January 31, 2007 deadline for the removal of all U.S. troops, spies, torturers, contractors, thieves, and diplomats," Winkler wrote, generously. He also demanded that the U.S. apologize to Iraq and "place $1 trillion into a reparations and reconstruction fund as a first installment to help rebuild Iraq." The fund, Winkler suggested, "should be placed in the hands of nongovernmental relief organizations such as the United Methodist Committee on Relief."
Winkler summoned up Vietnam one more time as he concluded: "Either the U.S. leaves Iraq now or one day the last helicopter will depart from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad leaving behind those Iraqis who collaborated in the occupation."
Presumably, Winkler believes the Iraqi "collaborationists" should be rounded up and punished for their supposed crimes, just as tens of thousands of anti-communist South Vietnamese were executed or incarcerated by their "liberators."
For the religous left, peace and justice around the world always demands the defeat and withdrawal of the United States, no matter the situation. Every crisis spot across the last three decades, from Latin America, to the Middle East, is, in their imaginations, only a recreation of Indochina's drama during the 1960's and 1970's.
Regretably, the history "lessons" that the religious left supposedly learned from Vietnam end with 1975. They ignore the subsequent mass murder, prison campus and totalitarian horrors that were visited upon a communized Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Just as Americans have largely rejected the spiritual guidance of the religous left's declining churches, so too they are likely not to follow the religous left's supposed history lessons.
Ellie
By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 19, 2007
Perhaps even more than the secular left, the religious left has insisted that every U.S. military action, actual or proposed, over the last 30 years is a disastrous reprise of the Vietnam War. And these activivist prelates work very hard to ensure that the calamitous collapse of non-communist Indochina is reenacted in other regions, with the U.S. and its allies in full retreat. The desired result, no matter how murderous for the actual inhabitants of the abandoned country, will be a victory for "peace."
Over 5,000 years of recorded history should provide some other war situations from which to draw historic parallels. But religious activists of a certain age first cut their teeth in the streets and upon the campuses, hurling epithets at Lyndon Johnson and, later, Richard Nixon. Reliving the anti-Vietnam war protests is an easy return to the exhilierations of their youth.
As a chief example, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar not only protested against the war as a young activist. He went on to serve in the infamous 94th U.S. Congress that actually refused further aid to a drowning South Vietnam in 1975.
In his official ecclesial response to President Bush's proposed "surge" of troops in Iraq, Edgar imagined,with questionable accuracy, that President Ford had proposed a similar surge in Vietnam.
"He wanted hundreds of millions of dollars for something called the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975," Edgar recounted. "My recollection is that the administration wanted to send 20,000 more ground troops to secure Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam."
Actually, Ford's legislation asked, without specifying 20,000 or any other number, that the U.S. military be permitted to assist with the evacuation of refugees from onrushing communist North Vietnamese troops. All U.S. combat troops, of course, had withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973, and Congress had prohibited any reintroduction of U.S. forces. This, of course, meant that the U.S. could not uphold its pledge to South Vietnam in the 1972 Peace to intervene if North Vietnam violated the agreement. By 1975, North Vietnam had 350,000 troops in South Vietnam, surging towards Saigion.
Communist North Vietnam's "surge" into South Vietnam is not what Edgar recalled, of course. Instead, he remembered his own supposedly heroic role in fighting Ford's request, with Tip O'Neill whispering advice into his ear. "But, at last, the fall of Saigon made Ford's request a lost cause," Edgar noted triumphantly. "We were determined not to allow any more money to be spent on more troops for a war we were not winning."
Edgar observed, with relish, that a contemporaneous White House photo captured the architects of "the proposed troop surge" in South Vietnam: President Ford, with his then chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Dick Cheney. Aha!
"The architects of the waning days of the Vietnam War are many of the same planners who pushed our troops into the current war in Iraq," Edgar complained. "Apparently history has taught them nothing."
And apparently Edgar, from the vantage point of his time warp, is unable to detect any differences between Vietnam in 1975 and Iraq in 2007.
Edgar is not alone, of course, in his preoccupations. In a column for Jim Wallis' Sojourners, Reformed Church in America general secretary Wesley Granberg-Michaelson also waxed on about Vietnam and Iraq.
"In early 1970 Senators Hatfield and McGovern introduced legislation to cut off appropriations for U.S. combat military involvement in Vietnam by a date certain in the future," remembered Granberg-Michaelson, who was then a young aid to Senator Hatfield. "The point was to establish a specific date that would terminate the combat role of the U.S. military."
Granberg-Michaelson insisted: "I recall this history simply to point out that this would seem to be the only realistic option for Congress today, in my judgment, if it wishes to oppose the president’s policy effectively."
He admitted that this is "risky business," but necessary if the U.S. is to withdraw from a "moral quagmire."
In his riposte to President Bush, United Methodist Board of Church and Society general secretary Jim Winkler eagerly summoned up Martin Luther King's warnings about the Vietnam War.
"As we remember the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are reminded of his prophetic words decrying the Vietnam War," Winkler remembered. "Dr. King stated that given the widespread destruction caused by that war, the people of Vietnam must have seen us as 'strange liberators.' So, too, is the United States viewed today by the people of Iraq."
Winkler and other religous left officials are organizing a January 27 rally in Washington, D.C., in which "America Says NO More Troops." The website is www.americansayno.org. In another recent commentary, Winkler demanded that all U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq by the end of THIS month.
"I propose a January 31, 2007 deadline for the removal of all U.S. troops, spies, torturers, contractors, thieves, and diplomats," Winkler wrote, generously. He also demanded that the U.S. apologize to Iraq and "place $1 trillion into a reparations and reconstruction fund as a first installment to help rebuild Iraq." The fund, Winkler suggested, "should be placed in the hands of nongovernmental relief organizations such as the United Methodist Committee on Relief."
Winkler summoned up Vietnam one more time as he concluded: "Either the U.S. leaves Iraq now or one day the last helicopter will depart from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad leaving behind those Iraqis who collaborated in the occupation."
Presumably, Winkler believes the Iraqi "collaborationists" should be rounded up and punished for their supposed crimes, just as tens of thousands of anti-communist South Vietnamese were executed or incarcerated by their "liberators."
For the religous left, peace and justice around the world always demands the defeat and withdrawal of the United States, no matter the situation. Every crisis spot across the last three decades, from Latin America, to the Middle East, is, in their imaginations, only a recreation of Indochina's drama during the 1960's and 1970's.
Regretably, the history "lessons" that the religious left supposedly learned from Vietnam end with 1975. They ignore the subsequent mass murder, prison campus and totalitarian horrors that were visited upon a communized Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Just as Americans have largely rejected the spiritual guidance of the religous left's declining churches, so too they are likely not to follow the religous left's supposed history lessons.
Ellie