Vietnam & Iraq: The Bitter Lessons of Backing Right Horse In Wrong War
Three weeks before the death of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, another assassination of a president occurred halfway around the world — the CIA-backed murder of Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.
That assassination 44 years ago today is a mere historic footnote, but it helped propel the U.S. into a decade-long quagmire that took 58,000 American lives and in some respects was a template for another failed war that shows no signs of ending. The similarities include an attempt to impose democracy on a society that is unprepared for it and divided along sectarian lines, as well as propping up a corrupt regime more focused on power mongering than national reconciliation.
Kennedy was very much a free-thinking liberal, but he always put America’s interests first.
As a young congressman, he had been a lonely voice in condemning U.S. military aid to colonialist France in its fight against the Communist Viet Minh Army in what was then called Indochina.
In April 1954, a few weeks before the French were expelled from Dien Bien Phu by the Viet Minh, Kennedy declared on the floor of the House:
“To pour men, material and money into the jungles of Indochina without at least a remote prospect of victory would be dangerously futile . . . no amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere, an enemy of the people, which had the sympathy and the covert support of the people.”
Nevertheless, Kennedy rejected the 1954 Geneva Accords, which called for reuniting the Communist North with the U.S.-backed South, and believed that South Vietnam could not only survive but prosper as a democracy, and most importantly as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia, with American moral and financial support.
Only a few weeks into his administration, Kennedy learned the hard way that meddling in another country’s affairs could backfire after approving the disastrous CIA-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion against Fidel Castro. He vowed that the U.S. would not face similar humiliation in Vietnam.
Like Kennedy, Ngo Dinh Diem was a Roman Catholic, but South Vietnam’s first president was not exactly a poster boy for democracy.
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3 Responses to “Vietnam & Iraq: The Bitter Lessons of Backing Right Horse In Wrong War”
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Thanks for an interesting read. I wasn’t aware that the U.S. had used the CIA to assassinate the South Vietnamese president. As I understand it now, a bill approved under President Ford in ’75 makes it now illegal for the CIA to directly assassinate. I suppose it could always turn someone over to a third party to do its “dirty work.”
On another note, I’d be interested in seeing a post on Syria. This country is routinely lumped in by Republicans with Iran, as if they’re two peas in a pod. However, I know from a friend who lives in Damascus that the current regime is permissive toward Christians and churches, whereas the person the U.S. government would like to see become the Syrian president would almost surely close churches. It reminds me a bit of Iraq, where Saddam was tolerant of the Christian minority, whereas Christians since his removal have been on the run. Can you shed any light on the religious situation in Syria? This certainly could have implications for how supportive of military action against Iran/Syria Christian leaders in the U.S. might be!
Keep up the good work.
Great post–very informative on the early days of Vietnam. I haven’t seen much about Kennedy’s involvement in committing troops or about his relationship with Diem. Mostly what is out there has been written about the Johnson-Nixon years.