War -- The Last Resort

Did you know that on C-SPAN you can hear history lectures from professors of history. Recently, I listened to a professor of history lecture about the overall "Big Picture" of our war in Vietnam. David Stoker explained very clearly the long history of war in Vietnam, which started after or during the end of WWII. He is a professor of history at the Naval War College in Monterrey, Cali.

And, the course the lecture was from is called"Strategy and War." This class examines the relationship between political goals and the use of military force. What is new to understand about history and the history of the Vietnam War is the access to information from both sides of the conflict. Or, in short, 20/20 vision.

When we were watching the news every night back then. Seeing the body counts flashed up on the screen.We really did not have all the important information needed to make informed decisions. The step by step guidance that was followed from Chairman Mao  and his writings.  The Involvement ...on a huge scale of China and USSR. The idea that we almost won...had them beat, in fact.

Our understanding of the real nature of the force we were fighting and the success or failure of our troops was minimal. We all knew about the Ho Chi Minh trail. We knew it was the lifeline for the Communist war effort in the south. The professor explains the actual capacity and the shear numbers of men and women working to rebuild bombed out sections of the trail and to move the massive quantities of materiel that came down that conduit . 

During the war years we, as citizens knew of the trail, but had no real understanding of the necessity of bombing that was needed. As a country we all need to have all the information to enable us to vote for those candidates that support our point of view...our informed point of view. When our leaders come to us with false information like the Tonkin Gulf and WMDs or they want to go to

War without the permission of the Congress our duty is to oppose such acts. We need a Congress which votes to declare war and does so with all the facts. Would we have gone into Vietnam knowing what we know now? Or would we have gone in with the knowledge that the whole Communist world was ready to face us down. Remember this was sold to the citizens as a civil war. It was started and sold to our country as advisers helping a besieged so called democratic country. Would we currently be in a ten year war if we had really known what our country was getting into? 

As voters we need to be sure that we have all the facts and all the strategic considerations before we vote to spend all the money and lose all the precious lives of our men and women that are serving. War should only come after full diplomatic efforts have been made and made again. War must be approved by a Congress that has all the real facts.

And, once war is on ...leave the military to do their business. Realizing that war means death. Death not only to soldiers. But to so many innocents ...women and children. Our choice of war must be the very last available choice. Our use of diplomacy must become much more pervasive.