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Mark Newgent
Baltimore History ExaminerMark Newgent is a writer and editor with a talent for breathing history into everyday happenings.
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Baltimore History Examiner
Peace Kills
Mark Newgent - Baltimore History Examiner
Charles Derber and Yale Magrass have an interesting oped in that other newspaper. They call on Democrats to “renounce the morality of militarism,” whatever that means, and “engage in straight talk about war and war heroes.”
They argue that Democrats must use John McCain’s status as a Vietnam War hero to talk about the “immorality” of that war and the current conflict in Iraq. They write:
“…the architects of unjust wars are not honorable or heroic but immoral moralists, those who wage evil in the name of good. Third, they must create a new language of heroism. Brave soldiers in just and unjust wars may be heroes, if we refer purely to personal courage and sacrifice in battle. But it is critical that we recognize that those who oppose dishonorable wars are also heroes. Surely, their courage should also qualify as a character virtue for the highest office in the land.
The peace hero - even more than the war hero - should be the ultimate moral force in the world we now inhabit.”
The peace hero - even more than the war hero - should be the ultimate moral force in the world we now inhabit.”
Derber and Magrass have a problem. The facts of history are inconvenient for their narrative.
The morality/immorality of the Vietnam War is heated topic for historians and the public in general. Personally, I believe it was a just cause. That view is counter to the “Oliver Stone” narrative, which dominates popular culture today. Fighting communism, an ideology responsible for the murder of over 94 million people (3 million by the North Vietnam and Cambodian governments alone), seems like a rather moral cause to me. In fact, new evidence revealed in historian Mark Moyar’s persuasively argued book Triumph Forsaken, suggests that the United States and South Vietnam could have won the war without the massive infusion of American combat forces in 1965.
These facts do not enter into Derber and Magrass’ calculus.
Their imbuing of “ultimate moral force” into the “peace hero” is also problematic. It begs the question: What kind of peace do “peace heroes” seek? History tells us the peace they sought was not the Coca Cola commercial Derber and Magrass would have you believe.
American communists and fellow travelers of the late 1930s were also peace activists. However, their activism meant toeing-the-line in support of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the Nazi-Soviet Pact, where Hitler and Stalin agreed to a non-aggression treaty and annexed portions of Poland for each other. This treaty effectively consigned Poland’s Jews to the Final Solution and a large portion of Poland’s officer corps and technical elite to Katyn Forest Massacre at the hands of the Soviets.
The moral actions of these peace activists involved calling Franklin Delano Roosevelt a warmonger for having the audacity to support Great Britain against Germany and its ally the Soviet Union. Their idea of “peace” meant carrying water for Stalin, even if it meant supporting Adolph Hitler.
What ultimate moral force did Vietnam era peace activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda display? Their efforts brought about the collapse of South Vietnam, the North’s Orwellian reeducation camps, and the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. Hayden played a crucial role in executing Hanoi’s plan to sow domestic dissent in America. Hayden traveled several times to North Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, and Paris to meet Communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leaders to collaborate with them. He even offered advice on conducting psychological warfare against the United States. Hayden and Fonda labeled the torture of American POWs “propaganda” and called returning POWs, like John McCain, “liars.” Hayden cultivated a radical anti anti-Communist caucus in Congress, where he lectured and agitated for an end to anti-Communist efforts in South Vietnam and advocated support for the Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia. When fellow peace activists like Joan Baez spoke out about the North Vietnamese genocide and re-education camps, Hayden and Fonda called her a tool of the CIA.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Peace requires not only the absence of violence but also the presence of justice.” The “peace” that the fellow travelers of the 1930s and the peace activists of the Vietnam War era desired, did not end violence nor establish justice.
Topics: Vietnam , anti-war movement , John McCain
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