Socialist Action /May 1999
U.S./NATO Rulers Haunted by 'Vietnam Syndrome'
By NAT WEINSTEIN
The Vietnam syndrome is alive and well. It explains why Jesse Jackson,
despite opposition by the Clinton administration, led a delegation of religious
leaders and a U.S. Congressman to gain freedom for the three captured GIs-Staff
Sgt. Christopher Stone, Specialist Steven Gonzales, and Staff Sgt. Andrew
Ramirez.
Jackson, who has been in support of the bombing war on Yugoslavia, has
positioned himself toward adapting to the changing mood of the American
people.
The Clinton administration had stated their opposition to his venture
but did not stop it. They too remember Vietnam and if necessary may seek
to extricate themselves by the best compromise they can get from Milosevic
that will allow them to correctly say it was a victory for world imperialism.
Before Jackson gained the release of the three GIs, he only asked for
a one-day cessation of bombing as a gesture of American willingness to negotiate.
But soon after reaching Germany with the freed POWs, Jackson moved a little
further left by calling on Clinton to ease up on the bombing. Clinton administration
spokespersons rejected his request, declaring their intention to step
up the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo.
Jackson's intervention is no real measure of his political stance toward
the war and the bombing, both of which he has supported along with most
other Democratic Party "liberals." He merely seeks left cover
for his pro-war position.
His stance is typical of pro-capitalist "liberals" and pro-Democratic
Party "socialists" who called for "negotiations" during
the Vietnam War and defended then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson's war
policy with the slogan "Part of the Way with LBJ!"1
These shame-faced supporters of that imperialist war opposed the slogan
"Bring the Troops Home Now!" which ultimately brought millions
of American antiwar marchers into the streets.
Jackson's intervention can only be correctly interpreted as due to his
recognition of the growing mass opposition to the bombing and to the war.
And as a canny and opportunistic capitalist politician, Jackson is positioning
himself to adapt even further to the mass mood when he believes it will
become a mass movement in the streets of America.
Further evidence that American capitalism fears the consequences that
will flow if and when body bags start coming home was revealed when The
New York Times reported on April 29 that the U.S. Congress voted
249 to 180 against sending troops into combat in Yugoslavia. (They hedged
their action by saying that Clinton can do so only when and if Congress
gives its approval.)
Congress also rejected a motion authorizing the bombing of Yugoslavia,
in a 213 to 213 vote (a tie vote defeats the motion). But Congress also
voted against another motion to withdraw U.S. troops from the Balkans.
That's bad enough, but as we will see below, these votes were primarily
a hypocritical deception and tactical maneuver designed to gain momentary
political advantage by appearing to be antiwar. Their longer term goal is
to postpone escalation of the war until either Milosevic capitulates or
until the growing antiwar mood in this country could be somehow reversed.
Another piece of contradictory evidence came the next day in another
vote by some of the same lawmakers to more than double the $6 billion requested
by President Clinton to finance the bombing and the war in general. (The
fact is, however, that the military budget can be expanded by the president
of the United States on his own authority.)
But why in the world are the most trigger-happy congressional advocates
of imperialist aggression seeking to adopt the mantle of pacifism? An editorial
in the April 29 Times lets it all hang out. The editors write:
Lawmakers were right yesterday to insist that President Clinton seek
congressional approval if he decides to order ground troops into combat.
Mr. Clinton says he has no intention of invading Kosovo or Serbia, and
NATO has made no preparations to do so, beyond the drafting of contingency
plans.
If sentiment within the alliance changes, Mr. Clinton would be well
advised to start moving troops and weapons to the Balkans to keep the option
open and to increase the pressure on Mr. Milosevic.
Congress should not limit Mr. Clinton's hand on such preparations. But
if the president chooses to send ground forces into battle, he will need
the full support of Congress and the American people. [Emphases
added.]
In other words, this New York daily-which is one of the most authoritative
voices of corporate America-knows that a significant sector of the American
people have already made clear their opposition to sending their young men
into Yugoslavia to kill and be killed.
The Times knows that the Clinton administration had better find
a way to get the approval of the American people before sending in ground
troops, however they can, because of their fear of having to face a massive
antiwar movement far sooner than occurred during the Vietnam war.
Remember the Tonkin Gulf incident
How could the growing opposition to the war on Yugoslavia be reversed
and provide the bipartisan capitalist Congress an excuse to vote to send
our sons to kill and be killed in Yugoslavia? The fact is that despite the
great sympathy felt by most people for the suffering of ethnic Albanians
at the hands of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, opposition to the
war on Yugoslavia grows with each bomb dropped.
The following short extract from an excellent history of the Vietnam
antiwar movement, "Out Now!" by Fred Halstead (Pathfinder Press,
New York), suggests one of the ways corporate America may hope to reverse
the growing antiwar sentiment in the United States:
In August [1964] two American destroyers, under orders to patrol as
close as 11 miles to the North Vietnamese shore, were allegedly fired upon
by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on patrol against Saigon [South Vietnamese]
commandos who had repeatedly raided that area of the North Vietnamese coast.
[President] Johnson used this staged incident as the pretext to launch
the first U.S. bombing raid on North Vietnam and to press through Congress
the infamous Tonkin Gulf resolution that was subsequently used as the authority
for the massive escalations of the next three years.
This staged incident did indeed give capitalist America the pretext for
war on the Vietnamese people's right to self-determination. While American
troops, then called "advisors," had been sent to fight in Vietnam
as early as 1959, it took years and thousands of dead young American soldiers
coming home in body bags before mass antiwar sentiment-expressed in antiwar
marches and demonstrations-began growing from the hundreds to the thousands
by 1965, and ultimately to the hundreds of thousands by the late 1960s and
early 1970s.
Today, in contrast, starting immediately after the first day Yugoslavia
was bombed, there were small but significant protest actions in opposition
to the U.S.-led NATO assault. In just one month, protests of as many as
several thousand or more in several cities began to break out.
This sent the message to Clinton's bipartisan capitalist government that
mass demonstrations will begin growing to massive proportions far sooner,
and perhaps far larger, than in the Vietnam War years, if body bags start
coming home.
Different economic conditions
But why is there such a difference between the Vietnam War period and
today? Why is opposition to U.S. imperialism's assault on Yugoslavia growing
so much more rapidly than during its assault on Vietnam in the 1960s?
It's primarily because the war policy of American imperialism in the
1960s was based on President Johnson & Company's economic policy of
"Guns and Butter!" But today it's based on President Clinton &
Company's policy of "Guns and Less and Less Butter!"
Thus, in the '60s, living standards were rising, as families were evolving
from having one breadwinner with a full-time job supporting a family to
having two breadwinners. Now, however, most American working-class families
require two or more breadwinners to eke out a lower and ever-declining
standard of living!
And the future looks far grimmer for working people today than then.
Downsizing is accelerating, part-time lower-paid jobs are replacing full-time,
higher-paid jobs.
Last, but not least, a marked reduction in the variety of social services-like
public education, health care and welfare for capitalism's worst victims-is
making the difference between a tolerable and intolerable standard of living
for the average working-class family.
That helps explain why just last month, amidst the first weeks of the
bombing, the San Francisco AFL-CIO Central Labor Council adopted a strong
resolution against the war, the bombing and the sending of troops into Yugoslavia.
That too is something that never happened during the Vietnam War period.
In fact, in those days the AFL-CIO top bureaucrats were among the most aggressive
supporters of the U.S. capitalist government's war on Vietnam!
But despite the top official "leaders" of American labor, the
masses of American workers, including a few of their unions, constituted
the bulk of those marching in the streets in solidarity with the right of
Vietnamese workers and peasants to self-determination.
How to stop ethnic cleansing
Unfortunately, many American workers still give grudging support to the
bombing. Why? Because they see no other way to stop Milosevic's crimes against
ethnic Albanians and other oppressed nationalities in Yugoslavia.
But that's absolutely unrealistic. Neither the U.S.-commanded NATO forces
nor any other imperialist military force has any intention to stop the horrific
suffering in the Balkans.
On the contrary, imperialist bombs and missiles have already destroyed
much of the Yugoslav industrial infrastructure and all the country's bridges
vital to the economy of the entire region. And they are adding significantly
to the misery of all the peoples there-especially ethnic Albanians in whose
name they wreak havoc throughout the region.
The real aim of imperialism, contrary to their pretensions, is to
remove any and all obstacles to the "right" of imperialist banking
and corporate profiteers to take over and freely exploit the economic infrastructure
of the entire central and eastern European region.
So what and who can really bring an end to the suffering of the peoples
of what was from 1945 until 1987-despite the misleadership and reactionary
policies of Stalinism-a relatively united and peaceful Yugoslavia?
The only force that can stop imperialism and Milosevic's criminal ethnic
cleansing is the international working class, acting in solidarity with
the workers of Yugoslavia in the Balkans and elsewhere in the region.
Moreover, the more generalized expression of Milosevic's crimes comes
under the heading of chauvinist violation of the historic principle of international
class solidarity.
No matter how distant the revival of proletarian internationalism
in the region may appear to the average well-intentioned and informed person,
it is the only way the tragedy in the Balkans and everywhere else can be
brought to an end.
But this is not as far-fetched as it may appear. The fact is that the
majority of people in Belgrade-Serbians for the most part-are opposed
to Milosevic and his policy of ethnic cleansing.
The proof of this was shown by the fact that Milosevic lost the last
Belgrade city government election, and a significant minority of the Serbian
population had participated in massive demonstrations against Milosevic's
reactionary policies in 1996-97.
And to top it off, the April 30 New York Times reported on a new
development that, as we shall see, gives further evidence that class solidarity
is alive and well in Yugoslavia despite the divide-and-conquer strategy
of world capitalism and the bureaucratic regimes that made up what was still
a unified Yugoslav Federation of Socialist Republics up to its disintegration
starting in 1989.
The Times article reports that significant opposition had existed
from the first to Milosevic's assaults on ethnic minorities at all levels
of Yugoslavia including in its army. This includes opposition to repression
in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as in Kosovo.
Opposition was so great that Milosevic had to purge the military of some
of his top generals to get the kind of creatures willing to do his dirty
work. Thus, The Times reports:
Mr. Milosevic also purged scores of senior army officers to find generals
who were willing to command troops that work with the police in savage
attacks on civilians. Midlevel army officers have long questioned the professionalism
of the [Milosevic] loyalists while quietly voicing doubts to Western military
officers about the future of the army.
"Yugoslav males did not want to get sucked into the fights in Croatia
or Bosnia," said an American military official who has long experience
in the region. "But indications are that young men are responding
to the draft now in significantly higher numbers than in the past. After
five weeks of bombing in Kosovo, they are saying to themselves, 'Gosh,
we are still standing.'"
This signifies much more than a remarkable shift by young Yugoslavs toward
willingly entering the Yugoslav army to fight against the U.S.-commanded
NATO war on their country. It proves that while Yugoslav youth were unwilling
to fight in Milosevic's war of repression against ethnic minorities, they
will fight to defend their country and more importantly, to defend what's
left of the conquests of their socialist revolution.
Moreover, it serves to prove that if the Yugoslav working class succeeds
in defeating this imperialist assault, they will not stop with that. The
momentum of victory in such a righteous struggle will tend to carry them
over into a struggle against Milosevic's reactionary Stalinist policy of
ethnic cleansing.
And no less important, the momentum of their struggle against internal
and external injustice will serve to fully restore international working-class
solidarity in Yugoslavia.
International class solidarity, after all, was the strategy by which
Tito's multi-ethnic Yugoslav Communist Party was able to organize a guerrilla
army that defeated Adolph Hitler's awesomely powerful imperialist army of
occupation during World War II.
They were compelled, at the same time, to fight a war against the reactionary
armed forces of Yugoslav capitalism. That was something that could not be
done without uniting all the nations of the old Yugoslavia in a united struggle
for their common class interests as working people.
And finally, the momentum of their currently ongoing struggle has its
own revolutionary logic. They will be impelled to overthrow the reactionary
Milosevic-led Stalinist bureaucracy and carry through a long overdue political
revolution, whose logic leads to an even broader federation of socialist
republics under the control of democratic councils elected by workers and
farmers from their places of work.
So, in the meantime, how can we here in the United States help suffering
Kosovars and other oppressed nationalities in the region and, at the same
time, contribute to the revival of a broad movement in Eastern Europe in
defense the common class interests of the workers of the world?
The only way we can contribute to such a development is by mobilizing
masses of American people, in the spirit of international working-class
solidarity, to stop the criminal counter-revolutionary war led by American
imperialism on Yugoslavia. That is the only road-there is no other-to world
peace and the liberation of the peoples of the world from capitalist barbarism!
1 In the 1964 election, when at first Johnson's supporters
portrayed him as the "peace candidate" as against Barry Goldwater
who was widely portrayed as the "war candidate." After the Tonkin
Gulf incident, the slogan of these "liberals" and "socialists"
was, "All the Way with LBJ!"
But a sector of the more left-leaning radical supporters
of Lyndon B. Johnson sought left-cover for their pro-Johnson electoral policy
by adopting the slogan, "Part of the Way With LBJ!"
Socialist Action /May 1999 |