goodnow america's longest war
its most costly war
its first military the treaty and as well as nightmares national problem
people spell often what went wrong
how it applied to the u_s_ get involved
with vietnam a tragic mistake as liberals crying
did the u_s_ lose because of self-imposed constraints as
conservatives crying
could we have won the war quijote unleashed a military machine
and bond the north vietnamese back to the stone age what was the cost of
vietnam the human cost the political cost
the economic cost about
united states and the vietnamese
one person who have been researching these questions for over ten years is
william gibson we've just published a book the perfect war
techno war in vietnam with atlantic monthly press
though is a graduate of the university of texas where he did his undergraduate
work
and he got his p_h_d_ at yale university
and is now a professor of sociology at southern methodist university and
dollars and we're very pleased to have you with us today
alternatives built a discussion of vietnam dot
this is an incredible book
erbil
uh...
you have
read a lot about vietnam or if you have never read anything about vietnam
this is the one you should read
because uh... it shows
the picture from the top from the bottom
and it gives a explanation this to what really happened there and quite things
happen
usually come back what kind of empty feeling unwell frustration or not really
knowing that you
after reading your book yet you understand him
incredible and i were thinking and you got the emotional feeling the impact
as well as what was happening in the mind
an incredible stories like hell
the north vietnamese were able to
bring down american justice by lying on the back and firing forty-five rifles
weapons but i'm getting out of the story doesn't know what they did and i talking
about that in your opinion is distinctive about
the vietnam war what about that brought about u_s_ involvement in this bill
clinton adventure
the most distinctive features of the vietnam war
but it was the first warren modern times
to be taught from a managerial jisme perspective
during world war two u_s_ industry may domestic contribution to the war african
american military man and political leaders
fully appreciated that effort
during world war two the military partially adopted a business model
organization put their supply operation
after world war two they began to think of combat
there's also a production process
the option of core racine otters gladiator heroes who were meeting in
combat but is a poor managers
internally enlisted men
we're no longer the citizens of the nation but they were workers
managers and workers that worked on the production line to produce deaths
and the product and was in the body counts
so just in american society st supposedly
was high technology
capital-intensive business
so too it we fight wars
is high-technology capital-intensive work there
we would be able to drive the other side bankrupt
so if this production model of war or what i call techno war
that distinguishes
at a primary structural level
vietnam
from other warfare
and will bend and uh... in this way we couldn't lose because we were fighting
and ball underdeveloped uncritical
third world country
look has inspected
exactly from an american perspective
the only thing that counts in warfare
is technology in economics
welcome your economy and how you translate our economy into your military
dead week it was impossible for us to loosen theoretically impossible
who are going to develop hasn't economy
to beat the united states it just couldn't happen
therefore
whenever we ran into a problem
in four fifty four or sixty or sixty four
every time you asked me to do this
we always thought that if we cast related to the next highest level we
would win it's a closed system
and there's always vietnam chosen at the start
for the first
etna war
uh... there's no
stork will resume
for vietnam it was really vietnam as a country as a people as a culture didn't
really matter to the americans
so there was nothing about
about the country per se
to make despite their
it was certainly the time winner of this whole apparatus of warfare was
developing
vis-a-vis the time and
situation in vietnam
was deteriorating from an american perspective
techno war or
this this production model of war got its big push in the fifties
because after world war two when we had to hydrogen bomb atomic bomb newsletter
the hydrogen bomb the russians didn't
it seemed clear restaurant mastery of the world was just unsurpassed we could
not be challenged
between the russians had the bomb we were in a situation of potentially
mutual destruction where they could destroy our industrial apparatus
then this may be americans feel good but
so the question came as how can we develop our form of warfare
too
into exercise our power in the world
without threatening
nuclear war
in the idea developed by doctor henry kissinger
it with the time was a professor of political science at harvard we what's
called limited before
and the idea was because our economy was so big and powerful
we could have guns and butter butter m_t_v_'s in popcorn in drive-ins
poured hula hoops for the americans at home
event
limited war
for an indefinite period of time that they were all because we were so much
richer we we just got the other side bankrupt and there was a period where
it's certainly guerrilla movements of the national liberation
lives were allegedly said cuban revolution
in nineteen fifty nine a network
third-world revolutionary movement to outline of the western the opposite side
of the french and british empire could deteriorate worldwide sitting behind yet
not a classic case of the vietnam have been a french colony will prolong
crosses a revolt
soviet noticeably it was ready we had our theory
for limited war we had our apparatus in place
at the time vietnam's was uh...
well by the time difference had been thrown out
can you give us a brief at history
uh... vietnam a nurse
scrabble burst into chinese and the french et cetera leading up to american
intervention
certainly the word vietnam initially came seventeen newman yet
and it was a uh...
uh...
part of china that
weaponry break off it's like chinese immigrated anna quindlen pulmonary
racially-based ingrid
and tried to ukraine claim independence
chinese amperage would invade it now hold the country for several hundred
years it is amazing
grows up riders we're booked by the chinese after chinese within invading
colder for another fifteen hundred years limited means would throw them out
and hold on for fifty years
this is the struggle between vietnam and china
for vietnamese attendance went on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of years
finally a bit
kind of vietnamese had
i repeat china
they were improbable we thought
in them because of the time of the west was expanding
and france was looking for a way to get the china
for the uh... spiced ratings and so on ended up taking vietnam
so perhaps took a vietnam's economy in the eighteen nineties
vietnamese often run against the french were making earnings are not
they just kept on putting with the new world war two
the communist
uh... especially headed back which you may remember million chapin
pepto
organized better
they fought against the japanese
and then after declared their independence in forty five
and ironically american uh... intelligence operatives are supported
that effort
extensively
and putting them as i understand it look at that time the united states as a
model to developers country not to the soviet union position was that he had
paid off whatever he had tempe ideologically otr soviet union and that
he was a free agent was not getting any assistance
and that the american over the declaration of independence
it stated time period this policy
there's a far better possible that a lot
at the bottom of the market's leaflet and good at that part of the nationalist
and a democrat to some extent
so there are certainly a national osama how much a democrat i'm not i'd i
wouldn't
prize-winner lip service there was no values that walton trailer but certainly
an actual club and they got to be amazed if he did the french in fifty four after
eight years of
extensive work fare stand to grow up there
into court impressed understand
the war in vietnam was one country
if you'd be intended to be divided into three administrators owned by the french
but work there was going on all free
when the war ended in fifty four the country look like a checkerboard
celebration in march tom gjelten the soviet union or some french cities held
in the south other areas held by the
uh... by the company's communist
more than seven hundred evenings this was only checkerboard
been at the geneva peace talks in nineteen fifty four there was a land
swap
vietnamese forces move north french consolidated their forces in the south
awhile is drawing a provisional administrative boundary nada national
boundary not political boundary administrators on a boundary
the idea was the country would be divided for two years now with the
international election two fifty six
there were no such an order uh... elections
united states meredith
would support understand this idea of north vietnam as a separate country
saturday's south vietnam was wrong
there was no more from south vietnam as two separate countries
that was uh...
uh... obstet there was a checkerboard
at the end at fifty four they got they got changed
that had happened at least out to be getting the resistance struggle
women
the grill twenty eight fifty four
the vietcong himself
we're told to put down their guns and that they were going to engage in
political struggle
for two years in preparation for fifty six elections
out that became extremely dangerous
uh... dam
demand the americans printout
immediately went after and honey down most of the communist leftist democrats
nationalist meridian and his family will get numb pretty much a dictatorship
um...
annexed by midnight for the late fifties
the local
communist entangled miller and socialist in democratic apparatus
was taking casualties so badly
doubt they had to renew the armed struggle to survive
excessive bleeding and decide on congress put pressure on the north
former communist party
to like reopen
the military front
and have a joint political and military strategy as opposed to simply trying to
wait for international
uh...
intervention are killed by the united nations or something
so that that's the origin of reserves to the heart of the best response to this
day
for your response is quite simple verses up
wearing the green berets had originally been formed a parachute into eastern
europe
uh... after
to organize guerrilla movements in eastern europe
cotton reformulated
ads counterinsurgency experts and they were sent to vietnam by president
kennedy in nineteen sixty euros on massive increase in c_i_a_ operations
the whole idea colour workday remembered
and counterinsurgency war criminal we failed at the bay of pigs in nineteen
one sixty one
and so the idea was we must become experts say fighting these world wars of
national liberation
and that we must have new warrior technicians who can intervene
underdeveloped countries countries
fix things
and the green berets now were one branches fix-it men
c_i_a_ operatives were another
various logistics people we cannot economist
well were others
which memory
understand the class structure of vietnam in support of rule society
most of the people of landless peasants our own very small plots of land there
under subsistence agriculture
where a large part of the crop goes to the landlord
asmara land owning cleverest p presents a buddhist with practiced elements of
confucian isms well
a small and an in-class like many of them at every p_g_ eastman north
many have been catholic
controls the nation's wealth
so
d_m_ i'm
the government d_m_ users in the army as a mechanism to collect lips
and during the first war against the french debit card will be distributed
the land to the peasantry
so indium came to power in fifty four with the army
in a naked is agents of the landlord to collect here's a bachlorette
notice intruding in total class
polarization increased one more time
adelphia cultivate part into evolutionary perspective exactly
and then g_m_ had to use more more repression
as a result of the dissatisfaction with the regression internet the nurses at
the time that the get karke honors courses felt like they had to resort or
something
so this is why you made your statement in your book that the m had an army but
given that he was not a government
that's right knowed it was no expected administration under the military
administration deliveries to replace all forms of village council all forms of
intermediary powers that
any linkage to to below
were destroyed instead our loyalty was from the potsdam
yet the american escalation didn't really dramatically
accelerating talked again this fascination what brought about this
dramatic
acceleration and what you call type of work to vietnam
will be able to go on and all the other vietnamese generals begin a power
struggle among themselves
consequently whatever government repressive apparatus t_m_ had collapsed
desertion is increased radically
defections um... yet communist became stronger and stronger
by sixty-four american policymakers feared that there would be a provisional
will be revolutionary government open
provisional revolutionary government much in the countryside
which we have lost
i mean it's good to say
u_s_ forces lost or the french lost him
forty five
we lost again in fifty four we lost again sixty three sixty four we escalate
kenya nothing escalated and pasted eaten not in the face of victory right
massive defeating sixty-three and sixty-four broadband
yemeni put u_s_ ground troops
and sustained bombing of the north and want to try to sell versace's reject why
couldn't you have to accept the decedent has a small corner of the world
the united states has been unwilling to deal with communism as a political
social economic movement instead if you've seen that
we as americans are the natural beams of the world of capitalism is the national
economic order
and i'm in our system innocently
the essence of
feeling good nursing absence of nature
therefore something very very different from ours
is none other society within one compares differences in extremes with
its own and so forth
but instead
intimidating presence where nature their entire nature
or what i call the for another
during world war two
the soviet union
did take over right after world war two did invading take over eastern europe
the red army didn't want to hold it as a buffer zone and they didn't stop epic
dictatorships there
this became a model
all-american views of communist and social severely cut
americans did not understand it to a revolution they did not understand the
chinese revolution
in the forties that they were like millions upon millions of poor peasants
who wanted land survive in a mouse a toner
communist party offered in lance arrival where's chiang kai-shek was a warlord
who offered and nothing
unable to see in total struggles for
uh...
socialism or communism or
while you are unable to see even in cairo struggles for national
independence against queen elizabeth
the longest dividing to be an interesting
and we have three guys who the bad guys they are looking for another day trying
to move and so all forms of communism kit
movements get scene in that
so in this incident
in particular limit in the world is not just a particular moving up toward poor
country and it's really one hundred poorly written on this matter
and we had uh... a little bit smith there
is still any movement is a sign of a global movement
there are so you know if you're poor peasants with vietnam
that doesn't mean just that they have little to a few more people have a few
more honest
instead that means
the before and other
monolithic machine his encroached one or step
into each other step
the rest of the world becomes a pair of this of course the dominant very sulekha
contagious disease sort of that sort of like
each country having school his treatment own culture in his own people
intercept
the world's leading to shell
i could just poured into the arson at this time
once they get going to somehow i'm making a stigma minimal propel cognizant
of victory
it's a billion
adequate mechanistic anticrime initiative is a mechanistic framework of
the world make enemies
is for the other day are we doing it all construction
but isn't that also water two sides of this the other side of the people of
the big decision makers dave's foreign-policy establishment retirement
looking at the world on a more realistic basis
as uh... general maxwell taylor said in his book we have to
keep an iron grip on the third world country because they're poorer and they
want which is in the riches would have to come from us
so they look at any type of victories that unique as an he can such as in
vietnam
providing an example to other third world countries
that if they can do it and get away with in vietnam they can get away with it in
order to universal siddiqui vietnam's universal sign of her
national liberation victory everywhere defeated vietnam means that
all liberation movements will give up their struggle
suburb given the fact that i have uh... there is uh... that uh... that still
caught back to the united states
that have built up in the military machine bottled water given a
mechanistic anti communism was motivated the foreign policy decisions i have the
u_s_ foreign policy establishment and given the clots began sake of these
government in vietnam there is almost inevitable that u_s_ involvement would
intensify that this war was not an accident
that is what i was not just uh... policy mistake that was a consequence
basically u_s_ foreign policy u_s_ industrial military
uh... development since world war two that this was a test case this is where
they
test of whether she needs dot communism i really restriction together
i am
more than the crucial
arguments on trying to like
critique
in my book is this notion that that we just made one mistake after another that
nobody
which really smart or breaking the bank just sort of slipped up
you don't go to war that where you go to work are far in advance
in sixty four oh one
johnson was making announcements about the gulf of time canon just sort of like
i was surprised attack which
it wasn't
uh... in and early sixty five
when they were making goodness mister naked public domain which in two
thousand more trips to vietnam
they fully expected kissing two hundred thousand people bugging the sixty five
and another hundred sixty two and a thousand sixty-six another hundred
thousand are sixty seven with the est which were already there could be a
ticket happening in the end
but i had a bad it up and down towards a plan warfare plant escalation
well let's talk about the war itself
and three others techno war actually
worked out itself in the ground in the air by the use of helicopters the
helicopter warren search-and-destroy can you describe the somehow they were
tonight
well not quite a bit there is general junio
generals write books
they're kinda like academicians venita like like to publish in order to get
poorer promoted at the hierarchy we normally don't believe them but i think
that way but it is stripped of his death by their actions justify their actions
are used book is called shopping the combat engineers analysis to reinforce
military just uh... notre judgment it's published by putnam the army
and in the first chapter
yourself that we can compare a search-and-destroy operations in vietnam
to an assembly line
it was a pill angrily and what that could be objectivity unlike a world war
two world war one would you have a continuous fight going on thousands of
miles
you have a major offensive is in a counter-offensive internal lol
in vietnam
it's back re economist backyards united one full blast
all but i think that's the grand jury a problem how do you just allocate your
resources given the fact that you've already decided
to run
an actual capability
that that is bad and it is body count
search-and-destroy means that
settle somewhere between several hundred and several thousand american soldiers
are going to search
a block of countryside
for viet cong
or north vietnamese troops
and they're going to try to engage them in combat and of course and destroy
whatever troops or whatever supplies they capture
imperious strategic often sick
meaning it's a way that could put the viet cong
weaker at the moment to hunt them down
were hunters
democratic
the objective
used to cure all the enemy so fast
that we reach what's called we called the crossover ports a general william
westmoreland st
the crossover point needs
you're killing me any faster
then they can replace their cash or checks
like you to drive the other side bankrupt
un saludo a high-technology without helicopters are jet fighter bombers our
tanks
we don't put
condom up
now that's the theory
the practice of search-and-destroy often turned out
very differently
in that part
a sickly
other factory
will decide the routine operations
and this routines we're quite visible to the vietnamese
for example
we just didn't also didn't show up on emails
into an area
in began
the search
instead
you had to like reconnaissance planes had to go over it
artillery guns had to shoot smoke rounds into the jungle into the landing zone
all the other artillery guns could side and so they could like fire protective
artillery strikes around the landing zone
if you really kind of unikom commander
if you see a smoke when i'm coming up in the jungle
while you know that the americans are getting ready to move on chat
um... a helicopter assault
there aren't that many clears out of it clears in in nablus territory real
swamps ordinary
in jungle you can tell whether women's own mazak
so many times the viet cong commanders
head of a very
substantial advance notice upon women americans were going to begin operation
consulate they have a choice do we run in height
are doing a bit
the americans we might
the secular pushed way takes the landing zone
the second and third whereas bring in more artillery
if you're a viet cong commander you get out your compass in your map
you draw a circle of radius and on the map
and that will tell you because you know the dominican artillery hunting
five-millimeter howitzer has our two thousand your radius
so you know that the americans will not much broader outside the range of their
howitzers
so you can tell
where the americans are going to watch
do you run and hide dignified
this sort of thing kind of principle goes on the it's in essence
they knew where we work but we did not know where
they work
and they have the uh... they have been issued a very heavy initiative
at that rate if you have to rain
so if you have the military's own statistics
roughly three quarters of the battles in vietnam were initiated by the economy in
the air
meaning they endorsed u_s_ forces
and can make a decision also
most battles immediately in the economy in the a wanted them you need
they could like initiate contact him break contact
and methods are two crucial definitions of combat initiative
and your other statistic that only a m
to percent of the search-and-destroy missions
did we actually
may contact uh... or original contact with the vietnamese
so was their choice the whole time and as i understand the soldiers themselves
on the ground they didn't like this because they're the ones who would have
to take the casualties first
to lure the vietnamese into battle
so that then they uh... americans with no word on the plane who worked on the
artillery
he sent out a patrolling in order to get an ambushed
in order to market target with a smoke rocket from the helicopter or such so
then the judge can come in and napalm in the area in other words
you have to get ambushed
before you can find the enemy
you know when i began logan research i had a hint
that i was going to find a very cavalier attitude towards work an idea of
vietnamese later died
i was surprised to understand the command attitude towards their own
saulters
but this think about it what kind of production model organic techno war
either yes or no easiest one manager sir
we have a draft we can replace all the calvo labor
that we loose can be replaced
and indeed it's like migrant labor force chromosome alexei whereupon you bring an
end per year when you have heard a death in chicago they were
qy dot well not much but a lot of our other poor working-class
twice
the ideologues
so what
if they walk into an ambush we take some casualties that way but they will call
in our airstrikes in colorado artillery fire will use our technology and to do
to get the body count
sorrow in essence
the grant ritual bait
they will be sent out
on operations to being ambushed
and that not agood
wait to survive
and welfare
unites a movement
it was suicide
i was one of the worst patrols you could ever go ahead
the purpose of it was four years walk up on charlie and for him to hit you
and then for a hardware to wipe them out
we were used as scapegoats to find out where they were
there was no we were
haley couldn't find charlie any other way
so the locals around into a whole bunch up mentally they could plastering than
it had a big body count mahendra general gets another god damn metal in a big
promotion
uh...
let's also note again
the highest officer routinely on the ground
during vietnam was a captain the captain's
company commander
company had at noticed about a hundred and forty people in it that would be at
full strength
most combat units never operate upholstery
everyone above captains level
battalion commanders demand of kcl commands four companies
all battalion level officers beginning to gage commander several battalions
divisions has several regiments abrogated
all the rest of those toppers
course for those commanders in helicopters
trying at minimum of fifteen hundred feet
because fifteen hundred feet is the maximum range of the fifty caliber
machine gun when used as an antiaircraft weapons which until the latter part of
the war
with the largest any aircraft weapon that contact
so the managers were relatively state
in this process which is the workers
who are suffering the occupational safety
uh... after-dinner hazards on on the ground logistics taps
in terms of the numbers in the body towns
did they actually uh... immunologic succeed or where the costs greater than
the benefit even in terms of the logic
travel
things happened
for one
all the american commanders in helicopters communicated in uncommitted
english
to their subordinate officers of ground troops
the common in the a
were able to buy
american radios in the black market capture others they routinely
listening to all the orders
there are many stories
keyboard appear calm hearing american orders from him
taking actions to circumvent
the share arrogance of
nowhere in my helicopters we have all the stuff we don't have to attempt
unit to pay attention to her in the and end up costing american life span so
that part
didn't work
army took
within a year so by late sixty six or so
economy in the idea of how long it was going to take an american air strike to
get there
sometimes they can make a terrible miscalculation get caught up in open
but in the state
in the commander
it could
make a resort judgment how long he can stay in combat before he had to run like
hell
because the uh... air force of again look at the hearings are going to have
to come and go after him
so a lot of times
embassies would be quite brief community would break off contact
well we've mentioned body count a couple of times let's get into that kind of
whole framework of corruption and lies
and cover-ups that are curtail it's simple portland
without so far
successor worst trillion anybody can
escrito try driving oversight bankrupt
and his presume that
uh... we humans does our was just on the gentleman that night
your tenants are captain time and your captain kirk company commander sailor
you're under pressure
under pressure to produce a body captains of carmel semicolon battalion
commander if i don't leave my quota
my career's over with
obvi relieved of command if you really the combat command
then you're going to take it
but the hierarchy
is is gone
saga squeeze you
and back in some units
it kind of where the informal rule was if you don't meet your body count quota
and we're going to like they're not going up to steal we'll just need your
help bring small ammount somewhat kuchma water but don't expect you know you've
got like produced goods
and unify came back without a body count or at least prisoner
and and get my hands to
so i kept the patrol out
like talk to uh...
leading to many soldiers who were wounded they're the ones i saw in japan
and they told me that some units were given a quota for the week
and if they didn't get it
but they were just sent right back out again
uh... you're under pressure we severe severe pressure
would you do
well you can do several things
one you can just to get a bike
you can just add up in the air just like a a
say call up and have elected everyone in your unit
kioto your entire class there you two para frame sixteen for about uh... for
many common admit it
and i'll call up on the radio in the report that i have a your body count of
thirty
articulate five or something like that
so you get in touch with a communal company chambers
um... you call an air strike in calling artillery strike
and the charming you nearby
um...
in you actually having kids when you find too many bodies
well you know
needed it
if you've got to bodies and you've got three different units
artillery air
in a country of ours
who is going to get the credit
what if you don't give credit to the artillery
what do you think might happen
what did he say you fired that munis
does that sound like a large palestinian artillery commanders dry giving support
to unite become sligo path that m around how those air force pilots might have to
have a an inaugural solitude
it in your interest
to reward everyone inserts everyone is under the same system everyone reads
body count
well sure
we give you fifty air force we give you fifteen gunships we give you get the
autoimmune we on the ground
uh...
i've got
five bodies and i've got five rifles were counting truck was a five persons
killed so i guess is twenty five
and while we were outstanding around with continuing coverage
out i beg your pardon tim graves
or count them too
um...
everybody park in body parts a we fine on my leg injury because sometimes
really whitman air strikes a deal yet you can blow people smithereens unlike
the warm everywhere everyone is nice discrete data yeah anne-marie award
it's quiet
there are stories of poor people from different units had the fight over arms
and legs
to determine who is going to get the kill cal
pregnant
and of course they got the getting more pernicious because
they would slaughter vietnamese civilians and include emini
children women all people include them as part of the body count
who should get clear on on asking about
in some areas of the war whimper u_s_ forces were fighting uniform north
vietnamese troops
too many civilian casualties
a whole a whole lot of vietnam battles occurred wait inside the country
where there were the economy a card and the villagers were off will very much
the same people
went home search and destroy the nations little-known stuckey limiting the moon
solely
killed everybody
he's happy to be
standing alongside officer
on the radio man said wexler we've got some children rounded up what do you
want to do it
coming officer says god damn it bring in a lot to do it and kill the bastards
you ain't got to god damn balls to kill a marine i'll come down killed a bunch
of myself
marine said yes sir
and hung up the phone
at about two or three minutes later i heard a lot of automatic fire
and a lot of
children screaming
hired babies crying
angered children
scream in her life
search-and-destroy we support whereas if you say you
new units burned down villages routinely
um... continue going to be a legendary again
and
you see the brokers there's only one in vietnam had about providing it
you here in orange maybe maybe screaming try get somebody out there that maybe
you just rather than a million
uh... more people start to wet away from you
and well if they weren't community must be ready
and so you shoot them in central running becomes a sign of anatomy
we've been out for about three hours
and i'm really haven't seen anything was too hot
but then i saw this figure of black pajamas running along up and he died
about three hundred meters ahead
and to the left a flow how you know i got what i mean i hollered ten o'clock
even mine
man i a matter of the warning to halt to regulations
don't lie dont lie
so i got to learn me
squeezed the trigger
blackmun trying like a piece of paper and augusta win
chlorine got stomped morgan shouted
not shot dead natasha nukem
when you reach the body and that's a corp space up with my boot
the long run
uh... picked five to sixty
meanwhile he says
stupid goog
when she ran for
uh... we were run
and a free-fire zone
and we saw women a woman and child running across them that captain says
well they're they're they're running
well free-fire zone
they're running the wrong and they're the enemy
so he shot him
polls club opened up on
the next morning we went out
and we could see the cap of the child
that was bloody
and you can see where the mother dragged a child away
prove separate they're afraid
they're trying to survive
and desperate situation but under high pressure to produce a body count
so yes we got into sustained slaughter
uh...
it means
villagers
you go through the work in a man's hands
energy
if he's a true farmer he has campuses
any pisa grew up
he really fake farmer he doesn't see you go when you look at the hands of those
if he doesn't have enough calluses when you called in the way he seemed to
interrogation center
would you look at the ankles
a man he was a guerilla he must be and when that dana julian is any causal
scratch where these are finally when you have something scratches so people will
go american soldiers will go and look at
ankles
work is going to be actually a problem identified about nine months time to get
much sleep
so you can answer those are your eyes
so u_s_ soldiers are going to look into the act
of the vietnamese and try to send him an incoming banks they hadn't been
convention did he get hauled off
when people in our country
it was not our culture
would not speak the language
imbaba netware looking at war
language culture history class structure this matter student didn't matter what
matters we had the hollywood minute didn't
well is that
part of a helicopter gunship we had a rule
about the use of the day steve actually met anyone taking dated action to be
fired upon
major explains why
or even what was going to know where there is one answer that i recall where
we flew over a large rice paddy
and there were some people down they're working on the rice paddy maybe dozens
fifteen individuals
and we passed over their heads
but in taking action who would you tell the remembers
amarendra hyder anything
so we are covered by just a few feet off the ground among about two helicopters
return on our police sirens and eliminated at least fighters they
started to disperse
instantly open up on this channel nine
when i was six thirty in the evening
and uh... still daylight and they said there was some greasy out there in the
call on us
so we fired out there until all seven of them
wentworth comes back to us we killed seven rice farmers care in their homes
they're trying to make it back to the village
seaweed set up to this uh... cook for you
six p_m_ to six a_m_
himself
he was up to them to be out of here by that time
pale they didn't carry any wrist watches they didn't have any idea what i mean a
lot
so yes
people got home away from traditional never came back
uh...
really villagers were brought into the ground
and blown up
and yes
meaning it means
men women children
chickens water buffalo
pigs complex
often who will care often times you into village destroyed right shot everything
hamburger crops across and alcohol use
lieutenant and houses
the only you know for people who treat you right when you walk through that
billy jean do you hate
you know they can be that's not even if they can be read they won't say nothing
to eat
and we expect him to run out the welcome those like at world war two type of
stuff you know how do you do you know i havnt
seems we step outside the door leads the captain radios them
where under heavy contact
and right away who who spent on jetstar come in and dropping them five
hundred-pound bombs the whole villages were leveled
and we go into the next election
and that is search and destroyed
all this was like a part of what you call the miracle worker
it's essentially
if it's getting to get a new jersey city
in which hope
when it is just orange hat documents call rules and gatien's they're supposed
to specify when you can open up by when you can't on civilians bother anyone
used match at all new
instead of other kind of rules have to let me say that they were under any okay
at but the job that was one looks unusual containing the emmys wearing
black
uh... the heart was the enemy course all peasants
that more that international address
soto all kinds of the state rules that supposedly distinguish b imprint compo
the army's rules were wrong in that we just didn't know the culture they were
kind of like fabrications that americans invaded
to try to make themselves feel legitimate
about who got shot
you know but honestly
people saw through this and said look
we listened to practices in the urban google disability and he's just bc
immediate means wish you were talking about
insulting
but also the factor of racism through like sudden death how much they would
have done that they've been fighting turbo ites probably much less
course for a chance to go to slopes planted tank
one definition of the day vietnamese was
their leaders
if they've been napalm they were called crispy critters
and made one minor went
when we killed a pregnant woman
we can do is to bc
one soldier
and one cadet
now what you do is you know with all the friendly smith friendly vietnamese onto
ships
and taken out to the south china sea
and then you bomb the country flag
he asleep issued
i'd like to burn the whole country down
and then start again with americans
bombed the schools and churches bombed iraq steals tuning
showed the children in the courtyard is just what napalm candy too
strafed apana kill the people dropped napalm and the square
and get out early ever sunday n ketchum at the morning in prayer
broke and it to the are being gather them all around they keep writing
millimeter canon and mold the bastards and down
there's also
capped a certain
sadism
not only in soldiers on the field but also intelligence people
people who would
collective years and
fingers and even heads and even intelligence people with with admit that
they really got off to beating up
the uh...
people they were interrogating
if you don't get nice
bud thrill to do it
when you look for some reason i wore them once
many had made valiant efforts to try to talk about
the covers a lot of some sort of warfare
uh...
over there he said his arm clearly a very strong statist
dimensions
a lot of right
uh... in the field as well as killing a lot of rates followed by killings
and relations
when we do know
women only before five of us we go into the village in take a girl
and bring her out to be into the jungle
we tell her to lie on the ground don't scream otherwise weed killer immediately
and uh...
well how many regards there were well they did what they want to do it
guys are a good mood they let her go
anyone
and killer
how the girls were
unconscious
that's a big band repeatedly raped
and then after we got your raping and three of them
g_i_s type and the players and eighty
shot him in the girls vaginas
negroes were bleeding from their mouths noses
spaces at the jonas
than the g_i_s uh... the plight of the exterior portion of the players
they exploded
inside the girls click
their stomachs just exploded
well one day i was driving back
travel abroad and on about growth
and a guy comes over to me and he says he needs some counseling
and say why
i look over and i see this girl when she strapped
and she's tied the two mistakes
i don't know what they've done to her before i got there
well they poured gasoline all over the girl tabela why did it
they let it
and then they just
doug dare
and watched ur bernau
it if you look at the body consistently see attached only thing that counts
the body can attached but that's what we were to punishments are distributed by
if that's your etc
energy on command
does it really care
whether you survive
recruiting in a world where anything goes
it becomes a good times will talk to you all
it was a rival
or or to hold onto your ethics
i think a good example of this oliver stone's movie platoon which is currently
in release which has a u_s_ military unit which severely defied uh... divided
between one group
who commits atrocities and others who thinks it's a horrible or war situation
and i think that's a good with the good illustration of public on a dynamics
that could mean the years
illusions ep everyone
is a killer
or or or safe list
its rejection in a structure
wearer
a significant component
of your troops engage in such behavior but none of it
so it seems that then you know we talk about coffee
we talk about the line
when you use that term atrocity
it was an exception to a new law that's not a good way to look at our world
let me lie
and atrocities we're just business as usual
in in a life seems a little well-organized in particular organized
but certainly
certainly mail i wasn't really village in vietnam was burned out and everybody
in sight we shot that is that that is that is not true at all
who said that is precisely the reason ability on the ground war to distinguish
between
friend unfair obesity and peasant farmer
the lead to the next dimension uh... at the world the participation
program the fact that they weren't able to tell who the enemy lads that they had
to put out the whole country journey company if you can't open from perot
the needy populate the countryside him rudimentary few into concentration camps
and retreat urban slums
it's not easy to be popular countryside for several major techniques were used
to kill podi asian should be destroyed a third base of the country
this is where wage in orange county
agent orange in asian blue nationwide were sprayed on
millions of acres of crop land
uh... other millions of acres a force with affiliated
so if it based on
people have to work
secondly
certainly bottoming attacks
on villages which were quite quite extensive discouraging courage people to
move
an employer actual search-and-destroy operations were villages
sandwich everyone is killed others in which you should be surrounded village
mood everyone out being burned at the village
in mood in the middle east three minutes
uh...
millions and millions of years and hospitals worse yet
too
concentration camps into urban slums
what's so interesting is the american solicit progress this was our
organization
rural is bad berman is good
so
even though they have nothing
it was brought into the uh... sees a sign of progress
through bring vietnamese and where
you could show them t_v_ and
uh...
and make them work in american uh...
bases and so on and so forth
was seen in setting up a more sophisticated job and being a peasant
farmer
this is also part i think senator i'm i'm not saying the enemy and a as
uh... culture or as individuals or people the same time just as mirror
images of urself
like they'd bombing of north vietnam was forced her to mcveigh's during their
capacity to have consumer goods
certainly interesting idea
you would take the numeric restricted
no getting scared about their hope
that they would care about their way other than a dog in their ancestors
grave in their life's field to retrieve it instead
simply just to have vishnu good have this close to surrender deliver the
earlier
but that in itself was just unmitigated good like people's lives were not
important part of the root of human dimension
was completely lost listed america's bid
we can count
ham a_t_t_'s reported this month how many hundreds and how they're by i think
that the war was applicable
the vietnam in a way
certainly hit exactly it could be in many ways to create a tremendous
destruction
but he could not stop
a very powerful united people who
trying to change the law that this will be a our topic then expelled them with
that at a time
for the day and next week we received the limitations of that the world white
it failed in vietnam also discuss what's wrong with the liberal and conservative
interpretations in vietnam we'll see what lessons we can drop couldn't he had
not experienced we also will talk about some other aspects of the vietnam war of
the tet offensive for instance
but uh... the big turning point in the world body revisionist historians
particularly conservative said that it was an american victory
whether there was it not also talk about this
fascinating phenomenon which the american army
refused to fight or many elements in our bed
as a matter of fact they start attacking their own officers and uh... senior
enlisted people
phenomenon is
and will conclude with a discussion of some of the parallels
the central america of some of the failures
of u_s_ policy in central america how they can be eliminated by the failures
of the policy in vietnam so that thanks for coming tonight denies that he had a
nice being informative discussion i will look forward
through next week
welcomed alternative use them for the second or two part series
about the vietnam war
bill gibson who wrote an incredible book about vietnam war called the perfect war
technol war
and his blood the perfect lloyd cutler war in vietnam
was recently published by a blanket monthly press and itself i was there is
an extremely good reviews it was favorably reviewed in the wall street
journal curtis review described it as a perceptive coach insignificant
and so far the best analysis of the main of america's on the military defeat
highly recommended gloria emerson in a review described the broadcast although
many valuable books on the word fifty as records obtained an endurance there's no
work through the cheese but this does
because he might just say this from our most comfortable
life instead delusions william gibson should the honored and john stockwell
describes his broadcast
and all of my research on the subject that are not going to compare with
doctor gibson's perfect war her invaluable insights in the u_s_
methodology
it's hideous the results of the war tonight we're going to talk about
the things we didn't cover um...
we're going to talk about tet
the importance of appetite offensive
we're going to talk about cali united states army
slot and and uh...
they decide they were not a fight that war anymore
we're going to have an evaluation of the vietnam war how many how the people look
at it
from various aspects and will also take a final okay have we learned our lessons
are we still biting fighting techno war
and central america or at least planning to
what is your interpretation of at the water we get involved
in vietnam
techno warming to fight wars production process
the military became deeply impressed with big businesses contributions of
world war two
after world war two the military can decided that not only would like to
supply operations be organized to a corporate alliance but that actual
conduct the warfare will be organized while corporate lines
the officer quoted managers they listed meeting with the workers
the product was in the body count
just is american business prided itself on high technology capital-intensive
production systems
so to our military have high-technology capital intensive work there
to al produced
we would kill more them and they would have us
stats technolo
why was it applied in vietnam
because
after world war two in the fifties the soviets had the atomic bomb they could
be in destroy our economy
aka base a pop our if we intervene militarily in the work in the world
with too much force the argue clear was to fight limited war
indefinitely and the third world
we will use oddly just-in-time production system over there and ride to
the other side bankrupt
why vietnam
beckons saw
communism not is another cut the social organization is another culture as
another
political system
but instead they saw americans it has to do it in the natural
she died like in congress will support it other
and alien kind of being the world was divided into super tuesday acts of
people communist
and non-communist
and therefore
if i get a good credit their side our side
by the time
the credit in these over to the creation of late fifties we had a period limited
warrant act we had a conventional forces
ready to go by the late fifties
vietnam should be convenient
load place to test out
this new theory of warfare techno war
and a place to drive before another batch
kentucky but that's not been fascinated in near a book about how
a major part of the u_s_ supported a certain part
of the war was to win the hearts and minds of the vietnamese through
important u_s_ commodities olympia that u_s_ government actually put up the
money
to import these commodities and created the whole infrastructure
and rather than win the hearts and minds out of the overwhelming majority of the
vietnamese people the just created more corruption in a quality you want to talk
about
that aspect of your details just hard to us to realize how much money was poured
into the country and so many ways
if you're a high vietnamese
general crooner japanese government
army positions well business positions
and would most american aid was on the list
for sale on the international market by the time in iraq
the level of staffed
unbelievably high in the only reason you decide whether to try to control with
that
the american government's issue every decision
by the officer corps as the price we have to pay for continuing the war
so therefore in order to get something we choose the vietnamese people would
have seemed more
in more and more
and there's an element of truth in that but also the greater truth was that
simply corruption became compounded
and uh... the riches became became greater we're talking about
millions and millions upon hundreds of millions of dollars may or even
currency manipulation currency fraud wasn't gimmick
if you knew how to play the game
you could get rich simply by exchanging your money from from dollars to be
esters to military scripting back again
just nothing just by playing play with the rules a little bit
that you didn't
including massive inflation
admit little odd for most people got worse its
what were your jobs available a few people on top
were able to make money off this cluster stealing the american editor of the
bottom of your jobs open for you
you can work for the american she could work on the base
you could be an interpreter maybe if you had minimal language skills resort
remain
hillerman
there has been set up like a half million vietnamese women and gauge duke
some kind of commercial sex
prostitution massage parlors where ever you want to call it which grossed of
there is hope
multilevel herb sexual marketplace
uh... threatening other drugs do drugs subject huge huge caroline
importation coming from all places coming from laos
and the c_i_a_ was running a warrant last winter
the hills people and liberation government
in order to buy it the leaders of the kills people by the way ocean government
they had to acquiesce to the heroin trade
tons of heroin were brought in a rare america planes and limit means air force
planes we find in bangkok in other places in seoul on in in in two u_s_
soldiers in vietnam
south you're going to use them in the military leadership was also heavily
involved narcotics business
general and subsequent president of the republic of vietnam when band to ran one
major operation
welwyn county
but i'm sure marshall
premier and vice president
ran another
for orphans what could you do
shoeshine business wasn't so i think it's had to make money
on the side shining shoes was like a definition
uh... going through garbage dumps
job today
dismal live in this new world in vietnam not a consumer paradiso and then the
other hand you have the black market
where as you say in your book you could buy a million by tank armored personnel
carriers
and of course viet cong where cabin on the template themselves whenever they
need american goods they consider themselves out the problem
the other aspect of the u_s_ policy
well as anti-war part of their your most brilliant chapters in descriptions in
your book of the magnitude in nature of the air war
and vietnam who was mentally i guess directed against north vietnam
do i discussed on elements of anymore
therefore is a factory
then clearly when you look at their their work
we got the biggest back we may have nothing
by american reasoning you looked at me shit given at the data first bombs
dropped on the market not because they had such a small small industrial
apparatus
such a smoke
number of bridges and things
if you would think they would have just given up
they didn't
um...
they were willing to sacrifice their industrial apparatus billing to the
chips or the massive mention casualties
and indeed
contrary to american
mythology where the vietcong were simply to being totally supported from
the north
rectly
eighty percent of supplies the viet cong used to even have been eighty percent
supplies to india unusual raised himself a small number supplies were sent out
it couldn't be stopped
no matter how hard the u_s_ bombed
no matter how hard you escalated his campaigns
no matter even after the close the pulitzer prize carmen distorted to
systematically bombing the railroad lines between china and vietnam
he couldn't stop it
the number of supplies
wasn't that great
on that the other hand
air worded mobilizing north vietnamese people
to exit considerable degree
uh...
everyone had a job of one kind or another
either repairing the railroad repairing the roads are taking over industry or
working in agriculture
so immobilized him consolidated that society
too
terry on much like to nazi attack on great britain
consolidated british morale which is open on the other hand
the people you say well well obama back to the stone age and we just practically
dead most people don't recognize yet
united states air force and navy drop between eighteen fifty million tons of
bombs and rockets on southeast asia or world war two united states dropped two
point one million tons
so the minimum s but then
it's about four times greater in world war two amigos at almost eight times
greater than world war two
and u_s_ motives nineteen sixty-seven report he has a party category summary
the largest category in after vehicles is buildings
when you listen to the report support observers on the ground with the report
is just about any modern cstaylor brick structure
over to to store all but one story
because we're going to look like targets unless there's a lot of those which are
just on a more hospitals a lot of more schools yes book and i was bomb back the
stone age there's no doubt about that
but because they were not fighting a technolo
at illegal implemented
now we saw in the previous program
where at this
uh... production assembly line type of attitude
resulted in date demand for body count
or the land troops
in the air war
they also have production quotas but i'm not going to organization of this
was right the unit of measurement
it's called a sortie want fight by one airplane
and therefore squadrons queens
therefore it behold large units have
rates of production that they are supposed to me
the navy the air force and indeed were incumbent in competition with each other
to see you can quote you the most productive
therefore the through the object was to fly into many nations as possible
within a of finite period of time like a week or a month
or whatever
so relevant and pay attention to really what you were bombing or to pay
attention to
the safest way too
protect your pilots in the way to minimize civilian casualties
instead
military war managers
devise ways to maximize sori rates
and consequently
entered into serious
irrational behavior
they black and grey award where u_s_ commander treated their own ground truth
is expendable
higher commensurate colleges expendable
they would often be center missions
alarm say looking for trucks in the middle of rain storms when it's
impossible to see trucks
compiled into the ground you know you can even see the ground when by thinking
about it
but that keeps the saudi rahi hai
or also say you're supposed to you know which way we were given target
it is the targets crimean
but you still sing your planes up there every day
five days in a robotic saxony murdered
in order so that
because that's simply
this like a factory you keep doing the same retained
but we sure telegraphed punches
not all that many targets in that area and i didn't take too many smarts to
figure out about
where they have forces headed
specially wen li
headed american date after a day
making them fly up to the target before making a good or not go decision on the
weather that we already knew was not acceptable
we turned over the target and came back again the next day
to try again
but this miracle pilots does it
they died
because the vietnamese clearly understood where the americans were from
flying the same pattern everyday and they understood that
and then we just keep coming so
but often frequently vietnamese did was simply move more and more antiaircraft
guns into an area that the americans for some reason one of the bomb
in whatever happens
american pilots and that means fighting uh...
violations against you pick our kids surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of
any aircraft weapons
in in this way
uh... by telegraphing are both countries
uh... american pilots died
i talked with a couple of the new apoplectic f_-four pilot to blame
who told me to end up with a gun at recently and im before playing mission
carrying a very small bomb load
one pilot told me his goodness t_p_ was so mad we risk eight guys he said
when we could have come to hold on one plane risking only two people
and on the job better
well then i have scheme or why did they send out four planes
the pilot said and if i know
blessed just to keep our sortie rate high
but i'll tell you this if they got and crime
we know what you heard about this orgy business on an aircraft carrier
consolation the navy pilots who told me that he could do a better job of the few
eighty six is operating in the safety of darkness then with all those sky hawks
kidding around the world wide load in daylight
so i wouldn't think possible appear that the maybe was trying to alps or t_v_ air
force
an air force was tried on sorting the navy
my guys who were flying the sorties
took a dim view of it
and we had uh... incredible story in your book or
about
probably north vietnamese was actually bring down the american jets with
handguns and rifles
seems unbelievable arsonists
in an advance group of american standpoint it is unbelievable
in the acually c advanced technology system like a jet fighter bomber needs
another advance technology like a sam missile not to bring it down
and there is a lot of some interest in that but
north vietnam underwent a tremendous social mobilization
part of that mobilization group while giving almost every one of god
me that there's still a submachine gun arrive forever or light machine guns
the entire society was organizes a giant in new york way any aircraft system
emmett clark really low level
vietnamese present were under instructions
to simply get out in the field en masse lie down and shoot up in the act to try
to provide barrage
with make
level
altitudes unsafe to american pilots and it happened
curly hair but by the pilots
to report
that several remaining planes were shot down an extremely low level by peasants
what this means for them
but level flight became so dangerous that they had to move higher are pretty
consistently be picked up on radar
is it just depends as could shoot down planes as that but they do not an air
space to americans
that made all their operations had more hazardous
so social mobilization was able to compensate the technological inferiority
there is another example of this uh... in the whole team and trail when the
united states bill padding incredibly expensive
electronic warfare area
which the uh...
they were able
which mania
uh... vietnamese in that little shins were able to overcome with barry
simple tricks
the joint chiefs of staff always wanted to invade north vietnam
insipid takeover handle an ipod or have ground troops in laos there's a place
where
between laos and thailand between uh... the south china sea in thailand
something like thirty five miles or so
for the effort is
linden visual for justice for most magical line will keep before another
out rivals
bottom at the past cutting out literally
let's just uh... that was changed to expensive in terms of truth lies they
stated that area with electronic sensors
listening devices sizes the pickups metal
sensors of various kinds
uh... these devices internship radio signals to circling it that the aircraft
intercept interest to computer banks in thailand in thailand intern organized
air strikes over the trail
the two things happen
one
the sensors woody collect
uh... bags if you're in honey entries
tape recorders with cricket noises in which to try to mask the movement of
trucks
you find a sensor and you could just normal general knowledge is a tape of
normal general knowledge is next to it
uh...
so you master sensors in one area where you actually seeing your troops in
operations on the other
and up so you get a taxing uh... you world
convoy drivers truck drivers
north vietnamese had sexual zagreb aids they had rocket players
a lot of this is cabanas occurring at night
so the attorneys would throw out
explosives to make americans feel like
they were doing something
um...
and americans into wanted to believe that they were destroying vietnamese
truck convoys y
pilots but we work on the basis of productivity
their majors you lieutenant colonels most of them walked before congress will
probably asylum or desperately want to be brigadier general
they need to be productive
therefore they wrote their tendency is to report
is high destruction of a trucks as possible
and it's a big joke eventually became the enemy intelligence
was that the next day when congress was flights would fly along with what she
meant well they could never find the truck carcasses
anywhere near the numbers
that uh... the pilots reported destroyed
so glad you began that deep in the laotian jungles
the great
truck either yeah and my truck you there was a monster that totally
loved dead trucks midday meal is not only have to read every night
if he got up in the day the skeletons a good bit drugs so that when the
reconnaissance planes came out
and in the morning there were simply be no records
this is not the site and thousands trucks were destroyed that never to the
extent
necessary
remember
relatively few supplies which himself by american calculations
something like twelve times a day was enough to support the warmest self you
can put twelve times boxer mike tractor truck without any problem attachment to
spare
but even if you multiply it by figure
fifteen or twenty fold stacy equity tractor trailer trucks a day
approaching the entrails
or forty pickups or whatever
that still such a small number of people are very expensive air war has a hard
time
i cannot stop
that level of supply
for most of the military general because that is that the war whose memoir
hewlett and documents seized by the
indicated to the u_s_ really one most of the battles of the war that the u_s_
records yes light was on its way to victory and in particular there's a
right wing revisionist view that the u_s_ could've won the war at the time of
the cat offensive
at the u_s_ build up
of maine courtney porsche units ground troops began in sixty five
by the end of sixty seven
we have someone over four hundred thousand at four hundred fifty thousand
maybe in the past five hundred thousand christian country
according to american records
the official records kept in the pentagon and kept at military assistance
commanded nam
we just about destroyed altogether on trips
they were all nearly decimated
now why was that because of weapons were falsified
perhaps we begin a strike that all that last time
once you move into wars production process and the opposition managers
lose their students at the devotee to their subordinates below answers for the
fidelity the trip
upward mobility just like
in business where maybe go up you know up to the highlander is the main again
that was a letter in the military
the currency what that was to report the body count
so everybody buck their body count
date body counts were routine
not that not exceptional
any trouble
they worry that the body casket getting hired uses the reports went up the chain
of command a larger figures became
well the first report i would send them
was from the facts from the information we collect intent was objective that it
would be if it could be
now we founded and but uh... that would always come back doctored up from higher
headquarters
that was standard operating procedure
when i was repeated historian there
so the result is that the battle news
was edited and revised until it was acceptable to the higher ups
hail and in order to write open relies on our civil aid program such as
increasing the fifteen english classes of three hundred to make it look good to
the politicians and people back home
and i've been ordered to raise the figures for food distribution and uh...
refugee villages
but i've also had retired battle reports
the old meeting uh... certain facts
uh... and thereby turning in north vietnam army victory over superior
american forces
into our u_s_ victory
so our paper
we had warren
but in reality
two things
fired that was part one of our victory the second point was
in nineteen sixty seven
the american high command
decided that viet cong guerrillas no longer existed
because
insulate the polish them on paper answered because just like american
forces we don't have any part-time guerrillas
are full-time guerrillas
and also to google rulers have to do to have tanks to guerrillas have
helicopters to guerrillas have
uh... heavy artillery
they don't have as much hardware as we did
so they are clearly a threat to american units
so several hundred thousand
uh...
viet cong guerrillas
were abolished from what's called the order battle
so what you would eliminate the guerrillas on paper
and then you charged
so you have a hot lower total estimate
uh... enemy forces
can you have an inflated by uh... estimate of how many of those you've
killed
well it worked
lyndon johnson desperately needed a political victory to follow sixty seven
so he got your westward to come back and say we're winning we're winning the war
student enter an interface three
and that is that we are mop up for a couple of years
and what was having a reality
well reality the viet cong courses
debated the local forces had expanded radically from nineteen sixty four three
late nineteen sixty seven
according to u_s_ figures they were only about two hundred thousand yahoo com
but minimum c_i_a_ man started like going profiles a primary figure things
he calculated about a half million with understand what that means at the c_i_a_
man is doubling
hit the estimate but it seems to me they don't have any idea
at how many of them are on there
but it means a double is probably the highest figure he can get away with
and still
will be listened to by anyone
in reality the enemies
gaining strength
we have with the crew viet cong
we have
work at least dissipation still in fifty thousand troops here being sent south in
the border zones along cambodian laotian borders and in sonar showed us that the
other
satisfy co-wrote the book of the country
in the u_s_ strategic offensive failed of search-and-destroy
the bombing operations had failed
in late january early february nineteen sixty eight
newark the display department viet cong forces attacked in mass
simultaneously for the first time
normally
they fought
they dispersed operations
they were not andrea under
that under no snow still first time in a simultaneous national tax
the attack succeeded in driving
one it we needed to pass occasional our audience involved in past occasional
griffin m a countryside in the cities
almost all of the vietnamese and american ground force units were driven
out of the countryside back into the cities
dip in the city's mayor and some viet cong forces inner cities
and i've saigon way
uh... regional capitals
and we began to to battle in the cities
so what happens
after a few weeks
the viet cong withdrew from the cities
their casualties were extremely high they had not anticipated that the
americans with bombing and conduct artillery strikes inside the cities
uh... but they did
so i watch herself vietnam was reduced to rubble
their casualties were high
the americans in sap in the meantime units were gone from the countryside
uh... desertion to be a massive
and
the economy which recruit
many many many people now that they would know opposing forces in the
countryside their political cadres were able to surface
so they were weakened in many ways than the other hand they have achieved a
decisive victory
inviting
their parents out of the countryside
what is the regiment
because american forces
were able to
kill many of the commandos in the economy troops inside the cities
the americans have general westmoreland court victory
uh...
of course this ignores the fact that
although he's going to the economy out of the city's he himself isn't going to
have a countryside and it's made a mockery out of his own previous claims
of victory
um...
also sparklers created many many people
that they were far more
and south vietnam than americans and willing to admit
westmoreland and made a trip request for another two hundred thousand soldiers
this week request within the city analysis
were seriously what was found
was that even within the production model of war if you would just come up
at the same kind of what they would simply add more resources to do it
still
the viet cong around just to people in this out
good fight on for another four or five years at least three years
to four years and then with anymore or significant looked at least dissipation
they could find on
ten to twenty years
and which he just we just could not drive the other side bankrupt and you're
saying that the north vietnamese army basically had participated nodded yes i
did get marketers army did not because they don't care
the fact that most of the war
they were quite a minimal over you consider the number of via car trips in
proportion to the number of north feeling well that's true depth
up until sixty eight after sixty eight they entered the war in larger numbers
sir
uh... the car were getting worse
certainly
the concern to claim your vehicle took severe losses which it appeared to be
stripped the claim that they were decimated indicated a spot in the claim
that the americans onecare
is false
canisters remain healthy miracle war managers
cities department stated their strategy was bankrupt and that there was no pac
decree
so this finally created ah... religiosity time somewhere in this
period i try not to long after
with this
a break in their self delusion that techno war would win every hotmail here
is a serious problem that people don't understand it
american television news
began to bite from the late nineteen sixty eight on began report the idea
that the war was winding down
and that we were on our way out
just not true
this is a false statement
you should never believe it's when you look at the casualty figures
how many american soldiers were killed from sixty-five to sixty-eight for sixty
three sixty seven
and then you take sixty eight
when you look sixty nine crew seventy three
the sixty nine three seventy three just about is within a couple of hundred
is high
is the number of kill
sixty doctor sixty-seven so-called week search-and-destroy continued way way on
internal until
old mate seventy-one what was that then they finally convinced
the u_s_ foreign policy is that was for the u_s_ public
that vietnam could be one
plummeted sixty eight on
american military began to
wickham progressively more restaurants and bars certainly bible eight sixty
nine seventy is inactive revolt against his commanders
remembered at seventy five percent of the battles in vietnam where new shit
about the enemy of the average american grunge band used to have the that most
people combat troops pennies to didi walking an ambitious
most mainline fairly quickly that while they were walking an ambush is that
their generals were getting medals and they were safe in helicopters runs on
and so forth
uh... subpoenaed to begin what's called fragment ragging means
you take a fragmentation grenade and you put it at your superior
whether it's a non-commissioned officer arjun or a battalion or captain or
whatever
it was a way to tell higher command
not to treat
ground troops' lives frivolously that they would not pursue
aggressively pursue dangers combat situations
simply in order to make a visit to make his superiors look good
okay let me tell you had workweek start having more calls
which is like uh... dole will at midnight everybody you know if it starts
open inspiring screaming books on the wire books on the wiring barbed wire
fences you know
and then you try to kill any of the lifers that he didn't like
so we tried to get to see all couple of times machine-gun one time he was uh...
rack took nine holes his cock nine bullet holes but you don't go out of it
and got away with that'd be shipment so we couldn't check weapons they use your
name
so they'd be throwing grenades at the wiring yelling and shopping books on my
wired brooks and they'd blow the siren and then run around and have to guide to
be facing outward shooting men the other half would be waiting for a wife her to
come out of his pet
yeah i've seen them
told officers executed five or six times
just put a price on his head
makes one accusing gets the money
next time he was out on a mission
that everybody knew it was good
they just wait
to humans
and the right position
and he estimates run quite high and it was the official i'm accounts about six
hundred fifty faking incidents
and
real reasons to doubt that because i think quite small and sure there are a
lot of network reporter all of course because no no commander wants to have
when you say it's like i said my my moment for a grenade at me
we'll try to shoot me
i mean how do i do a good on your record either get promoted up that there is a
great leader
when you're reporting that there were people are shooting at you
no i'm sure the records are not the figures must be substantially higher
this totally inadequate pulls the bonnie alexander contracts
her particularly unpopular officers but there's also certified and felt
mutilation a-level too
people would not desperate if they were just uh...
do disoriented and they were not being cared for by the command of the actual
operations often while slaughter of uh... innocence
suicide rates a fairly high
standing up until apartheid is one payments um... cartoon book by uh...
banning tech forster
it shows a picture of a man oversold regarding metal rock with his trigger
finger in the air looking for the million-dollar weren't feeling like
expose this nice index finger shot off
he could get out of the worst or you don't take your malaria pills
um...
we're going to do
therefore remove the kosher passionately area there are many many ways out
or people shooting themselves in
the lots and lots of stories of self mutilation or you do if your friend
and algebra fran decided will be twice
analytically days mission and he's had a premonition of death
which is taken very very seriously all combat soldiers are deeply superstitious
sometimes issued or u_s_ you could use to add your friend not none of our place
but it with him enough to get them out
you described by the work its way
you cannot fight a war where people are
are you going to search you avoid
i'll tell you avoid that uh... but that is a very prevalent than himself
thirteen destroyed searching the void and as you do you go out and you keep
playing nuclear war you try like to go out and you know smoke some dopamine
thanks radio reports or
he gently try not to engage the enemy
we talked about everyday
told the guys felt the same way
reduced more accomplishing anything
back some guys reselling depressed and disgusted that he was killed themselves
some guys were taken hand grenades and
and blown themselves away
they couldn't take the strain anymore
cop who's really heavy
i don't think a lot of the stuff was reported
do you guys would just kill themselves
they are made probably send
stats home with a guy who was killed or
missing-in-action
did the antiwar movement called clinton's saulters
in creating a sense of what they were they were doing was wrong that they
would victims that are making mistakes that have impact you think that it's
going to live com coffeehouse g_i_ coffeehouse mimicking anti-woman try to
send a copy houses near u_s_ bases
to uh...
permit literature thanks
but obviously when you read
soldiers memoirs and novels
refusing to talk about the anti-war movement very much it's not to say there
was an influence but they talk about
we hacking
to the situation of warfare
that there and the one and uh...
um... enemy in with the moral qualms and moral qualms intercede on the
battlefield but one of the credentials of the anti-war movement
nobody would be the last five years ago i did not come in once it was
stated that the u_s_ was going to withdraw eventually
that made it more difficult
there was one place in your book where he said that this actually it was a
class war class warfare that was going on that vitals are black soldiers
clerked for fatherhood
bragging ripple
let's remember who went to vietnam
after world war two the u_s_ military decided that too many college-educated
men have been killed danger of this was that it was going to hurt the scientific
base of the country decided thanks chris over the country was for
we couldn't have the next generation of weapons
so the idea to this deployment of the college deferment
was to keep
the cool alive
what this meant was remember this is an era of very few student loans very few
scholarships and so forth
it meant that the sons of the middle class could go to college where the
sounds of the working class
too
the military
in the military itself
military needs vast numbers of white-collar skills
so if you had any kind of like uh... clerical skills like middle class people
do often do typing filing someone you could ease more readily yet
uh... and unarmed combat job
what this translated into is that what you study got them to the corner who is
in your infantry
units armor artillery
they were overwhelmed they were disproportionately minorities in the
were white
who were whites poor urban life
so we had a a working-class
uh...
largely working-class
military combat military
whereas a more middle class
anti-war movement more middle-class logistic apparatus
inherent in the military so the class revolt a clash about not one cor
revolution we're not talking to voters now
but it is sort of like uh... it was revoked against the manager yes if not
in our interest exploded in new zealand yes and yet and it certainly would among
black soldiers there do they they were definitely influence but my carmen
racial consciousness and critical consciousness but
prepare now
and where many of the type signs of bonding signs of you know that
scanning special handshakes on so forth
i would be a value a plane that media handling
the amount and and now
i've spent a lot of time looking at the tapes and i have pushed closed if i
could finish my outline i was going to write a book about television news
covers the water started to think well what
was not on the news for me
but i saw in this country i wrote this other book critic war
was on the news
is a lot of pictures and helicopters a lot of pictures objects
a lot of pictures of tanks a lot of hardware
and wish techno what was the major representation to visual representation
along with his today that these these please presentation to the people
weapons
i love my favorite
when a_b_c_ show a_b_c_ series
where at the first one outings may see the battleship new jersey
that ocean new jersey just been recon mission in sixty nine
and we see it here's the sixteen each gun dealers is john thirty-foot balanced
at the camera looks down a guy starts talking about you to two hundred
fifty-pound projectile sixty miles
had broken thirty two feet of reinforced concrete amanda had at the other way at
least thirty two miles
sixty feet we push them back again if the two identity or kill radius
it simply i committed a corresponding to a salesperson
and i i think i should buy two more the battleship new jersey analysis is
currently a m believe
and in the film patterns in other correspondent
angel and uh... the bank of the river
it's about the bbc frankly offline trash can
and he remember the uh... roadrunner
rockets mineral that want to cut it was always getting something from acme
rocket company that i was kinda fucked up
trash can on a stick with the kind of like trying on top of it
exactly
what this rocket look like was obviously have a homemade crude rocket
end of the contrast of subletting seems like american victory so insured
because we love our technical superiority court within a point out
the vehicle on the fires that rocket knows exactly what he's shooting it was
a battleship new jersey
there where they may not
where it's much more fun
so that it would be pissed off people sold out
people ought not to bring many dead people who were very few ended they have
the death conditioners was much like a warmer the elections
number will go on
three-star body count each week
which shared
we were always winning we saw one village one village was born in nineteen
sixty five dash yet
and again the kind of course bonnie guidance of air travel
uh... mail i appeared as its is remember did not come from the news and it didn't
come from a normal networks a came from a veteran who tried hard to get the
moves out
their little coverage of messages came on
ordinary language of the war groups slopes land bank
more american news correspondent ever talked about those terms of what they
meant
it simply did not occur in status very much official perspective
waco and got critical
from sixty eight on a case where you would see reports
about failed technology
indication cutesy stories about tragic american deaths
it was like a human interest tragedy become permanent of criticism
rather than any kind of explanatory
notion of what i would not succeed
bill let's talk about a valuation of the vietnam war a lot of people written
books about a historian generals and etcetera
west coast image who's just come back to where we start to disappoint
by nasa says the u_s_ head to get out who couldn't fight
when i read it wouldn't do it in the morning you could read it moved to the
air force campaigns but it was campaigns have their problems to you can hold plan
with airplanes
silly money to the south vietnamese they were corrupt they've just had more maybe
crap it
so we would hate it
my analysis and you know if it was defeated
and that that's that's the stamp on to the question is
how have the historians of a novelist
uh... so on treated this tragic of american desi
the conditional path as a liberal interpretation
that is it's just a strategy
it's just kind of a wrong out there somewhere and lacking suspect were all
sorts of small mistakes are more mimicking smallness moments later
schlesinger lovers i think it would be the most famous the classical case
stanley cornell's book learning p_b_s_ series most recent example
the commotion presley's not an explanation you know twenty years a
small mistakes doesn't explain
a war that has a very clear structure
which is my argument at the structural
contradictions about men who work there and in its disillusioning failure
the second school the most prominent right now is the cutest lost because a
self-imposed restraints
so bizarre experience of military term
often used in joint chiefs of staff documents called for escalated air war
and vision is
gprs they should have invaded north vietnam in nineteen sixty six
and taken handle an ipod
course telecom of that other one of those persons who had those guns firing
again shooting against aircraft
the jet fighter pilots they were also organized and prepared for invasions
argument you why do you know emission factor north vietnamese didn't have any
troops himself that was one of the major reasons
it wasn't that they didn't want to help their comrades in their southern comment
it which which were being held back
any part of our project the home front against a possible american invasion
stucco into jail
the plan for a year to fighting this invasions let local militia and regional
forces fight for the first dated two days
so once the americans are tired
after twenty four to forty eight hours across the conduct
damen north vietnamese army waiting to see
and we did this notion that the u_s_ could've had a successful invasion
thus far
o'neill fantasy unworthy of any kind of serious consideration
and that they had been expeditionary force in handling high phone we still
that would change the class structure in south vietnam that would change the fact
that you had a peasant renewal in atlanta that you want to do this to
wanted uh... self determination letter in capital
and he warned that the whole country were national unification 'cause the
whole basis of the culture was growing up before debater
and that's all they don't all their lives for two thousand years first
throughout the chinese to french
and now the american soldier it would have changed at the self-imposed
restrain still
this fall will have we learned anything fence line
we you've point out they total
corruption and self-delusion of the military and the civilian leaders
throughout this
first of all thank you naked wages technol war and secondly
having uh... not paying attention to being realities
which like
uh... try to sleep up from the intelligence
field
suppressing any intelligence that would uh... contrary to the contrary to what
they wanted
on it
still in that thing
motivating n do where you probably think you applying it to you
well i have a couple questions certainly there was one example which has been a
tip
and we just barely took it even though there was a minimum opposition most of
the u_s_ special forces command as bit the dust in various operations governor
various mishaps one kind or another
also
the military's analysis is well not only do we fight with one hand tied behind
our back a week or two slightly more rapid escalation
so honduras has been prepared a series of airfields and ports have been
prepared in honduras
in order to bring forty fifty thousand troops into battle within a week
um...
they had to the subtleties fortress
and they still have million military had the vision that they could probably take
when i won a few other places and a couple weeks
rather than an extensive
central america war which was escalate
tremendously because the nicaraguan today i have no choice except to expand
the war outside nicaragua to make the battlefield bigger
the battlefields bigger than united states has to disperse its troops it's
this virtues are dispersed
kit cheap decree
activated them back to vietnam but i'd like to have one other thing i have not
learned a thing
with an author
most feminist anger many veterans of course when you have sooo
mail
certainly don't want to see this they're probably parts of the military inverse
mornin positions we don't want to see a major escalation
but then we're on track
for another kind of of major intervention whether or not will be
since the iran artwork crisis has emerged
that may be off for a while i don't know but they're certainly philippines
there's another growing insurgency there
um...
the chair of the chances for another major intervention
in another series of self delusions
are very very high because the people that officer corps who were successful
in vietnam or the people who were in charge now
the people who would be dissonance
the to him for lieutenant colonels and majors who would be the risk of repulsed
they got out
they reside most of it
ironically the arm yourself recognize this nineteen seventy war college study
which indicated ah... that
there was a significant difference between the ideal army values such as
honesty integrity bravery justice and responsibility
and the real values which are practiced by the military inorder to promote
career advancement
here is the studies conclusion
the present climate does not appear to be self-correcting
the human drives for success and recognition by singers
sustained if not inflamed and by the system that rewards and management which
cater to media personal success
at the expense of moral and epochal values
would appear to only be perpetuated
by the current environment
the fact alone that the leaders of the future by those who survived and
excelled within the rules of the present system
militates in part against any self starting incremental return toward the
practical application of ideal army values
and in the final reason and that the problem of learning
is that there are cultural reasons that make the american people want to believe
the self-reproach restrain school
and that is we are used to petition the cowboy who comes and stays a society
against the enemies
and the power structure cannot defend itself
the idea of a week authority that has to be saved by a warrior shows that in many
places in american cultures in the western
into detective you have the detective you know is outside the law all the
super man in the nasty danger figures of the twenties and thirties certainly
are able to portal criminals
legal authorities cannot
uh... but also that is that the police technology cannot self-serving
embarrassed to talk to that if we have enough
technological military force we can help the win the war
if you have people it's hard not to believe in your hardware americans don't
worry about social relations they don't learn about class structure everyday in
the newspaper
or about cultural history every daily newspaper
they learn about what's for sale
then part of the lesson of vietnam concerning the limits of at the water
the situations in which technolo but well i but it cannot achieve victory
they can destroy lenny can destroy people but he can't create a government
cranky recreate a culture
it can create a society
and this is another thing we try to do in vietnam
to oppose the model of the consumer society are then add american-style
suppose democracy would it be elections in situations where these just couldn't
work
it did work in a way you know what you have people can become corrupted they
did get into their consular under some things but
it just doesn't have a stable society it doesn't builder
dad will people willing to die for that society that was a hope i'll let you
have to be a crappy vietnamese that what it looks like things we know they were
willing to go out and if insight on the gap are not
biggest did they bought their tickets out united states that the patrons were
divided that just collect
and jess four are getting rid of the landlord to local oppressors here to
make perfect sense to them
and there's been this problem the so-called vietnam syndrome which are
leaders have been complaining about all these years
sensitive
there was a fitness in the land
quickly if i lost the will to fight yet
and uh... but it looks like the american
public
had a clearer
picture of what uh... the war was all about them the than the leaders
but uh... acute how would you expect that can do you think they were
overcoming that vietnam syndrome now so that they can but i don't think the
american public ever had an idea what with raw images knew something was wrong
and it wasn't getting better
contracting a leader fighting this
may be easier for people to believe the self-imposed restrain school to believe
that we lost because we didn't fight hard enough
um...
for the package that the package proctor cultures presented here a bit of the
warrior imagery is well mined grammars strong on the rise because many
classical war movies made in several kind of very warm and he's made
um... it's definitely a war culture
how people go
clearly though there's there's still a resistance there still a certain level
which disaster vietnam detached in at least on people's memories
either merrill lynch say they'll have understanding of why it failed a welder
structural reasons
there is a fear that
it will happen again