To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Appoint a Truth Commission on Viet Nam War Crimes
To enact a law creating a Truth Commission to collect testimony and review allegations of war crimes committed during the Viet Nam War, with the power to grant amnesty to witnesses and the accused in order to establish the truth or falsity of such allegations, to encourage reflection, and to contribute to a truthful historical record.
Why is this important?
Recently revealed massive secret surveillance programs have been defended on the grounds that national security requires them. The vast expenditures for these programs, together with the even vaster outlays for homeland security, weapons, military deployment, and clandestine activities, necessitate austerity in basic domestic programs like education, employment, environmental protection, pension support, etc. Reminding ourselves of the consequences of past delusions advanced in the name of National Security may help to drain the term of some of its ability to instill irrational fear. This would enable us to appraise more coolly claims that we surrender our civil liberties, invade other countries, make enemies, and spend ourselves into national poverty in order to ward off the specter of terrorism.
The world knows about what we did in Viet Nam, but unlike the Germans who looked closely at themselves in the mirror after the fall of the Third Reich, America has never examined the moral implications of what we did to the Vietnamese, or to other nations we have invaded or subverted. The disparity between what others saw us do and what we allow ourselves to believe lies at the root of most hatred and mistrust we encounter abroad. It allows us to continue believing in the beneficence of our actions as we send young men and women into cultures they know nothing of to commit atrocities they are unable to avoid. A Truth Commission, modeled after the South African one, would lay bare what has been done in our name.
Enough time has passed since the Viet Nam War for a dispassionate examination that would shed light on current calls for secrecy, clandestine activity, and war. The insights of Viet Nam veterans were often ignored when they returned home; but the vets are still with us, as are survivors of the holocaust that we inflicted on a peaceful peasant population where an estimated three million people or more died.. Although our war effort was unsuccessful, the propaganda of the National Security State was successful in many ways, and it shapes our fears, our budgets, our willingness to go to war again, and our willingness to surrender our Bill of Rights even today. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and the rest of the world to do as the Germans, South Africans, and others have done: to face the truth and allow it to slay the demons which would lead us to kill innocent people again.
The world knows about what we did in Viet Nam, but unlike the Germans who looked closely at themselves in the mirror after the fall of the Third Reich, America has never examined the moral implications of what we did to the Vietnamese, or to other nations we have invaded or subverted. The disparity between what others saw us do and what we allow ourselves to believe lies at the root of most hatred and mistrust we encounter abroad. It allows us to continue believing in the beneficence of our actions as we send young men and women into cultures they know nothing of to commit atrocities they are unable to avoid. A Truth Commission, modeled after the South African one, would lay bare what has been done in our name.
Enough time has passed since the Viet Nam War for a dispassionate examination that would shed light on current calls for secrecy, clandestine activity, and war. The insights of Viet Nam veterans were often ignored when they returned home; but the vets are still with us, as are survivors of the holocaust that we inflicted on a peaceful peasant population where an estimated three million people or more died.. Although our war effort was unsuccessful, the propaganda of the National Security State was successful in many ways, and it shapes our fears, our budgets, our willingness to go to war again, and our willingness to surrender our Bill of Rights even today. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and the rest of the world to do as the Germans, South Africans, and others have done: to face the truth and allow it to slay the demons which would lead us to kill innocent people again.