Andrew Bacevich, taking the time to recall the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in detail, as part of the struggle against the worldwide monolithic Communist menace, sees its possible relevance to current events: ...they lazily concurred in the reflexive tendency to see events in Vietnam as the product of a monolithic Communist conspiracy. In fact, the monolith — if it ever existed — had already succumbed to the Sino-Soviet dispute. Yet acknowledging the existence of that dispute would have made it necessary to rethink the entire Cold War. It takes gumption to question truths that everyone “knows” to be true. In the summer of 1964, gumption was in short supply. As a direct consequence, 58,000 Americans died, along with a vastly larger number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians. After 9/11, similar mistakes — deference to the official line and to the conventional wisdom (“terrorism” standing in for communism) — recurred, this time with even less justification. The misbegotten Iraq war was one result. Yet even today, events in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere elicit an urge to “do something,” accompanied by the conviction that unless troops are moving or bombs dropping the United States is somehow evading its assigned responsibilities. The question must be asked: Are Americans incapable of learning? bostonglobe/opinion/2014/08/03/something-groupthink-took-fateful-toll/5HalPdN7wiDrUWJjaDRRUN/story.html
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 20:55:20 +0000
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