War in Vietnam has deeply influenced other countries in the region – Laos and Cambodia. The movie Vietnam: a TV History demonstrates through the historic images, frames and evidence of witnesses and active participants of this war the policy of American leadership towards these nation-states and the consequences of this policy.
In the 1961 President Kennedy claimed that security in Laos was in national interests of the United States, in spite of the fact that it was far away. One of the arguments was made by President Kennedy when he announced the importance of supporting Laos in its battle against to maintain its neutrality. However, the means used to achieve this goal were far from being peaceful or transparent. Secret operations carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, “secret army” used in a “secret war” against Vietnamese Communists – all this secrecy, covertness tells us more about a nature of the support to Laos than words of President Kennedy. In more than ten years American Armed Forces and the CIA trained Laotian soldiers to use them in the war with Vietnam, bombed the territory of Laos, transported soldiers and food supplies under the cover of airlines – completing all these activities without American people knowing anything about the scale of operations, losses of American soldiers, the finances, spent on these operations. American citizens, American tax-payers knew virtually nothing about the situation in Laos because American leadership that is supposed to represent the citizens of this nation-state and act in its best interests, chose not to inform them about these operations, funded by the taxpayers’ money and fought by America’s soldiers. In my opinion, the argument that in the small world divided by the Cold War, where those who were not one’s allies, were one’s foes, does not justify the USA’s intervention in the affairs of foreign neutral country, if we take into account its consequences. The consequences for Laos were grave: children were trained to fight against communists and participate in an antic-communist combat; mass casualties among guerillas, trained by the CIA and civilians; bombs left after intensive bombing by the USA Armed Forces. In my opinion, this issue is of utmost importance and continues to be relevant today, when American drones bomb the Middle Eastern countries.
While in the case of Laos, American people were not informed about the operations of the CIA, in the case of Cambodia, both the government of this nation-state and the Congress of the United States did not have any information prior the bombings occurred. Nixon did not have the congressional approval for the military activities on the territory of Cambodia. Furthermore, President Nixon outrageously lied to the Congress, declaring that the USA did not infringe Cambodia’s neutrality, lied after thousands of bombing raids. Additionally, Cambodian pro-American government did not anything about its ally’s plans to bomb their country. In my opinion, Nixon could have been impeached for only his lies in front of the Congress even without Watergate scandal. This case demonstrates that Nixon and his chief advisor in foreign affairs considered themselves to be in right to do anything in order to protect the USA’s national interests, as they understood them.
The next argument I will discuss is the one that Henry Kissinger voices in the movie ‘Vietnam: A TV History’, when he speaks about the reasons to bomb Cambodia. Kissinger considers that bombing of a neutral country of Cambodia was justified, because it was an exercise of the right to war. Kissinger tries to highlight the fact that Cambodia could not defend its borders against Vietnamese communist guerrillas, who use the Cambodian territory in order to hide from American bombs, troops of the USA and Southern Vietnam, to rest and plan their attacks. In this situation, Kissinger thinks that intense shelling of Cambodian territory was justified and dictated by the rules of war. However, Cambodia was a neutral state and did not want to be involved in military actions. The invasion that was intended to “help Cambodians to help themselves” as President Nixon put it, left Cambodia in ruins. While before the war in Vietnam and intense shelling of Cambodian territory in order to destroy Vietnamese communists Cambodia was flourishing prosperous country with a strong leader, revered by Cambodians, after the American attempt to “help” Cambodians, the country was destroyed, millions left dead, injured, disabled, people starving, and villages and towns in ruins. What is even more important, both in Laos and Cambodia, American policy has failed. In the both nation-states, communists seized the power after American troops left and bombing ceased. In Cambodia, in the aftermath of the war, Khmer Rouge slaughtered hundreds of thousand people – the citizens of Cambodia, who opposed the rule of communists but were betrayed by Americans and left alone. I think that this issue of intervention, invasion, military actions justified by a higher goal has not lost its pertinence. In the recent history, after the Cold War ended and “Evil Empire”ceased to exist, Americans have found other reasons to invade countries in another part of the world and again, American leadership have justified their decision with higher purpose: to fight terrorism, to give freedom to oppressed people, to spread democracy and Western values. However, the consequences of these numerous interventions were far from beneficial for people, who inhabit the countries that were invaded.
This is why I think that the concept of intervention into the affairs of other nation-states by Western democratic countries, and particularly, by the United States an interesting and pertinent topic for discussion.
Reference:
Vietnam: A TV History. Retrieved from https://courses.ecampus.oregonstate.edu/index.php?video=anth210/vietnam.mp4
