US failed to learn lessons of Vietnam war: Analyst
Press TV has conducted an interview with Alan hart, a London-based political commentator, to discuss the United States’ war against Vietnam and how the warring sides are coping 40 years later.
The following is a rough transcription.
Press TV: First of all, you reported from Vietnam during the war as a correspondent there and saw first-hand what took place there. What kind of a legacy has the US left behind in Vietnam?
Hart: First of all let me tell you that I did observe America spending six million dollars a minute on destroying two countries in a war that it could not win and should not have fought. Let me give you one chilling, very short story of inside; while the war was going on, I had a conversation in Washington D.C. with Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the front-runner for the Republicans in the race for the White House against Johnson. I said to him you can’t win this war. And what Goldwater said to me is: “We could win it, what is the use of having nuclear bombs if we don’t bloody well use them?” That tells you what some of the madness in America was at the time. I mean the way Vietnam is recovering now I think is really quite impressive because the destruction was immense.
Press TV: Indeed, the United States has a history of waging wars against different world nations, where does this aggression stem from and what agenda does it follow?
Hart: Well, the reason why they allegedly fought the war was to stop the communists. But the point is, the Americans had failed to learn the lessons of history of what happened to the French in Vietnam before them. The real tragedy today as we speak is that America has not learned the lessons of Vietnam. There was one very bright president called John F. Kennedy who, it is true he actually got them into it, but he wanted to get them out of it quickly and that’s one of the reasons why he was killed.
Press TV: How does today’s Vietnam view the United States 40 years after the war?
Hart: Well, like most countries in the world, most ordinary Vietnamese I suspect want to be friendly with America. But if you were Vietnamese, or I was Vietnamese how would we feel about America? I think we would probably loathe them. But again, you cannot talk about loathing America, it’s loathing America’s foreign policy. Most people in the world do not hate Americans, even most Arabs do not hate Americans, what they hate is American foreign policy.
MTM/MKA
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