Was Anything Learned from Vietnam? By Carolyn Eisenberg

For many historians of a certain age, the Vietnam War was the formative intellectual experience, which shaped our understanding of the United States and its history.

There were searing realizations from that time that never left us: how political leaders could lie -- boldly, blatantly and repetitively -- and win a mandate for unnecessary war; how the cynical invocation of democracy and freedom could conceal American domination and support for dictatorship; how easy it was for the White House to co-opt Congress and intimidate the press; how the vast American “war machine” could rain unimaginable suffering on foreign civilians whom it was claiming to save; and (perhaps most shocking of all) how willing our political leaders were to sacrifice tens of thousands of young Americans in a project that could not succeed.

Now forty years later, all these elements are back as the US fights an unnecessary war in Iraq, in which victory is a receding possibility, where every fresh American initiative grows the opposition and each new step makes it harder to leave. So the question arises: "Was anything learned from Vietnam?"

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