Zeal For Truth

In the fall of 2004, as I was getting closer to finishing my undergraduate education, I began to breathe easier knowing that I’d soon be leaving the constant barrage of “left-wing propaganda” at the University of Oregon. Like many current college-aged conservatives - I was holding on for dear life to the mainline conservative mantras in the hope that I would pull through my college experience without succumbing to the mind-washing ideologies surrounding me.

No conservative agenda was more attacked than the War in Iraq, and naturally, I defended that war all the more fiercely. But that began to change when I took a seemingly unrelated class on the history of Vietnam. Reading former Communist Minister of Justice Truong Nhu Tang’s book A Vietcong Memoir allowed me to look at a conflict similar to Iraq without being concerned about the current political debate.

An Overview of Ideology in Vietnam
For Americans on the outside looking in, the politics around the Vietnam War were commonly drawn up in the oversimplistic terms of American might versus the global Communist revolution. Yet for those within South Vietnam’s nationalist struggle for independence, like Truong, the War and the time period surrounding it meant something completely different. Starting from his first encounter with Ho Chi Minh until his eventual exile a few years after the War, Truong and many like him in the various organizations he helped pioneer and participate in, saw independence as the ends of a struggle that employed various means.

He did not want to see Vietnam be the subject of a colonial power (such as France), occupying country (such as the United states) or global ideology (such as Communism). Truong was above all, a nationalist who wanted to see an end to foreign occupation, influence and manipulation in the South as well as a strong, liberal, free and democratic government structure to eventually be unified with the North through peaceful means.

How Violence Becomes the Answer
Why was an otherwise peaceful, democratically-minded individual like Truong drawn to ally himself with such radical and violent communist groups? After all, Truong was not a communist, nor was he sympathetic with their ideology, methods or goals - however, he hated seeing his country occupied. He wanted to be free - left alone by the powers of the world so that he, and his countrymen, could make for themselves a society that reflected their values and culture.

But the US, the latest in a line of occupying powers, was not leaving anytime soon. Moreover, they subverted these noble ideals as illegitimate regime after regime was set up by US agencies. For people like Truong, it was clear that the US was not going to be bargained with and that war was the only alternative left open to them in order to secure freedom. The communists were the most prepared for war and they had plenty of funding from China to make things painful for the US in the South.

The Iraq Parallels
In a war against occupiers, people who would otherwise be enemies (communists and nationalists in this case) are drawn into tight alliances. In many ways, we are seeing the same thing in Iraq - there is strong support for democracy oriented movements in the middle-east. Iraq was burgeoning with such a movement before the US-led invasion, hence the easy sell to the public by US officials. Vice President Dick Cheney, for example:

I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

But liberation soon turned into another long occupation in their land and those who originally welcomed us are ready for us to go and let them pick up the mess. But we aren’t leaving, and our leaders and future leaders are pledging years of occupation. Naturally, at some point, after seeing his family and friends traumatized by the violence surrounding him, the typical peace-minded Iraqi is going to give up on waiting and instead join with terrorists and insurgents. Though he is probably a moderate Muslim and hates the terrorists, he hates the US (and the occupation it represents) more and would rather ally with radical terrorists and try to do something about it than sit back as his life is destroyed as collateral.

In fact, we should consider that imitation is the best form of flattery. Many of the insurgents, rather than hating US ideals, are demonstrating the universality of freedom and liberty. They love those ideals which founded the US - and they are fighting an occupying power just as our founders did some two centuries ago.

Consider the state motto of New Hampshire, “live free or die” - it is a noble phrase, and yet in many ways, it is the rally cry of those moderate Iraqis who have joined with their enemies (and ours) to fight the US.