A Pilgrim’s Digression

From President Bush’s speech yesterday:

“In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called ‘The Quiet American.’ It was set in Saigon and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: ‘I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.’

“After America entered the Vietnam War, Graham Greene — the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. Matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.”

There are many things I find confusing about the President’s speech yesterday, not least of which is the above-quoted literary reference.  In some ways, as other bloggers have pointed out, the description of Pyle as a man whose good motives result only in disaster could be used by Bush’s detractors to describe the President himself.

Further, it is unclear whether the President was using Greene to support his argument that America should stay in Iraq, or whether he means to offer a critique Greene.  The critique seems most likely.  One cannot imagine the President staying up late, poring over his natty copy of The Quiet American, underlining important passages and scribbling notes in the margins.  Thus the literary critique must be the work of his script writers.

And it is not even a purely literary critique, since the President attributes to Greene a purportedly “naive” political viewpoint–that Indochina would have been better off without any American involvement–that Bush can then attribute to current foes of the war in Iraq.

Every blogger today is writing about the lessons the President should have learned from Vietnam (or from Graham Greene), and it seems to me they miss the point.  He doesn’t care to learn anything.  Nothing means anything to this administration.  I would even question whether any politician can see beyond his or her own shortsighted political goals.  Most politicians have no deeper understanding of ideas and events than can be gleaned from a Cliffs Notes version of a classic novel.  The value of history or literature is completely lost to men and women who look upon both merely as tools of manipulation to achieve certain rhetorical goals.

It’s depressing to expend brain power trying to parse and understand a speech meant only to manipulate, not inform or genuinely persuade.  Any perusal of the papers today will provide ample rebuttal to the President’s conclusions.

Dan Froomkin quotes Anthony Cordesman: ”

“This was history written by speechwriters without regard to history.  And I think most military historians will find it painful. . . . because in basic historical terms the president misstated what happened in Vietnam.’ . . .”

Cordesman noted that human tragedies similar to those that occurred in the aftermath of U.S. involvement in Vietnam already have taken place in Iraq.

“We are already talking about a country where the impact of our invasion has driven 2 million people out of the country, will likely drive out 2 million more, has reduced 8 million people to dire poverty, has killed 100,000 people and wounded 100,000 more.  One sits sort of in awe at the lack of historical comparability.”

How sad it is that more than thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, an American President would trot out this old chimaera that if we had only stayed longer, we could have won.  Sadder still that he brings forth this tired trope not in the dry, unemotional context of a history lesson, but in order to encourage support of another war that has brought only tragedy to thousands of families.  We do not learn from history.  Personally, I think we are  somehow physically resistant to learning from history.  How else to explain the frequency of our blunders?  Since, in a sense we make and remake history in our own image, or rather in an image of how we want to view ourselves (think of the movie 300), there can be no learning.  We view history in the same way the narcissist views himself and the world around him: in a mirror.

In the final analysis, even as controversial as it is I don’t think the speech will be considered a masterpiece of historical analysis.  It was never intended to be.  It is a classic example of Karl Rovian politicking–and who can doubt he must have had a hand in the speech’s composition, before leaving his post?  A classic Rove strategy is to take a politicians’ perceived weakness and turn it into a strength, and vice versa for a candidate’s opponents.  Thus John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, is made to be a coward, while the President, whose National Guard service was at the time under scrutiny, goes to speak before adoring groups of Guardsmen.

So here as well: the Vietnam analogy has always been a sore spot for an administration that would rather that its war be compared to World War II.  So, why not turn the tables.  Use the Vietnam analogy to our benefit.  One can almost imagine Rove grinning that shit-eating grin and thinking to himself, “That’ll really drive the liberals nuts!”

Well, congratulations on your success, Mr. Rove.