W.J. Astore
A 52-Year-Old Letter Says Much About America’s Failed Wars
A friend sent along an old Time magazine from May 8th, 1972, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed perusing. Back in the 1970s, I had a subscription to Time, but my old copies were long ago consigned to the trash. Anyhow, in reading the “Letters” section, I came across a stunning missive written by Oriana Fallaci, an Italian war correspondent who wrote for Europeo Magazine.
Here’s what Ms. Fallaci had to say about the U.S. war effort in Vietnam:
As an Italian, as a longtime war correspondent in Viet Nam, as the author of a book on the Viet Nam War, I have to answer the sort of judgment made by the unnamed Rand Corp. analyst who said that the South could hold out against the North Vietnamese “unless the North Vietnamese are all Prussians and the South Vietnamese are all Italians.”
I assume that he refers to the fact that the Italian soldiers fought with total lack of enthusiasm during the second World War and particularly in its last phase. Yes, indeed they did. They showed the same lack of enthusiasm that the American soldiers have shown in Viet Nam. Many times, while following your GIs in combat, I have had the impression that I was seeing Italians and not Americans. Do you know why? Because both those Italians and those Americans were fighting a war they did not believe in, a war they were ashamed of.
She nails it. When you realize the war you’re fighting is a dishonest one, an unnecessary one, even one that is shameful, you generally don’t fight well. It doesn’t matter what nationality you are.
When and what was the last war U.S. troops truly believed in, one that they weren’t entirely ashamed of? I think you’d have to go back to World War II, and of course even then more than a few U.S. troops had their doubts, as citizen-soldiers of a democracy are wont to have, because there’s no such thing as a “good” war.
Anyhow, note as well how the prediction of that Rand Corporation “expert” proved wrong. Instead of South Vietnam holding out against the north, it folded fairly quickly three years later in 1975. I guess its soldiers all fought like Italians and those of North Vietnam all fought like Prussians.
Waging war is a horrible thing—especially when the war one is called on to wage is false and shameful. Ms. Fallaci knew that.
Bracing Views 
Great find in the archives, Bill and friend of Bill, and timely. The genocide in Gaza is the equivalent of the Vietnam war for young people in the U.S. And I believe that Ms. Fallaci’s analysis goes a long way to explaining why military recruitment in the U.S. is way, way down as the endless “war on terror” grinds on.
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While Ronald Reagan postulated that “Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong,” who can know what may have historically come to fruition had the U.S. remained the sole possessor of atomic weaponry.
Cannot absolute power corrupt absolutely?
After President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur as commander of the forces warring with North Korea — for the latter’s remarks about using many atomic bombs to promptly end the war — Americans’ approval-rating of the president dropped to 23 percent.
It was a record-breaking low, even lower than the worst approval-rating points of the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
Had it not been for the formidable international pressure on Truman (and perhaps his personal morality) to relieve MacArthur as commander, Truman may have eventually succumbed to domestic political pressure to allow MacArthur’s command to continue.
Today, it seems the U.S. still expects the international community to accept that an American presidency would never initiate a nuclear-weapons exchange. But how can that be known for sure, especially with U.S. foreign-policy history?
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The following is one the best books I have read. Sadly her views changed after 9/11 just like,Christopher Hitchens and William Shawcross.
https://archive.org/details/InterviewWithHistoryByOrianaFallaciInterviewArtEbook/mode/2up
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And for making war attractive from a financial standpoint, I just came across the following at The Lever…
“After receiving more than $3.8 million in 2024 campaign donations from political action committees and individuals associated with the military industry, members of the House committee overseeing Pentagon spending just inserted two provisions into an upcoming bill that would exempt many more private products and services from competitive pricing guidelines and provide contractors far more leeway in what they can charge the Defense Department.”
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Legalized bribery and corruption.
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CLIF9710: Do You have a link to that The Lever article. The link to the “upcoming bill” is the full text of “H.R. 8070—SERVICEMEMBER QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENT AND NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025.” all 344 pages of it. Thank You.
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Here is the link to the Lever article on it.
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Thankee. It looks like The Lever has a whole line of very interesting articles. Looking forward to exploring it.
ps: How do You embed a link into a WordPress Comment like You just did?
If there are instructions someplace on how to do that, they are well hidden.
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Just above where you type when you comment, there is a little icon that looks a bit like parentheses with a dash between.
First you highlight the text in your comment that you want to have people click on to go to your link. Then, with that text highlighted, you click on that icon just mentioned and it will open a panel with a place for you to paste in the URL that you want to send people to when they click on that blue text in your comment.
The Lever is David Sirota’s site. He is developing it all the time and adding staff. They really get things done and expose lots of things that need exposing. His motto is “rock the boat”
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Got it on linking. Thankee. And like i said: The Lever looks like a fine source for News and Views. Thank You again for sharing it on BV.
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