9/11 And The Vietnam Albtaross: The story of George Coker

America's engagement in Vietnam is a sordid saga of venality and war crimes. It was an age and time that makes current partisan discord look like exemplary brotherhood. The civil rights struggle, the anti-war movement, military drafts, a president assassinated, the air thick with conspiracy tales, America was a cauldron. When many rushed to scold US on 9/11 with a thinly disguised criticism of its foreign policy what drove most were the memories of Vietnam, especially of a little girl running naked, screaming, when her village was napalmed. 

Nothing has weighed heavily on US foreign policy as Vietnam. The nation's psyche was wounded for decades. US never again got into a full fledged war until the Gulf War of 1991. In fact Saddam had calculated that America with its aversion to seeing soldiers return in body bags would not venture into a war. That US had scurried out of Somalia in between Vietnam and Gulf War emboldened not just Saddam but Osama too.

Robert McNamara, LBJ, Nixon are the three most culpable individuals in what turned out to be America's shame ranked probably only next to the original sin of slavery. That they were not indicted as war criminals is not indicative of any exclusive power of America but symptomatic of how weak the world bodies are in prosecuting any such person. If those deserved to be prosecuted they should very well be along with so many others.

While most of the above is common knowledge what is less known is how America got dragged into this body quagmire. Eminent historian and two time Pulitzer winner Barbara Tuchman, author of bestseller 'Guns of August', traces how America slid into this mess that was not of its making in 'The March of Folly". During the days of World War II the Allies had an uneasy relationship which on some counts was even blatantly hypocritical. Churchill was calling for the defense of liberty while he jailed Gandhi and declared that he had not become "his majesty's first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British empire". De Gaulle while mourning the loss of France and yearning to be its leader again was clear that France will remain a colonial power. Stalin, as historian Robert Conquest labeled him, was the 'breaker of nations'. The least guilty in this was US led by FDR. FDR would plead with all three, Churchill, Stalin and De Gaulle to be fair to nations in their post war plans.

What is now known as Vietnam used to be Indo-China. It was the playground of the French, the Japanese and Chinese. The French ruled Vietnam with an iron fist and in true colonial fashion. Try watching the movie "Battle of Algiers" to get a sample. With Ho-Chi-Minh in saddle North Vietnam slid into the deadly embrace of communism. In a conflict that drew a wide array of nations and competing agendas Vietnam became America's "Bloodland", to adopt the phrase of a historian. America went headlong into Vietnam when the French sowed chaos and sought to exit out. With the passage of time what remains in most  people memory is only the carnage that US left behind and that is married to notions of a superpower trying to bludgeon a country of bicycle riders under the pretext of saving them from Communist stranglehold.

If one traces the role of countries in Vietnam its mindblogging to separate friend from foe. In what is characteristic of wars at various junctures both US and China had allied with the murderous regime of Khmer Rouge in the background of the Vietnam war.

With such stories to be told Hollywood was not far away. The anti-war movie "Hearts and Minds" was highly critical of US policy in Vietnam. A scene featured a Vietnam veteran,  George Coker, saying "If it wasn't for the people, it was very pretty. The people there are very backwards and primitive and they make mess out of everything". The movie in Hollywood style omitted to mention who Coker was. Wikipedia notes aptly that this was a propaganda movie. Not surprisingly it garnered an Academy Award. What the movie omitted was George Coker has been prisoner of war in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton". Coker had suffered inhuman torture that would make water boarding and Guantanamo look like five star facilities. Wikipedia details:

"While in a facility on the outskirts of Hanoi known as "The Zoo", he was forced to endure a torture called "the wall", in which he, as well as other prisoners, was forced to stand facing a wall in his cell with his hands above his head from the time a gong sounded at 5:30 in the morning until it sounded again at 10:00 at night. After two weeks, the knee injury he suffered when he ejected had worsened, and he was taken to a hospital where the infection was drained. After a two day respite while he recuperated, "the wall" torture continued for two more months. Coker called this "probably my worst experience in Vietnam".^[1

Another Prisoner of War who was famously incapacitated due to torture in Vietnam is Arizona Senator and former GOP Presidential candidate John McCain. While critics of US foreign policy breathlessly recount tales of My Lai and napalming of villages the narrative becomes too stilted and blatant propaganda when it completely ignores the brutal realities of tortures by Vietnamese.

In what can be the very epitome of irony today US and Vietnam are close allies. John McCain and Hillary Clinton have visited Vietnam. Vietnam is a major outsourcing hub for software. Ultimately it was the market that triumphed. The victorious North Vietnam gobbled the south and the united country plunged into socialist abyss until recent times. The US failed to save South Vietnam unlike South Korea. South Korea under American tutelage (or hegemony as the critics remind us) became an economic power house. TOday South Koreans, thanks to American soldiers still dying in the DMZ ( I met a veteran wounded recently in South Korea), enjoy a free society that they can organize marches decrying US hegemony. The icing on the Vietnam-US detente is Vietnam requesting US help to stave of Chinese threat in the seas, New York Times, reports, quoting Nguyen Manh Hung, director of the Indochina Institute at George Mason University in Virginia, "Vietnam worries about Chinese in the South China Sea and America worries about interference in freedom of navigation,” Mr. Hung said. “Because of this, the strategic interests of Vietnam and the United States converge.”


The more and more I read on US foreign policy the angrier I get at the shibboleth of citing US foreign policy as reason for 9/11. That girl running naked with burning skin from a Napalm attack had more reason to be angry at US than the polygamist turned fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden and his thugs ever had. China, Japan, all of Western Europe, Philippines, India, Simgapore, Vietnam, South Korea are all beneficiaries of US economic policies and many owe their prosperity to US. It was US leadership, or hegemony, that saved Western Europe from Stalin. Communism laid waste continents and impoverished millions and it was US to the rescue almost always. What prompted Bin Laden was not any articulation of high liberal principles but sheer religious fundamentalism that was unique in that region. After the July 2004 London subway bombings Granta magazine ran an issue titled "the rise of British Jihad". That and about the apologists for terrorism in my next blog.

Road to 9/11: Harold Pinter's Anti-Americanism

On September 11th 2001 while America mourned several parts of the world mourned and in the same breath muttered "you had it coming". Sujatha wrote that the days USA's "gun boat diplomacy" are over and like a good father sent his son to USA to live and become, I guess, an American citizen. Aijaz Ahmed, living in USA, writing for Frontline divined that the 19 hijackers were thinking of the so many past injustices of USA.

When people complain of US foreign policy I hear the usual litany starting with Vietnam meandering through the past as far their erudition goes, perhaps the coup Teddy Roosevelt engineered to build the Panama Canal, to every present day conflict weaving an ugly tapestry of a hegemony run amuck. Yes, as in Vietnam, there are very justifiable blemishes on US foreign policy. No country in history with the economic and military size of USA could have an unsullied record. But to place America in the company of Nazi Germany or malign the US army like they were murderous blood lusty terrorists alone only betrays the pathological hatred of such opinion holders.

In spring of 2002, while the fires were barely put out and WTC was just mangled steel with 2500+ bodies still buried, Granta magazine asked eminent intellectuals across the globe to share their thoughts for an issue titled "What We Think of America". Orhan Pamuk, Ramachandra Guha, Amit Chaudhuri and many more including Harold Pinter.

Orhan Pamuk and Harold Pinter, both Nobel Laureates, perfectly bookend the range of emotions most feel about America. Pamuk, coming from Turkey, has a gentle portrait of USA told through a story of his childhood involving an American boy. Pinter's essay was an address he delivered On Sep 10th 2001, a day before 9/11. Pinter said the address is still relevant. Pinter eviscerates USA for the NATO bombing of Serbian forces of Milosevic. Pinter called the USA a 'rogue state', 'a fully fledged, award-winning gold plated monster...it knows only one language-bombs and death". Doris Lessing, another Nobel Laureate, wrote a meandering piece, "America, it seems to me,has as little resistance to an idea or a mass emption as isolated communities have to measles and whooping cough".

Harold Pinter scolded the USA for the NATO bombings in Bosnia and went on to organize funds for Slobodan Milosevic, need I add a word after that. Doris Lessing was a communist, a typical worshipper from afar who never lived under communism.

It is this 'gold plated monster' that sent thousands to the beaches of Normandy. Flagging off the D-Day landings Eisenhower said "half of them will not come back alive". America, Lessing says, allows ideas and emotions to wash over with little resistance like a populace stricken by measles. Sure, is that why America put its money and men defending Western Europe and her own beloved England. Referring to FDR's 'lend lease program' to England, Presidential historian Robert Dallek, chuckled, "what lend lease, there was no collateral to be lent against. FDR basically hoodwinked the people and supplied Churchill". Lessing jeers that Americans have short memories. She with a long memory forgot that US had to be dragged into both World Wars. It is a matter of conjecture that had US entered, what was seen as European conflict, earlier in WW-II much loss of life could have been stopped.

Torn between two wars, a terrorist attack that reshaped the psyche of a country and an economic recession, it was only USA that rushed its C-14 helicopters across the globe to save the thousands battling for life in Tsunami stricken Banda Aceh in Thailand. Note, there was no oil or any strategic advantage in Banda Aceh.

George W. Bush hiked the aid given to Africa to combat AIDS. A 2006 Washington Post article says he tripled the aid. Bill Clinton, through his 'Clinton Global Initiative', has negotiated with drug companies to supply AIDS drugs at a fraction of their prices. Why should American companies sacrifice their hard earned profits?

"Black Hawk Down" is a famous blockbuster that portrayed the infamous incident in Somalia. UN aid to famine stricken impoverished Somalis was being hijacked by war lords. US decided to take out one notorious war lord and the ensuing scuffle was absolute humiliation. The black hawk helicopter was shot down, the soldiers were killed and their bodies were dragged in the streets. This is the incident that is said to have crystallized Osama's vision that America could be hit. 1993 America was a different place. Cold War was won. NASDAQ and DOW soared, American economy was overheated. Clinton was battling for re-election. America was in no mood for war in a war ravaged Africa which had nothing to offer. Today millions of children face near certain death in Somalia due to continued famine.

When Russia imploded after the failed coup by the hardliners again it was America that rushed in to prevent USSR from self-incinerating. Yet again during a recession precious money was funneled to USSR to secure the nuclear war heads. David Hoffman, Pulitzer winner for his portrayal of Cold War arms legacy in 'Dead Hand', writes scathingly 'not one of USSR nuclear facilities met Western standards".

The Marshall Plan, Reagan's "Mr Gorbachev bring this wall down", Nunn_lugar aid for USSR, saving South Korea, rebuilding Japan, rebuilding Western Europe, saving millions in Bosnia and much more was all America.

Indira Gandhi came running to LBJ for wheat to feed India. USSR too, depended on US for food. Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat could not feed itself. Well after the bloody collectivization drives in Ukraine and killing millions of Kulaks it was the Yankees to the rescue. By the way but for US Zhou-En-Lai would have marched to Delhi and given a Bhai-Bhai lesson to Nehru.

Ask anybody today, including most Americans, who started the Vietnam war. The answer would be America. Truth, of course is different. America was dragged into it by France and brought itself great shame by its conduct. However here too a wrinkle is often ignored. We only hear how USA napalmed villages. We never hear how American GI's were brutally tortured by Viet-Cong, torture that makes Abhu-Ghraib, however shameful, look like picnic. Google the words "Hanoi Hilton". I'll blog on this separately.

Every international institution owes its independence (however arguably) and robustness to American taxpayer money. USA pays more than 60% of UN's bills. No other country comes close. IMF and World Bank, both born out of US leadership, have saved millions across the world, unarguably unless  you are a bleeding heart liberal and a closet communist.

Hearing criticisms of inciting a coup in order to build Panama Canal Teddy Roosevelt reminded his critics that the coup he  incited were only 51st in a steady stream of coups. The canal helped world trade for 100+ years and was recently turned over to Panama. For over 200 years it was dream and TR, in what would be the 'American Century', turned it to reality. Of course one could argue over the morals of the coup. What would miss the point is that coups were par for the course and TR's coup, not entirely engineered by him but only aiding what was already underway, helped world trade and millions.

The Granta issue highlighted a critical dichotomy. Those from erstwhile communist countries were more sympathetic to USA than those from well heeled western democracies. Only a pathological hater like Pinter could call NATO bombings as evil and fund raise for Milosevic. He and others like him are beyond the pale of reason.

An American GI was distributing sweets to children in a street side in Iraq. They were ambushed in a terrorist attack. When Time magazine interviewed an insurgent and referred to the incident asking "what about the many children", the insurgent replied "Allah will understand, we had to get that one soldier". To equate both is not just fallacious reasoning but a very facetious reasoning.

So was really US foreign policy the angering element in fashioning the ghastly attacks? Osama had zero interest in anything as remote as articulating an alternate world vision or in standing up for some high liberty. He launched a religious attack, pure and simple. One can keep papering over it but thats what it is. One crude question to puncture the logic would be this:"If US foreign policy begets terrorism then how come it was not the Vietnamese or Filippino's or Grenadans or Haitians or heck even Panamanians or Cubans, why was it only the Saudis?". A peek into Osama's persona and his evolution into a jihadist is for another day.

Road to 9/11: Hamburg and the Patriot Act

As I wrote earlier 9-11 was just a murderous attack by fundamentalists and their supposed causes were nothing but fig leaves to disguise a murderous ideology. Not many realize that the attacks themselves were made possible by the freedom's enjoyed by the murderers in USA.

Terrorists used the freedoms of US and other western countries to hurt us. To be blunt, a 9/11 kind of attack was possible only in USA, a July 2004 attack was possible in UK. Neither of these would have been possible in xenophobic, illiberal regimes across the middle east from which the attackers mushroomed. Only in USA protected by freedoms given to all who are in its soil could the thugs execute such a dastardly act.

The 9/11 plotters were drawn from a group that is now referred as the "Hamburg Cell". Why did they choose Hamburg? Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer awarded and well researched book "The Looming Tower", provides a stunning insight. Germany in it is desire to redeem itself for the Nazi era excesses of curbing freedoms lurched to the other extreme. Hamburg, Wright says, became a sanctuary city, "Acknowledged terrorist grouse were allowed to operate legally, raising money and recruits-but only if they were foreign terrorists, not domestic. It was not even against the law to plan a terrorist operation so long as the attack took place outside the country".

A phrase that became famous in the aftermath of a colossal failure of US intelligence community was the "failure to connect the dots". To use a word that is common place today, there was too much "chatter" after the U.S.S.Cole attack. Today on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 NYC and DC are on heightened alert due to "chatter". Americans were infuriated to learn that CIA and FBI had so many clues. A very famous memo was the one given to Bush in August outlining exactly Osama Bin Laden's resolve to strike USA. Little mention is made of the fact that US laws prohibited sharing of information across agencies and even within agencies.

Wright says that FBI took Rule 6E - of the Federal Rules of Criminal procedure- as absolute. Rule 6E prohibits revealing any information arising from a grand jury testimony. Added to that was a new Justice Department policy in 1995, Clinton era, "that regulated exchange of information between agents and criminal prosecutors, but not among agents themselves". Wright says that FBI took it as holy writ to mean no exchange of information. The CIA too in turn had its own self imposed barriers on sharing information with FBI agents.

When I came to USA in 1998 all that I needed to get a driver license in USA was my social security number and proof of residence. I got a drivers license that was in no way different from a US citizen though I was on H1B. The drivers license renewal date was beyond my H1B visa date. In fact my immigration status was not even inquired about. In US other than for international travel nobody uses a passport for anything. Waving a drivers license for a curb side check in was routine. A driver license, as government issued ID was on par to a passport giving access to many things. Airlines would not share information on passengers to FBI that easily. The drivers licenses were not even tamper proof. my NJ license just had a photo stuck on a card and laminated. Post 9-11 all that changed. Patriot Act and its concomitant sentiments changed it all.

The cost of 9-11 operation to Bin Laden is estimated at $500,000. Half a million dollars!!! That's it. How as money funneled to the conspirators? Some through Hawala some through very legitimate means. Banks would not ask about immigration status for opening accounts, invasion of rights!! It was easy to open accounts with little and sometimes no information. Patriot Act put a stop to that. I work for a major retail bank in US and I've seen the transitions. Again not many know that as a country that welcomes immigrants by the thousands these supposedly lax procedures have made life easy during the initial struggling days for immigrants. Also those, now extinct, freedoms to open an account easily was good for many illegal immigrants from Mexico who come to US, though illegally, only to make an honest living and for the sake of their families.

When the Radia tapes were released most Indians were interested only in the gossip. Nobody, at least not most, batted an eyelid that a government department was eavesdropping on telephones used by people who posed zero threat to the government and as yet no case was made against them. Its impossible to do that in USA. Even if its done such evidence will be thrown out of the court. Obama, as candidate and as President, has repeatedly renewed the FISA act that governs wiretaps.

Americans, especially pre-9/11, are a very open and trusting people. States like NY, NJ, VA, CA and FL, with heavy immigration, are very accepting and hospitable to immigrants. When would-be hijackers told flight instructors that they did not need to learn how to land nobody's radar went up. As recently as 2009 political correctness prevented timely action in preventing a massacre. The Fort Hood Texas shooting suspect (he is no suspect actually, it is him) Nidal Malik was an American born Muslim who served as psychiatrist. Post 9-11 there were many warning bells about him. Political correctness trumped any attempt to dismiss or take any action. The result was a ghastly day that left 13 innocent men dead. This from a guy who was treated honorably as a citizen without any discrimination.

Lawrence Wright who interviewed hundreds to write his book and is very well aware of how rotten the real world nevertheless is uncomfortable in how US is balancing liberty and security. In his column he wonders, "is this the country we want to be". While I understand his concerns I am perplexed at what kind of policy prescriptions are available to combat this hydra headed monster.

America cherishes freedom of  opinion like anything. One could say the most despicable stuff and still strut about safely protected by the First Amendment. Pre-9-11 another issue tested the limits of free speech. Instances of hate crimes against homosexuals brought attention to what came to be labeled as 'hate speech'. US courts have ruled that hate speech is not free speech. However the bar is set pretty high. This problem reached its acuity in the July 2004 bombings in London. Mosques in an around London indulged in unbridled hate speech calling for Jihad against England by its own citizens who have enjoyed liberties not given to anybody in lands from which they came from.

Barack Obama, who sailed to the US Presidency on the power of rhetoric, recognizes what a potent weapon speech is. Nidal Malik was radicalized by listening to YouTube videos of Anwar Al Awlaki. Obama has issued an unprecedented kill order against Awlaki, a US citizen residing in Somalia. Ever since the botched CIA attempts on Fidel Castro, overt and not-so-overt, Congress has passed laws prohibiting the US President from issuing such orders. The Obama administration made out a case that Awlaki, by virtue of his preachings, is an imminent threat to US national security. Again, an act made possible, only in the backdrop of the Patriot Act.

Yes its easy to quote Ben Franklin who said "people who sacrifice a little liberty to secure a little security deserve neither". Ben Franklin would not have imagined the savagery of Al Qaeda. Ben Franklin or Jefferson could not imagine, with all their erudition, the vicious rationalizations of Qaeda. Who can understand  the murderous sophistry behind 'takfeer', declaring ones own coreligionists with whom one disagrees, as "un-Islamic" and hence OK enough to be killed?

America is a very dynamic and resilient country. We shall find our balance in due course. A recent PEW global survey reports that most American Muslims feel good about being in USA post-9/11 despite the harsh light that shone on the community as a whole.

American foreign policy is blamed for 9-11 by its apologists. Anybody who starts of condemning the attacks and then adds "but" to tag on their own prejudices against America is an apologist for terrorism. Let us not forget that Bush came to office vowing to pursue a more humble and withdrawn role, especially, militarily. Al Pacino, the aging Godfather who yearns to get out of the mafia business would get drawn back in after an attack on him. Pacino would curse "just when I want to get out, they pull me back right in".

As for those who continue to beat USA with the Vietnam stick, the napalm bombings and of course Palestine etc, I can only say, "none of the 19 hijackers were from Vietnam or Palestine". USA today shares a very good relationship with Vietnam.

On this day, the 10th anniversary of 9-11, a word of tribute to US armed forces. From the beaches of Normandy to Tsunami stricken Banda Aceh to the sands of Libya its US Army that often stands as a force for good. In human history if any army had the record of US Army, its blemishes and My-Lai notwithstanding, they can be proud.

Turkey and the EU : To admit or deny

The EU is wise not to admit Turkey yet. When Mr Obama suggested that Turkey should be admitted into the EU he was deservedly snubbed by France and Germany that the EU will decide whom to admit into the EU. The chief contention of EU is that Turkey is not a liberal democracy like the western counterparts. The EU is very duly concerned about freedom of religion and freedom of expression. The flashpoint was the Danish cartoon controversy when the Islamic world erupted in unseemly violent protests that crossed all lines of legitimate protest.

The Islamic world simply could not understand that freedom of expression involves freedom to offend, especially ethnic and religious sensibilities. New Yorkers are used to seeing art galleries show casing a portrait of a crucifix in a jar of urine or Mary splashed with dung. A telling example was the double standards of Time-Warner group. When the Pope protested against a certain depiction of the cross, Time printed it duly, no disclaimers etc. They took for granted that Time readers, especially the Christian ones, should understand that they are just showing the photo in the context of news. When the Dutch cartoon story broke and half a world burned CNN piously declared "out of respect for Islam we are not showing the cartoon". I am sure their respect was borne more out of fear than out of theology.

Turkey did not want to agree to Danish PM become chairman of the EU for what one of his citizenry did.

That apart, the issue of Turkey's intransigence on recognizing the Armenian genocide is another instance. Germany, is no saint on race relations as anybody would know. It is easier to deny Holocaust in US or Australia but in Germany its a punishable crime. That is their atonement for the horrendous crime they inflicted on man kind. In Turkey its the exact opposite, its a punishable crime to ackowledge the Armenian genocide. They do not even accept that it is "genocide". Even a much respected Nobel Laureate like Orhan Pamuk had to face a national wrath for calling the massacre of millions of Armenians as genocide.

Embracing Turkey just to set an example of the West embracing an Islamic country is nothing but appeasement. Let them earn their place at their table. If that sounds like snobbery its not bad. Better to live with a snob than a fundamentalist.