Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

David Halberstam achieved his enduring mark in the perceptive way that he successfully analyzed the Vietnam War and presented the blunt truth to the American people and the world at a time when President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and so many others in the highest echelons of power insisted that South Vietnam be preserved from Communism.

That concern was symbolized in the frequently mentioned domino effect.  The theory was that if the symbolic domino represented by South Vietnam fell to the Communists that a ripple effect would occur throughout the rest of Asia as one by one nations fell and soon Communism would hold iron grip control of the continent.  

Belief in the domino effect did not fall into the exclusive province of the Republican right.  In California, for instance, liberal African American television commentator Louis Lomax was a strong believer in the domino effect, as was then California Controller Alan Cranston, who was seeking to become a U.S. Senator in 1964 and would ultimately be elected four years later with a different stance on the Vietnam War.

Halberstam made the difference in the case of many Democrats like future Senator Alan Cranston of California with his brilliant and courageous battlefield reports.  He won a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts and, along with Neil Sheehan, emerged as the leading voice of reason within the print media in prompting Americans to look at the total picture and observe what a tragic mistake America was making in Vietnam.

The soul searching of David Halberstam, who admitted in a poignant moment while being interviewed by William F. Buckley on the latter's "Firing Line" PBS television program that had had first believed in the necessity of America fighting in Vietnam and ultimately prevailing, that seeing the conflict firsthand and interviewing individuals on the scene had prompted him to change his mind.

Think of how many lives would have been saved on both sides had the wisdom of David Halberstam been acknowledged from the outset.  He learned the important lesson of limitations of power within expansive empires from the Vietnam War.

Unlike the computer terminal, tough talking sideline warriors of the Cheney-Bush neocon regime, who are determined to learn nothing from the Vietnam War, Halberstam saw parallels between the destructive tragedies of the earlier Asian conflict and the current Iraq War.

The announcement of a new campaign by Bush is so reminiscent to those familiar with the Vietnam War of the numerous campaigns launched by General William Westmoreland.  As a new campaign would be launched the familiar phrase of the war constantly repeated by those in the Hawk camp would be uttered, "The light is at the end of the tunnel."

That phrase is so representative of Vietnam and its ultimate impact on America's heart and soul.  While Bush is fearful of uttering those same words due to the Vietnam connection with that phrase.  The conduct pattern, however, has been eerily similar.

David Halberstam recognized that connection between Vietnam and the Iraq War and made his beliefs known.  He realized that neither Vietnamese nor Arabs desired to have American forces seek to occupy them.  

"The Best and the Brightest" was Halberstam's celebrated book and has enduring significance within America's persona.  

Halberstam cleverly revealed how bureaucrats who had adorned the halls of the nation's most celebrated institutions and who sometimes chalked up high scores on achievement tests, as Robert McNamara was so delighted to tell people concerning himself, entered the realm of global politics and made a staggering series of what in the sports world would be called rookie errors.

Halberstam was the writer who called our attention to the tragic fact that the sons of Harvard and Yale sent the sons of Watts and East Los Angeles to war.  This troubled Halberstam as it troubled so many of us.  

Halberstam's writings helped influence Senator Robert Kennedy to undertake his final idealistic campaign before he was tragically assassinated, his quest for the presidency in 1968 where he sought to undue the tragic injustices and unrest that were tearing America apart.

We have seen a steady pattern through the years where the right has seen to endow only those of comparable ideological underpinnings with the term of patriot.  No one in the progressive camp need be considered.  

A contingent of neocons markedly devoid of military service can be accorded patriot's honors for sending young Americans to war while individuals who seek to prevent loss of life and put the course of world events in a more rational global perspective have their loyalties impugned, as occurred with Halberstam by Robert McNamara and others.

David Halberstam sought to avoid unwarranted loss of lives in Vietnam.  Had he been listened to from the outset so many lives on both sides of the conflict could have been spared.  For that I call Halberstam a true patriot.  

To tell the necessary truth to your fellow citizens encompasses a noble act of patriotism.  David Halberstam deserves to be saluted for that achievement.  We shall sorely miss him.