Title: The United States, Southeast Asia, and Historical Memory
Editors: Mark Pavlick, Caroline Luft
Publisher: Haymarket Books, 2019
This collection of essays, evidence and interviews represents a searing indictment of United States Cold War foreign policy in Southeast Asia, which arguably contributed to human rights violations against civilians. These violations became etched in the bitter, collective psyche of the region’s people. Central to this work is the accusation that Washington has committed international crimes (especially war crimes but also even more heinous international crimes) in its continued interventions in support of unpopular Southeast Asian regimes. The list of authors notably includes well-known progressives such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Richard Falk, and the late Fred Branfman. The book fits into the publisher Haymarket’s mission to achieve “social and economic justice” and build “a critical, engaged, international left (Haymarket Books).”
In the Introduction, Richard Falk states that the Indochina wars should have taught the United States government “to renounce war and aggressive war and regime-changing intervention (1).” He adds that there is a need for the United States to acknowledge and atone for the wrongs, born from the Cold War, which have been done to the people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Ultimately, he says, “Let this book serve as one small, yet genuine, beginning (4).”
In Chapter 1, Fred Branfman uses data on US bombing tonnage, bombing sorties, deaths, and injuries in Indochina to contend that Washington has been amply guilty of war crimes in Indochina. Such crimes, he says, are akin to those carried out by the Nazis for which Nazi leaders were executed following World War II (9). He adds that producing such war crimes became a matter of US policy (15). To regain moral standing and unity, America need 1) to seek truth in finding out how many people it killed or maimed in the Indochina wars; and 2) “admit responsibility, seek forgiveness, and make amends (17).”
In Chapter 3, Channapa Khamvongsa and Elaine Russell (who have directed NGO efforts against unexploded ordnance in Laos) describe the legacies of the US 1964-1973 bombing campaign over Laos. That operation saw 2.1 million tons of ordnance released which killed or injured thousands. But since 1973 unexploded ordnance (UXO) has killed/maimed thousands more Laotians while contaminating one-third of the country (23). The authors call for greater US acceptance of responsibility in UXO-related suffering in Laos and continued US funding in support of removing the UXO. They conclude that it is time for reconciliation between the US and Laos.
Chapter 4 looks at the effects of the defoliant Agent Orange in Vietnam. The author, Dr. Tuan Nguyen, an epidemiologist, looks at the results of exposure by millions of victims to these chemicals. The author states that Agent Orange contributed to the onset of numerous diseases. Several US operations were embarked upon in the spraying of the defoliant. From 1962 until 1971, there were 19,905 spraying missions. Among the consequences of Agent Orange were numerous birth defects. Questions remain as to whether the use of Agent Orange amounted to a form of chemical warfare. Also, the issue of US reparations to the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange has been raised. But as of 2023, Washington has yet to compensate any of them.
In Chapter 5, Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen contend that the 2003-2011 US intervention in Iraq was similar to that in Cambodia during 1965-1973 because Washington’s air war led to numerous casualties and helped the most radical revolutionary elements. Indeed, Washington’s brutal policies contributed to the revolution of the genocidal Khmer Rouge in 1975. Official disregard for the unethical disregard for mass civilian casualties “stem partly from failure to understand the social contexts of insurgencies (84).” The authors conclude that until the US learns from the mistakes of its immoral policies in Southeast Asian, it will not find security in the Middle East.
In Chapter 7, Clinton Fernandes focuses on US policy in Cold War Indonesia. He relates that following a failed military mutiny by progressive middle ranking officers, senior rightwing military officials led by General Suharto and backed by Washington asserted power. The military began to massacre suspected communists all over the country. The US Embassy allegedly compiled lists of these suspects and gave the military these lists. Washington supported Suharto, as it did other Southeast Asian tyrants, because he ensured Indonesia’s anti-Communist “subordinate roles in the global economy (118).”
Chapter 9, by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman considers US involvement in Vietnam during 1965-1972 as a carry-over of French and dictator Ngo Dien Diem’s efforts to brutally pacify the Vietnamese populace and also as a “deliberately imposed bloodbath (129).” South Korean and US forces together committed numerous massacres of civilians. Washington’s Operation Phoenix utilized torture and terror as a means of gaining intelligence. Finally, the authors imply that the reported massacre of civilians by North Vietnamese forces in Hue in 1968 was a form of US propaganda (165). Other accounts disagree (Jackson 1998).
In terms of strengths, this book importantly emphasizes the need for powerful countries such as the United States to give more priority to human rights past, present, and future. Indeed, in 2023, when the world seems to have forgotten past foreign military abuses in Southeast Asia, the book points to the need to build more resistance in global civil society to excessive warmaking and violations of international criminal law. As for drawbacks, though the book’s chapters were all commendable in calling for atonement by Washington, reconciliation, and opposition to bellicose US foreign policy in Southeast Asia, it at times appeared as an anti-US diatribe because it made no mention of the fact that opponents of the US in Southeast Asia (e.g., North Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union) may also have committed human rights violations. Nevertheless, the book valuably posits that the United States needs to thoroughly acknowledge the wrongs it committed against Southeast Asians during the Indochina wars, offering important case studies in support of this message. As such, it is an excellent read.
Reviewed by Paul Chambers
Paul Chambers is Lecturer and Special Advisor for International Affairs at the Center of ASEAN Community Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Naresuan University, Thailand
References
Haymarket Books, https://www.haymarketbooks.org/authors/936-haymarket-books#:~:text=Our%20mission%20is%20to%20publish,critical%2C%20engaged%2C%20international%20left.
Jackson, Gerard, “Hue: The Massacre the Left Wants us to Forget,” The New Australian, 16–22 February 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/19980527013135/http://www.newaus.com.au/news29b.html.