The View from Right Field

Guantanamo: A Battlefield

Reading James Taranto’s interview with Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of Joint Tank Force Guantanamo in The Wall Street Journal of September 16, 2006, made me think of T. R. Fehrenbach’s book, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness. (See "Books Worth Reading" in the left hand sidebar.) The interview discussed, among other things, the three detainees who killed themselves on June 10, 2006.

There was a huge outcry about the suicides at the time. The following excerpt from an editorial in The New York Times on June 12, 2006, is a good example of what was said:

"The news that three inmates at Guantanamo Bay hanged themselves ... was the inevitable result of creating a netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations, where men were to be held without any hope of decent treatment, impartial justice or, in so many cases, even eventual release. ... Admiral [Harry] Harris's response was as appalling as the suicides. ‘I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us,’ he said. The inmates, he said, ‘have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own.’ These comments reveal a profound disassociation from humanity."

Comments like these tend to demonstrate a distressing lack of historical context, which is why I bring up This Kind of War.

In chapters 35 and 36 of This Kind of War Fehrenbach tells the story of Koje-do, the island prisoner of war camp for North Korean and Chinese POWs. Initially, the United Nations forces did not do a good job of policing the camp. The POWs even took the commanding general hostage for a time. But the most interesting thing was how the North Koreans and Chinese POWs viewed the POW camp as just another battlefield in the war. Since Koje was an island, no escape would get the POWs back to their side. However, by planning a massive breakout and violent rampage, the POWs hoped to hand the UN forces a huge propaganda defeat.

And this is almost certainly what happened at Guantanamo. The detainees at Guantanamo could not try to escape. (Where would they go, Cuba?) However, they could still participate in the war al-Qaeda and others are fighting. As the North Korean and Chinese Communist POWs could aim for a propaganda victory by a massive breakout followed a violent rampage, the detainees at Guantanamo could aim for victories in the media by suicides that would bring criticism on their foes. Judging by comments in places and by people such as The New York Times, it appears they succeeded.

Books Worth Reading

Included, in a sidebar on the left, is a list of "Books Worth Reading." As with everything in this blog, and all blogs, the list is idiosyncratic. These are a few of my favorite books, many from a long time ago. Some are included as a sample of an author’s works or of a genre. Others are singular. I will, from time to time, write a short post on why a particular book is included.

"The 11 Days of Christmas"

Books about the Vietnam War generally focus on the Kennedy/Johnson years, basically the period up through the Tet Offensive and President Johnson’s decision to not run for reelection. This is unfortunate. By focusing on our failures, both general and military, during this time period, we fail to look at what really were some successes in the next four years. While one can learn from one’s failures, one can also learn from what works, especially when the latter follows the former. It is too late to change the failure of Vietnam, but by looking at our whole time there, perhaps we can learn some lessons that might be of use today.

There are not a lot of books on the military situation in Vietnam after Tet. The 11 Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle is one of them. It tells the story of the "Christmas bombing" that President Nixon ordered in December of 1972 when the Paris peace talks stalled. For the first time, B-52s were sent over Hanoi. The battle was, as the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, "a damned close-run thing." The United States prevailed, but just barely. The story of the men who flew the planes, the Air Force leaders who almost lost the battle, and the interaction of the military and the political leaders makes for a griping history.

Two other books worth reading are A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam by Lewis Sorley and America’s Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi’s 1972 Easter Offensive by Dale Andrade.

A Better War tells the story of the war after Tet, focusing on the changes in strategy implemented by General Creighton Abrams when he took over from General William Westmoreland in 1968. The book tells how Abrams’ changes in the conception and conduct of the war achieved different results.

Instead of Westmoreland’s search and destroy tactics and uncoordinated approach to pacification and helping the South Vietnamese armed forces, Abrams instituted a "one war" strategy with a single objective: security for South Vietnam’s villages and hamlets, while improving the South Vietnamese armed forces.

The successes this approach achieved makes one wonder what might have happened if Abrams’ ideas had been followed earlier. You also wonder to what extent the successes we achieved back then might give us some guidance for what we should be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Dale Andrade’s America’s Last Vietnam Battle tells the story of the biggest battle of the Vietnam War, the battle fought by American airpower, South Vietnamese troops and American advisers to stop Hanoi’s spring 1972 offensive. While ultimately it was U.S. airpower that made the difference, the bombers could not have won without the South Vietnamese troops on the ground. Though not as good as it could have been (or needed to be once the US totally withdrew), in 1972 it was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, along with its American advisers, that held An Loc and retook Quang Tri.

As A Better War raises the question of whether a different result might have happened if the U.S. followed a different operational strategy earlier, this book leaves one wondering what would have happened if the U.S. had not given up and abandoned its former South Vietnamese allies, refusing to provide even basic supplies when the North Vietnamese launched their offensive in 1975.

Even though the Vietnam War has been over for 30 years, there is much that can be learned from it. These three books give a good overview of the last years of the war and raise questions, the answers to which are relevant not only for what happened then but a guide for what may happen in the future.