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Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost

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Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost is an unflinching history of the United States involvement in the Vietnam war - America's motives, its cruelties, and why America ultimately failed to win the war, along with comparisons to the modern-day situation in Iraq. Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost takes especial pains to attack common American myths about the Vietnam War, particularly the idea that Americans were caught in the middle of a conflict between stable Vietnamese governments. In fact, America was propping up a horrendously incompetent, inefficient, and repressive puppet government that represented only a tiny part of the Vietnamese population - mostly its landholding elite. The South Vietnamese government further stirred up resentment among the majority of the population by overturning land reform, in effect demanding that peasants give up land and pay heavy back taxes to their former landlords. As a result, Ho Chi Minh and his North Vietnamese government had overwhelming popular support, which was only further intensified by American brutalities against Vietnamese civilians. A section of the American population recognized the injustices being perpetrated in the Vietnamese war, and actively worked to oppose it; and among the armed forces, resentment against the war expressed itself in ways ranging from absences without leave to incidents of "fragging" (maiming or murdering, often by means of a fragmentation grenade) unpopular officers. This trifecta is what ultimately brought victory to one of the world's poorest nations over one of the world's richest - but it was a victory with a high cost, as the effects of American poisons, defoliants, and the memory of American massacres linger to this day. "Now the big question: 'Is Iraq the next Vietnam?' The answer is that it could be. That will be determined by two forces: the Iraqi people and the American working class." Though not a politically neutral account, Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost is carefully researched and deserves a thorough examination especially in today's era when the lasting harm America did in Vietnam is all too easily forgotten... at least stateside.

Joe presents a history never discussed in mainstream accounts. Aside from demonstrating the major factors which combined to end the war, the book shows the importance of movements influencing and overlapping each other. This is clearly laid out in discussing the impact the civil rights and black power movements had on the nascent anti-war movement. Another important thread in the book is the often ignored account of how brutal the intervention was. The revelations on the staggering amount of ordinance dropped on the Vietnamese people underscores the degree of violence the U.S. ruling class resorts to when imperial interests are on the line.

In the struggle against the empire's current horrific occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the lessons laid out in "Vietnam: The (Last) War the US Lost" couldn't be more valuable. From fighting the endemic imperialist racism leading to My Lai and its modern counterpart Haditha, to linking social justice struggles to the enormous costs of the war, to supporting GI resistance in practice as well as principle. If there is any overarching lesson from the book, it is that an anti-war movement diminishes in the absence of an understanding of imperialism.

Joe Allen's brief summation of the U.S. war in Vietnam is an excellent and compact history of both the U.S. war of aggression, as well as the domestic revolution that occurred at home. With excellent precision and historical breadth Allen reviews the context of French colonialism in Vietnam, followed by the US' multiple attempts to reclaim the former colony, namely military funding and support, followed by an air invasion, followed by the full-scale deployment of troops. Allen traces the web of deceit that flowed from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, which culminated in the secret bombing of Cambodia. Allen demonstrates quite lucidly, how the war was stopped through a combination of resistance at home, NLF resistance, and GI resistance. There are excellent descriptions of the Black Power movement, as well as the rise of working class militancy in the 1970's. Allen demolishes the myth that opposition to the US war was primarily student/intellectual led, and demonstrates that opposition to the war was overwhelmingly led by the working classes. Perhaps the only thing that is missing in this account is an analysis of the economic considerations of US policy makers. Still, an excellent work of history.

I have 14 books in my library about the Vietnam war. I believe Joe Allen's book is the most accurate summary of the etiology of the war,"in country" events and what was happening stateside. I was not in the military, but I lived through and participated in much of what Joe so aptly describes. If this book had been published and was read by High School students circa 2000 perhaps there would have been a more substantial resistance to the Iraq debacle. I believe Iraq is the [next] war the U.S.lost.

Mr. Allen blames the U.S. intervention in the Vietnamese civil war on "U.S. imperialism." He writes, "The war in Vietnam teaches us that the United States must be put under tremendous pressure to turn away from its vital interests." The real tragedy of the U.S. intervention is that the was absolutely no "vital interest" for that intervention. In fact, the only time that the U.S.ever acted rationally was when it supplied the Viet Minh with arms and supplies for resisting the Japanese occupation in WWII.
While this book did provide some good historical info, I feel that I was written with too much of a socialist viewpoint. The anti-war movement was belaboured at tedius length, and important facts such as Ho Chi Minh's close relationship with U.S. generals during WWII are glossed over. I still reccomend this book.

Interesting socialist viewpoint of the Vietnam War. However in my view the Komintern and/or socialists of the world didn't have as much influence as Joe would have us believe.

This book was written by Joe Allen, a regular contributor to the International Socialist Review, and is only interesting as representing the viewpoint of Socialists and unrepentent Communists with regard to the greatest threat to world peace (as they see it), the United States. If you're an historian of the type that seeks representation from all sides, such as reading Mein Kampf to understand where Hitler was coming from, this book is valuable to see how facts, attitudes and intentions can be subverted, misstated or omitted to support a polemic for one side, and one side only.

The thrust of this book can be seen in several of the author's statements:

On page 203, "In 1965, the United States invaded (South Vietnam) to prevent the NLF from coming to power and reuniting the country that the United States had divided and conquered." This is false on three counts.

The dedication: "This book is dedicated to all .... who continue to suffer death and deformity as a result of America's use of weapons of mass destruction in Southeast Asia from 1960 to 1975." Since WMDs are usually limited in definition to Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons directed against mass populations (and do not include herbicides), one wonders what the author is talking about. In addition, the time period is wrong.

Page 91, commenting on the SNCC statement issued in 1966: "SNCC activitists were seen as heroes, not only to an entire generation of young people in the United States..." Really? Was there no support for the war at all among young people?

One of the more interesting facets of this book is that it includes some of the more extreme statements of Martin Luther King, Jr., that were downplayed or ignored in the post-1968 elevation of Rev. King to superhero status by the US media, a status that is not disputed by this reviewer. Nonetheless, the author makes use of MLK's most extreme statements, many not well-founded and some modified or adjusted to become less inflammatory by MLK himself almost immediately. The point is, that intemperate statements by national leaders taken out of context become used to condemn the US out of hand by its enemies.

Author Allen contends that the US lost the war due to the heroic resistance of the NLF (helped somewhat by North Vietnam), the brave rebellion of common soldiers within the US military which destroyed the fighting quality of US military forces, and the overwhelming political force of the anti-war movement and the sacrifices of its leaders. Obviously anyone doing his duty by serving his country (the US) was venal, cruel, and deserving of public contempt.

Supposedly this book dispells many myths concerning the war, but I was unable to discover any widely-held "myth" by the public that was actually refuted. There were a few strawman myths constructed to show how gullible the public was, but these are easily overlooked.

And lastly, there is a reason this book was published this year (2008). As one of the Haymarket editors says, "As the United States now faces a major defeat in its occupation of Iraq...." Apparently that defeat is fervently desired by the author, John Pilger (who wrote the Foreword) and the Haymarket organization.

With the main thrust being the necessity of defeating American Imperialism, I wonder if the author can point to any territory owned by the US today that it has obtained through imperialism or wars of conquest since World War I. In fact, we have lost territory, most notably the Philippines, but such facts fit poorly into the author's polemic. Instead he just continues to beat the drum: the US is racist, evil, imperialistic, undemocratic, and ready for the most extreme forms of class warfare. Sounds rather like Lenin's "What Is To Be Done."

But the book is clever with well-written propaganda, ignoring inconvenient truths, and concentrating on cherry-picking those events that can be spun to the author's liking, statements by various leaders that tend to support his points, and the ennobling of all those who tend to the left or far-left in the US. This book needs to be read by all, but understood for what it is -- the basis for the ultra-left in their condemnation of the US.

This is a very small book, but as the author states; "This book is not meant to be a substitute for reading many of the fine books by radical historians or memoirs of soldiers and activists..." The reader needs only to put the emphasis on the word "radical" and everything becomes apparent.