For many of us the thought of Vietnam brings back intense and painful memories. For several years we watched on television while the United States turned a small nation on the other side of the world into a slaughterhouse. We saw young Americans, sometimes people we knew, die by the thousands for no good reason, while thousands more were psychologically wounded by the horrible things they were ordered to do.
In our various, usually inadequate, ways we did what we could to try to stop the slaughter. Above all, we swore to ourselves that it would never happen again.
Eventually the killing of Vietnam did stop. And we did, for a while, keep it from happening again. Potential U.S. military interventions in the Angolan, Iranian, and Nicaraguan revolutions were severely limited by domestic opposition to such adventures. But now some of our leaders have seemingly forgotten Vietnam, while others are cynically rewriting its history. And it is all happening again, this time in El Salvador.
In recent months President Reagan has asked for an additional $110 million in 1983 military aid to El Salvador and waged a major propaganda campaign to appeal for its passage. In a personnel shakeup dubbed by the press the "Memorial Day massacre," Reagan fired U.S. Ambassador Deane Hinton and Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders for showing signs of softness on El Salvador. Hinton and Enders were replaced by men less likely to question the president's hard-line policies.
These developments point to one thing: the Reagan administration is prepared to take any steps it deems necessary to prop up the present government of El Salvador. When asked how far the administration will go in El Salvador, one top Reagan aide replied only, "We are not going to lose a country to communism on our watch." One trembles to think what might be forthcoming from an administration in which Thomas Enders, who coolly supervised the secret saturation bombing of Cambodia in 1970, is considered too liberal.
In the midst of their war fever, Reagan and his advisers still insist that El Salvador bears no resemblance to Vietnam. They seem to think that merely repeating the claim will make it so. But it is instructive to recall exactly how the U.S. got into Vietnam. It happened a little bit at a time. There was no declaration of war or any public decision to fight to the finish. There was only the vague notion that we could not "lose" Vietnam. Each month that commitment seemed to require more military aid, then more advisers, and then more troops. Nobody bothered to ask whether Vietnam was really ours to "lose" in the first place, until it was too late.
Recent weeks have resounded with echoes from 20 years ago. U.S. advisers are directing a "pacification" program in El Salvador's San Vicente province modeled directly on the ones carried out in Vietnam. U.S. troops are directing the Salvadoran army's strategy against the guerrillas. And the administration is lamely attempting to sidestep the deployment of more troops in El Salvador by opening a base in Honduras where 120 advisers, mostly Green Berets, will train 2,400 Salvadoran soldiers in the next six months.
In June, Salvadoran President Alvaro Magana, following in the footsteps of Diem, Ky, and Thieu, came to Washington to tell the American people that the defense of his government is the defense of Western democracy. But like the army of south Vietnam before them, El Salvador's soldiers display a puzzling lack of interest in defending their precious freedom. Of the crack troops trained in the United States two years ago, only 15 per cent are still in the service. The same is true for half of the Salvadoran officers trained here last year.
In the tradition of William Westmoreland and Curtis LeMay, the remarks of General E.C. Meyer, retiring army chief of staff, and Lieutenant General Wallace Nutting, commander of U.S. forces in Latin America, have recently filled the front pages. Like their predecessors, both men insist that we have not yet made the military commitment needed to stop communism. But they are sure that more aid will do the trick.
Meanwhile Congress seems willing to slow our descent into El Salvador, but not to stop it. Committee votes so far have granted Reagan part of his requested aid increases. The hikes have been coupled with conditions requiring progress toward a negotiated settlement. These will probably prove as effective as the farcical human rights certification process that is now being allowed to die.
Congress is waffling on El Salvador, despite the fact that a May 25 Washington Post-ABC News poll showed the public opposed to increased military aid by a three-to-one margin. The explanation offered by most observers is that the Democrats are afraid of facing the 1984 elections as the party that "lost" El Salvador,
Somewhere between the administration's anti-communist demagoguery and the Democrats' political calculations, the reality of life and death in El Salvador is getting lost. That reality is simple enough. El Salvador is becoming a nation of ghosts. More than 30,000 civilians have been killed by the government and the paramilitary death squads in the last three years, and more are dying every day. The auxiliary bishop of San Salvador recently remarked that if the war continues, "there will be no youth left" in El Salvador.
As with Vietnam, our government is incapable of understanding the history of exploitation and colonialism that has brought El Salvador to civil war. Blinded by Cold War presumptions, our leaders can't see that increasing U.S. military involvement in El Salvador will only prolong a senseless slaughter.
Only a movement of U.S. citizens prepared to oppose, obstruct, and refuse to cooperate with our government's war plans will stop the replaying of Vietnam's tragedy. So far the U.S. churches, out of solidarity with Christians in Central America, have been at the forefront of opposition to the U.S. war in El Salvador. As resistance and its costs escalate, the leadership role of the churches will become more important. As Christians we have a special obligation to remember the crucifixion of Vietnam and to make whatever sacrifices are called for to keep it from happening again.
Danny Duncan Collum is a contributing editor to Sojourners.
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