Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did

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Book is cool. Read it for class.Makes me want to play CCR everytime I read

This is a provocative, wise, and sophisticated, well researched analysis that reads like an essay. Baritz knew the dysfunctional soul of the empire and was able to expose it through careful and thoughtful inspection.At its best, Backfire is a learning opportunity for an entire nation... though it often seems as though that opportunity is being/has been squandered.

Backfire, by Loren BaritzThis book is not balanced or unbiased, and is full of the author's opinions, often unsupported, but it does contain some useful information. Readers who reject the notion of American exceptionalism or who strongly opposed America's involvement in Vietnam will like this book a lot. Younger people who did not live through the Vietnam War era and who have not read extensively about it should read this book with a very large grain of salt, not always trusting the opinions and constantly questioning the facts presented. In the preface, Baritz says "The time may come when enough scar tissue will have formed to permit a cooler detachment, but not yet, not for me. I also believe that passion is an appropriate response to war... The emotional involvement of the author may enlighten as well as distort." (page 15) The first 53 pages and the last 30 pages contain a lot of emotion and bias. The first chapter includes two atrocities committed by Americans, which illustrate the attitudes that Baritz believed to be common among American soldiers. It argues that all Americans were ignorant of Vietnam, that they did not feel the need to learn about Vietnam because they assumed that Vietnamese had about the same values and desires as Americans, that Americans wrongly see themselves as moral leaders of the world, Americans were over-confident in their technology and sophisticated weapons, and bureaucratic behaviors shaped events. The last chapter is cynical, pessimistic, and depressing. Baritz repeats the ideas about myths, technology, and bureaucracy, and discusses how they impact government, business and academia and how they related to the cold war conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in 1985. In between, there is a lower level of emotion and bias, and more factual narrative of events.You first sense the bias on the back cover of the paperback version. "'The first full-length and scholarly account of why we got into Vietnam in the first place, why we fought as barbarously as the Japanese in Manchuria or the Germans in Poland, and why we deserved to lose it - indeed why we did have to lose it if we were to find any kind of ultimate peace.' - Henry Steele Commager, Amherst College." I am trying to think what justifies this statement - Baritz does not say things like that in the book.In the first paragraph of Preface, 1998, Baritz says that Colin Powell "served two tours in Vietnam, first as a major in the Americal division and, long after Vietnam, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Bush administration." It is staggering, how wrong this statement is. On page 80 of My American Journey, Colin Powell writes that in 1963, on his first Vietnam tour "I was to serve as advisor to the four-hundred-man 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry Regiment, of the 1st Division." This was an Army of the Republic of Vietnam unit. The next 24 pages describe his experiences with the ARVN. On page 85 he says he was a captain on this first Vietnam tour, not a major. On pages 130-150, he describes his second tour of duty in Vietnam, which was with the 23d Infantry Division, known as the Americal. Baritz gives quotes from My American Journey, so there is the impression that he read it, but it is not possible to read this book and think that the Powell's first Vietnam tour was with the Americal division. It's hard to tell whether Baritz really meant to say what he said, or if he was just being sloppy.In the second paragraph of Preface, 1998, Baritz says "These [McNamara and Powell] and other memoirs center on our monumental ignorance of the enemy." I have not read McNamara's memoirs, but Powell's book does not center on this ignorance of the enemy. It has 22 chapters, and two of them are about Powell's time in Vietnam. These chapters mainly are a narrative of his experiences. At times, he is a bit cynical or critical of the tactics and strategy used to fight the war, but does not mention our knowledge or ignorance of the enemy. In the concluding pages of his chapter about his second Vietnam tour, he is philosophical in assessing the war. On page 147 he says "Given the terrain, the kind of war the NVA and VC were fighting, and the casualties they were willing to take, no defensible level of U.S. involvement would have been enough." "I recently reread Bernard Fall's book on Vietnam, Street Without Joy. Fall makes painfully clear that we had almost no understanding of what we had gotten ourselves into." This is the closest Powell comes to saying that we had a monumental ignorance of the enemy. Powell is describing many factors affecting our ability to win the war, and knowledge of the enemy is only one of them, and he does not center on it at all.On page 21, Chapter One, God's Country and American Know-How, Baritz gives two quotes of Gen Taylor and Gen Westmoreland, both stating that Americans valued human life more than the Vietnamese Communists did. Baritz calls this bigotry. This is a very subjective and disputable judgment. The North Vietnam Army had a popular and well-known slogan, "born in the North to die in the South." (The Battle of An Loc by James H. Willbanks, p 84.) That slogan, together with the willingness to both kill civilians and to accept their own casualties, indicate a low value of human life, without any need to attribute it to bigotry. Besides the name-calling, I seriously dispute his analysis: "This bigotry was a result of the Americans' ability to use technology to protect our own troops while the North Vietnamese, too poor to match our equipment, were forced to rely on people, their only resource. ... Nations fight with whatever they have; and, what we had was not enough to compensate for our cultural ignorance." This was not a war of necessity for North Vietnam. They could have accepted peace. They chose to kill civilians in South Vietnam and accepted the huge numbers deaths of their own troops in their effort to conquer South Vietnam. On page 248, Baritz returns to this theme: "But, being a poor country, not because they valued life less than the rest of the world, North Vietnam was forced to rely on manpower, not on technology which they did not have." Why "forced"? Could they not have chosen to stop sending their troops to the South?On page 26, Chapter One, Baritz quotes Herman Melville and John Winthrop (leader on the Mayflower). Winthrop said, as they were crossing the Atlantic, "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations [settlements], the Lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Then Baritz says "The myth of America as a city on a hill implies that America is a moral example to the rest of the world that will presumably keep its attention riveted on us. It means that we are a Chosen People, each of whom, because of God's favor and presence, can smite one hundred of our heathen enemies hip and thigh." Much of chapter one is an argument that Americans view America as the city on a hill, that it is a myth, and that it prevented American leaders from understanding Vietnam and kept them from making good decisions. Throughout the book, Baritz mentions the "city on a hill" phrase at least a dozen times, but never gives any indication that he has any idea of where the phrase comes from or what it was originally meant. It comes from the Bible, Matthew 5:14-16, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Baritz thought he was an expert on American myths, but he missed a lot on "city on a hill." The Christian church is a city on a hill. Winthrop was addressing the Christians on the Mayflower. Most Christians today would not embrace the idea that "ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies" because that part of the Winthrop quote is not Biblical. The real "city on a hill" problem is that sometimes American Christians do not properly distinguish between the church and the American nation. Baritz has a lot of confidence in his reader. He never disproves the idea of "city on a hill", he just describes it and assumes that his reader will agree that it is wrong.Baritz is totally opposed to the idea that America can give moral leadership to the world, that America is more moral than any other country. On page 30, he quotes Robert Kennedy, in 1968, "At stake is not simply the leadership of our party, and even our own country, it is our right to the moral leadership of this planet." Baritz says that Kennedy's staff was horrified by this language, and he says that it proved that the "city myth" was still alive and well.Baritz has an odd obsession for the religion of the politicians, if they are Protestant, and especially if they are Puritan or Presbyterian. On page 34, Woodrow Wilson is identified as the son of a Presbyterian minister. On page 37, he mentions "the peculiarities of American Protestant nationalism." On page 38 "This is the Protestant face of diplomacy and war." On page 75, "When he [John Foster Dulles] was in doubt he could always retreat for guidance to his Presbyterian pantry of moral sustenance." On page 78 we learn that Dulles' father was a Presbyterian minister. On page 132, quoting President Johnson, "'We should seek to turn the tide not only of battle but of belief,' a typically Protestant goal of American imperialism." On page 142 we learn that Dean Rusk's father was a Presbyterian minister. On page 291, regarding the rules of engagement, "The line beyond which an action would become a transgression was a matter of individual conscience, a Protestant formula." Baritz never quite says it, but the weight of the evidence seems to be that if it were not for the Puritans, Presbyterians, and Protestants, the United States would never have become involved in the Vietnam War.In Chapter Four, War By the Numbers, Baritz gives an increasing amount of opinion, all negative, about the American military and civilian leaders. He quotes Dave Palmer's West Point text book, "attrition is not a strategy," (page 67), but says nothing about Dave Palmer's fine book, Summons of the Trumpet, which explains that while attrition is not a strategy, President Johnson denied the use of any other strategy.General Westmoreland said that B-52 bombers only hit populated areas (civilians) two times. Baritz says that a B-52 miss of one thousand feet was usual (I agree), so they caused random civilian deaths. (page 165) You would think that Baritz would have evidence of this, but he does not. He simply asserts it. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. He seems to have no idea of how B-52s were used in Vietnam. The B-52 planners knew how accurate they were, and accounted for it. Sometimes B-52s were used to support troops in contact with the enemy, and it was necessary to know where the friendly troops were, and how accurate the B-52s could be expected to be. Dale Andrade's fine book, America's Last Vietnam Battle, shows how B-52 strikes were essential to the defense of An Loc and Kontum in 1972.The account of why the peace talks failed in October through December, 1972, is muddled. He suggests that Nixon did not want a peace agreement before the November election, "But then his popularity was rising in the opinion polls, and he began to wonder whether peace might not hurt him, whether the risk of peace was worth it." (page 219) "Mr. Nixon lied to the North Vietnamese to delay signing the peace treaty until after the election, and until the airlift of supplies to the South could complete the resupply." (page 219) This is not credible, not that much supplies can be airlifted in a month or two. Other accounts I have read, of the failure of the peace talks, have said that President Thieu rejected the agreement, or that the North Vietnamese inserted additional provisions into the Vietnamese language document. He quotes Porter, A Peace Denied, "Kissinger did not bother to cite Saigon's objections as the reason for requiring further negotiations," apparently referring to a televised speech Kissinger gave.I agree with what Baritz says on page 256 - the Air Force could have been more effective in South Vietnam, in the close air support role, with a fleet of propeller-driven fighters, rather than the F-4, F-100, and F-105 jet fighters. A propeller-driven fighter has more loiter time, and is generally more accurate. The Air Force actually could see this and chose the propeller-driven A-1E for the rescue mission. When a pilot or crewmember was on the ground in hostile territory, they wanted the most effective aircraft to provide support to the rescue helicopters. For the interdiction role in North Vietnam, jets were needed. After the war, the Air Force developed the A-10 for close air support. It is a jet, but it has the performance characteristics of a propeller-driven fighter - slower airspeeds, greater loiter time, and rugged armor.From page 259-271, it describes how the CIA lied about how many Viet Cong there were, always on the low side. It draws on several sources and seems to be reliable. In Chapter 7, The Warriors, it says that of the 2,700,000 men who served in Vietnam, more than 500,000 received less than honorable discharges. There is no footnote - we don't know where that number comes from. (page 287)For a more dispassionate, thorough, and balanced account of the Vietnam War, I recommend The Summons of the Trumpet by Dave Palmer.

Very good book. Not sure it could ever be out dated.

"Our power, complacency, rigidity, and ignorance have kept us from incorporating our Vietnam experience into the way we think about ourselves and the world." (p. 349) True when the book came out in '85, ten years after the fall of Saigon. True in 2013."[The North Vietnamese] believed they would win if they did not lose, if they could just hang on. The American war leaders believed they would lose if they did not win. Both sides were right. ...Time was always on the enemy's side. Benjamin Franklin taught us that time is money. As we spent billions, they spent years. They paid a higher price in lives. Their investment succeeded." (p. 281) True again in 2013. Afghaninam.Some other thought-provoking quotes:"America was involved in Vietnam for thirty years, but never understood the Vietnamese." (p. 19)"A child can learn by touching something hot. Can a nation?" (p. 7)"Ethics seemed to be a matter of distance and technology. You could never go wrong if you killed people at long range with sophisticated weapons." (p. 54) -Philip Caputo, a US marine platoon leader and one of the first in combat in Vietnam. Fast forward to drones."South Vietnam was an American invention, conceived by Dwight Eisenhower but delivered by John Kennedy." (p. 128)"It was as if LBJ's war slogan were We Shall Overwhelm. We used mass to compensate for the absence of brains, somewhat reminiscent of the dinosaurs." (p. 171)"A decision was made to cheat to maintain optimism. ...From the sworn depositions of [General Westmoreland's] own senior staff members--the military cooked the books." (p. 266)This book focuses on what happened only to the extent necessary to attempt to explain why it happened.

Excellent quality, price and service. Highly recommended.