Our Own Worst Enemy [antikvár]

1 Not long ago I returned from my thirty-fourth trip to Asia and my ninth tour of Vietnam. As I departed from Tan Son Nhut Airport, the U.S. Marines were reinforcing Khe Sanh in expectation of a massive North Vietnamese attack. I had not gone to Vietnam to write an analytical book jabout that country. It was to have been merely an early stop pn a tour of Southeast Asia to research for a book on global pffairs. The Vietnamese situation would have been described in one section at most, and the volume I had in mind would have included a total of forty foreign countries. After a month in Vietnam my mission changed. It changed violently. For me there was no choice. All my other activities had to be delayed. I was forced to drop everything and write about Vietnam; about Vietnam and nothing else. My entire background rose up and made my decision for me. I have been a professional student and observer of Asian affairs since 1940, and a professional military man even longer. I have observed wars and political turmoil in almost ivery Southeast Asian nation. Death, destruction, and inter- national power struggles have been my business for the greater part of my adult life. I thought I had learned to control my reactions to bloodshed, havoc, ruthlessness, and national despair. But what I saw in Vietnam taught me better. The practices I witnessed in Vietnam violated almost everything I had learned at military schools and as a combat officer. American techniques in Vietnam profaned my experiences as a political activist and as a lifelong specialist in revolution- ary warfare. I beheld the United States being beaten—not by the strength of the enemy but by its own mistakes and incompe- tence. I was embarrassed by U.S. officials who did not seem to