It is clear in retrospect, now that we have information about what really was going on in Vietnam, that the bombing of Hanoi was completely ineffectual, hardening Vietnamese resistance just as the bombing of civilian targets in the Blitz hardened British resistance. We also know that, despite Westmoreland and Taylor’s fictions, there was never a point in the war when the US was winnning and could finish it with just a few more troops. Quite the contrary, the best intelligence the military had suggested the exact opposite as early as 1967, despite Westmoreland’s emphatic denial of that intelligence. More parallels to the present?

That said, Maraniss does a good job of showing how the protests in the US were seen by the North Vietnamese leaadership to be fundamentally important both for sapping the political will of the US and for bolstering the moral of the Vietnamese. One positive effect is that, at least in the upper levels of the Vietnamese leadership, there was a belief that they were fighting the American government who was not backed by the American people. Though I have not been to Vietnam myself, friends have reported very little hostility, in fact great friendliness, from Vietnamese towards Americans. It makes me wonder if part of the reason is the knowledge that many Americans never supported the war. America got into Vietnam without the general populace having any idea why.

Unfortunately, that is different from Iraq. We started with tremendous support and, no matter whether or not Bush lied, there is no doubt that Americans were more gung ho for Iraq than Vietnam, so I suspect that the lingering consequences will last much longer and will be much more damaging.

In 2005, there are still people who believe the Vietnam war was not militarily lost. If with more than 30 years of hindsight, they cannot accept that fact, I am not too optimistic about their understanding of Iraq.