Sullivan blames Vietnam war divisions on 'biased and shameful attacks' by media, others

Sen. Dan Sullivan claims to understand why the Vietnam War was “extremely divisive” in the United States.

He is misinformed.

Sullivan has introduced a Senate resolution that says the “Vietnam war was an extremely divisive issue back home in the United States, as a result of biased and shameful attacks from the media, academia, politicians and many others.”

What’s really shameful is that Sullivan is unaware of one of the most important lessons of that disastrous chapter in our history.

I understand he was a child of 10 when Saigon fell, but he should have learned something about what really happened before he went to the U.S. Senate. There is no excuse for this, especially for someone who presents himself as an authority on military matters.

It is likely that Sullivan did not write the sentence I quoted above, as such tasks are usually left to employees. But Sullivan has certainly read the text, part of a resolution that would offer a formal apology to Vietnam vets for how they were treated after the war.

The Vietnam war was not extremely divisive because of biased and shameful attacks by the usual suspects.

For a more accurate summation, see what H.R. McMaster, who served as the national security adviser under Trump for one year, concluded after years of researching the topic.

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or on the college campuses,” McMaster wrote in his first book, “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam.”

“It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war; indeed, even before the first American units were deployed. The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers. The failures were many and reinforcing: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.”

There are interpretations that put more emphasis on other factors, but credible historians do not believe Sullivan’s claim that “biased and shameful attacks” by the media are what tore the nation apart.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and defense secretary under President Obama, said in a 2014 speech at the Vietnam Memorial that “The Wall reminds us to be honest in our telling of history. There is nothing to be gained by glossing over the darker portions of a war that bitterly divided America.”

“We must openly acknowledge past mistakes, and we must learn from past mistakes, because that is how we avoid repeating past mistakes,” Hagel said.

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A resolution by Sen. Dan Sullivan includes this claim about the Vietnam war.