March 11, 2026
Hi Antoni.
Much of the history of the United States is shaped by wars beyond its borders. It's no coincidence that the US has been the country with the most interventions in foreign nations over the last 100 years, a tradition that fits perfectly with Donald Trump's style of politics, which involves seeking to impose his will by force and disregarding all the rules.
A few days ago, after Trump launched his attacks on Iran in conjunction with Israel, I took a stroll along the National Mall, a large open space in Washington where several of the country's main military memorials are located.
Specifically, I wanted to take a closer look at the memorials to the Vietnam and Korean Wars. In a way, I felt there was a certain parallel between those wars and the current one in Iran: the same hegemonic power, the US, wanting to intervene by force in the affairs of other, distant countries that don't even pose a real threat to it.
And just as the US entered those wars driven by its geopolitical ambitions, the bombings that began in the early hours of February 28 share those motivations: to politically reshape, by force and in violation of international law, a country of 91 million inhabitants like Iran.
To this end, the US and Israel have killed the country's political leadership, are devastating civilian areas with bombs, and have murdered 175 people in a school, most of them girls. In total, the number of civilian deaths in Iran has already surpassed 1,300, according to the ambassador to the United Nations. Among the US ranks, there have been seven fatalities and some 140 wounded.
The memorials—as commemorative monuments are called here—of Vietnam and Korea speak volumes about how war is experienced in this country, and how that perspective is transmitted throughout history.
The Vietnam War Memorial lists the names of the nearly 60,000 soldiers who died during the decade the US deployed troops in the country—1963–1973—although the US had been involved in the region for many years, since the French First Indochina War against the country's independence.
In the Vietnam War, which lasted two decades, due in part to US support for South Vietnam, between 1 and 3 million Vietnamese died, according to estimates, along with between 200,000 and 300,000 Cambodians. In other words, it was a prolonged massacre perpetrated by the imperialism of the White House, which even deceived its own population and the US Congress about how badly it was faring on the front lines, as revealed by the Pentagon Papers.
The Pentagon Papers were a secret study by the Department of Defense leaked in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg. The report demonstrated that several administrations (from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson) knew the Vietnam War was extremely difficult to win, yet they continued to escalate it while telling the public they were headed for victory.
But none of that appears in the memorial: not a single mention of what led the US to deploy troops there—to prevent the unification of the South and the communist North—nor of the millions of civilians killed in that war fueled by Washington; nor of the damage caused by napalm, from which the girl named Kim Phuc fled, running naked down a road; nor of the political manipulation that took place; nor of the historical context in which it occurred; nor of the civil protests that took place in the US against the war and that mobilized a society that suffered severe police repression.
One of the most memorable examples, recently recounted in a Netflix film—The Trial of the Chicago 7—involves one of the most controversial trials in recent US political history, following the protests against the Vietnam War during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The trial became symbolic because many saw it as a government attempt to punish and deter protests against the Vietnam War.
The protests in Chicago were violently suppressed by the police. A subsequent investigation—by the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence—concluded that there had been a "police riot," meaning disturbances instigated by the police.
The case became a national debate about freedom of expression, the right to protest, and the abuse of the justice system against activists. In 1972, an appeals court overturned the convictions, citing irregularities in the trial. The trial was important because it showed the extent to which the government was willing to use the judicial system to control political opposition during a time of enormous opposition to the Vietnam War.
But none of that appears in the memorial. The US fills its memory with recollections of wars in which it intervened, many of them thousands of miles away and for its own interests, and in which civilians, innocent victims—thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions—died, victims who are not taken into account.
The Korean War memorial, in which the US participated at the head of an army approved by the United Nations Security Council in the absence of the Russian ambassador (1950-1953), commemorates the 33,600 soldiers killed in combat, but not the million people who died in that war, which represented the first armed conflict between the US sphere of influence and that of the communist powers—Russia and, especially in this case, China.
The monument bears the following inscription: "Our nation honors its sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never knew."
For now, the narrative surrounding the war in Iran remains the same: Donald Trump blames the Iranians themselves for the massacre at the Iranian school, despite all evidence pointing to the US, as it was caused by a Tomahawk missile; he makes no mention of the more than 1,200 Iranian deaths, while only paying tribute to the seven US soldiers killed; and he justifies the war thousands of miles from the US by citing an unproven threat.
While the social mobilizations in this case are not comparable to those that ultimately occurred in Vietnam, among other things because that war lasted a decade and involved soldiers on the front lines who not only died, but many were also wounded—300,000—matilated, or suffered permanent mental trauma.
However, according to published polls, the war in Iran has the least support among Americans since the beginning of military action. According to a compilation by US media outlets, the current war has only 41% support, far from the 97% support for World War II, the 92% for the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and the 76% for the invasion of Iraq, for example.
Support for wars tends to decline over time, as casualties mount and Americans begin to feel the costs of war. One of the most striking examples is the Vietnam War: near its beginning, 60% of Americans did not consider the war a mistake. But as the number of casualties increased, so did public doubts.
In 1969, a majority said the war had been a mistake. That figure continued to rise as the war dragged on.
There are no polls on public approval of the Vietnam War at the start of the conflict, explains The New York Times.
In a way, all these recent wars, some unleashed with blatant lies, like the one in Iraq, have solidified the current opposition to military interventions abroad, both among Democrats and within a large part of the Trump camp. Despite this, the current US president, who came to the White House promising world peace and the "end of endless wars," has already bombed seven countries since taking office—Somalia, Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, and Iraq.
No hay comentarios :
Publicar un comentario