‘Cry, the abandoned country…’

Jan. 27, 1994, was a day that will live in infamy. It was on that day that the U.S. Senate decided — in the words of several of its Vietnam-era veterans — "to put the war behind us." While technically nonbinding, the Senate’s 62-38 vote for an "expeditious" end to the U.S. trade embargo against Hanoi is politically decisive: It gives President Clinton the political cover for normalizing relations that he has been desperately seeking.

Unfortunately, the present initiative is all too reminiscent of the last time Washington chose to put the war behind it. As in 1973, the American political elite — this time egged on by vested corporate interests — has wearied of resisting the tenacious, albeit destitute and desperate, Vietnamese communists. Now, as then, the United States seeks "peace with honor" in the place of continued struggle; it is, however, willing to settle for appeasement. Now, as then, however, the result is likely to be precious little peace and no honor as American action serves to perpetuate Hanoi’s odious tyranny.

Interestingly, many of those who were responsible for the United States throwing in the towel the first time have had a hand in the present, imminent capitulation to Hanoi. Deputies who once helped Henry Kissinger set the stage for the American withdrawal from Vietnam -and the North’s subsequent, unopposed conquest of the South — have been key figures in the Bush and Clinton administration "road map" for dismantling the trade embargo imposed following that invasion.

These include Lawrence Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft, Winston Lord, Tony Lake and, until recently, Morton Halperin. Together with other senior Clinton administration figures — such as Strobe Talbott, John Shattuck, Sam Brown and of course Bill Clinton, himself — who were prominent fixtures in the anti-war movement, those who have "learned nothing and forgotten nothing" from the Vietnam war are set to repeat the earlier mistake.

And as before, there are two groups who will likely bear the consequences for Washington’s renewed willingness to err in accommodating Hanoi: The first is comprised of the hundreds of servicemen who were left behind in Indochina when Washington abandoned the field the first time, and their loved ones. The second, the people of Vietnam for whom those men and 58,000 other Americans made the ultimate sacrifice -the loss of life and liberty in defense of others’ rights to both.

To be sure, the sponsors of the "sense of the Senate" resolution adopted last week put a very different spin on their resolution. They cite Vietnam’s recent "cooperation" in the search for POW-MIA remains as proof positive of Hanoi’s willingness to reward American economic concessions with greater transparency about the fate of servicemen unaccounted for at war’s end.

In so doing, they conveniently ignore the critical assessment by the National League of Families that 1993 was actually the worst year in recent memory in terms of real progress on this front. Instead, proponents of lifting the embargo repeat like a mantra the effusive praise Hanoi’s "cooperation" has been getting from military officers like Gen. John Vessey (who has, on at least one occasion, accepted at face value Hanoi’s prevarications concerning the fate of U.S. POW-MIAs) and Maj. Gen. Thomas Needham (who was personally responsible for destroying irreplaceable U.S. files on POW-MIA field investigations).

More to the point, the advocates of a new separate peace with Hanoi invariably contend that even greater cooperation on accounting for the missing will flow from normalizing trade relations. In fact, at that point American corporations and the U.S. and Vietnamese governments will have a common interest in not rocking the boat. Consequently, if anything, collusion in concealing the truth about what happened to the men left behind can be expected to intensify, not abate.

Even more cynical is the suggestion that allowing U.S. companies anxious to do business in Vietnam to "put the war behind them" will translate into an improvement in the sorry lot in life of most of the Vietnamese people. Just as the communists of Hanoi blithely disregarded earlier, solemn international commitments to permit free elections, there is little reason to believe that American contributions to the regime’s economic life-support will translate into new respect for basic human rights.

Instead, the Vietnamese are intent upon following what they call "the Chinese model" – economic liberalization coupled with redoubled political control and, if necessary, intensified repression. Under such an approach, U.S. investment will more likely serve to underwrite Hanoi’s despots than transform them, even as it produces new trade deficits rather than added American jobs.

In short, putting the embargo "behind us" under present circumstances will not result in "peace with honor" for the long-suffering families of America’s POW-MIAs and for any of their loved ones who still may be incarcerated in Vietnam. Neither will it produce peace with freedom for the Vietnamese people. The only hope for a real full accounting and for genuine democracy and economic opportunity for Vietnam will have to await the fall of the communist government in Hanoi. Tragically, the U.S. Senate’s infamous action last week will serve greatly to postpone, rather than advance, that date.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy, the host of public television’s "The World This Week" and a columnist for The Washington Times.