January 23, 2018
By MARK
ASHWILL
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
This
is something I’ve joked about with friends. In reality, the closest
I’ve ever come to working for the
US government (USG) was as a part-time data entry clerk for the
National Archives during my graduate student days in metropolitan
Washington, D.C. and, more recently, for a quasi-US governmental
international education nonprofit in Vietnam.
Working
for a government, directly or indirectly, requires one to be a good
soldier, if you want to keep your
job. There are certain trade-offs one is obliged to make, including
occasionally averting your gaze while standing in front of a mirror. I
am a free agent and a free spirit, which pretty much disqualifies me
for any position with any government, some
more than others. And besides, I’m not a veteran US diplomat nor did I
make a six-figure donation to the current president’s campaign, the
usual paths to becoming a US ambassador: merit or money.
Nevertheless,
here’s what I would do, if I were to become the next US Ambassador to
Vietnam. Indulge me while
I sketch out this personal, professional, and sociopolitical fantasy.
These 15 actions are listed in no particular order, although the first
two obviously have greater significance in this expanding bilateral
relationship, one symbolic, the other practical
with with far-reaching benefits for both countries.
I would . . .
Long Overdue Apology … issue a heartfelt and long overdue apology on Vietnamese
television and US Mission websites and social media channels on behalf of the US government and the US American people for the death
and destruction wrought by the American War in Vietnam,
including war legacies such as Agent Orange (AO) and Unexploded Ordnance
(UXO), and admit that it was a monstrous blunder.
Furthermore, I
would tell the truth about what would have happened in 1956, had the US
allowed a national election in a temporarily divided Vietnam to take
place, as stipulated
by the Geneva Accords of 1954, namely, that Ho Chi Minh would have
received an overwhelming majority of the vote and become president of a
unified Vietnam. (President Dwight D. Eisenhower and I are in agreement
on this
point.) This would have prevented the 2nd Indochina
War, thereby saving the lives of at least 3.8 million Vietnamese and
58,300 US Americans. In addition, there would have been no devastating
war legacies that continue to maim and kill
43 years after the liberation of Saigon and the US beat a hasty
retreat.
The Nixon Plan …
submit a formal request via the Secretary of State to Congress asking
that it make good on President Richard Nixon’s promise to Prime Minister
Pham Van Dong on February 1, 1973 to fund
the reconstruction of the former Democratic Republic of Vietnam (would apply now to all of Vietnam) to the tune of $3.25 billion, which is now nearly $19 billion, adjusted for inflation, as stipulated in Article 21 of the Agreement on
Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, signed in Paris on
January 27, 1973. In addition to belatedly following through on this
government-to-government promise and providing Vietnam with much-needed
assistance in key areas that would improve the
quality of life for all Vietnamese, this initiative would burnish that
part of Richard Nixon’s bloodstained record. In fact, let’s call it the
Nixon Plan, a Vietnam-related nod to the Marshall Plan of the
post-World War II era.
The first two principles are as follows:
1) The Government of the United States of America will contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam
without any political conditions. (my italics)
2)
Preliminary United States studies indicate that the appropriate
programs for the United States contribution
to postwar reconstruction will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of
grant aid over five years. Other forms of aid will be agreed upon
between the two parties. This estimate is subject to revision and to
detailed discussion between the Government of the United
States and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (since
1976, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).
Some
of these funds would be used to address two war legacies in particular
in order to lessen the suffering
of AO victims and provide additional support for the work of
organizations that are working to reduce the number of deaths and
injuries caused by cluster bombs and other munitions remaining in Quang
Tri Province in central Vietnam and elsewhere.
MIA Issue …
request that the search for US MIAs in Vietnam, who now number in the hundreds (PDF download) while
Vietnamese MIAs number in the hundreds of thousands,
come to a merciful end, and that the millions of dollars of annual
funding be used for humanitarian purposes, i.e., for the living not the
dead. Related to the MIA issue, I would send a cable to Washington,
D.C. with the request that the US Congress order
all POW/MIA flags in the US, which US cultural historian, H. Bruce
Franklin, once referred to as a “mark of national insanity,” be taken
down.
New Scholarship Program …introduce
a scholarship program for economically disadvantaged and academically
talented high school students from around the country to enable them to
study a subject at a “best fit” college or university in the US that is
somehow related to the current and projected
needs of Vietnam. Similar to other USG scholarship programs, this one
could issue a J, which requires students to return to Vietnam for at
least two years after graduation like the Fulbright program. One source
of funding could be from US companies operating
in Vietnam. Think of the latter as an example of doing good and doing
well.
Win-Win Activities …order
that the merits of any bilateral project or activity, including those
related to education, be judged on the basis of mutual benefits.
Win-win activities would replace soft
power as a tool or weapon.
Consular Review …order
a review of student visa-related consular decisions with the goal of
making fewer mistakes and issuing more student visas in an effort to
stanch the flow of students to second-choice overseas study
destinations. I would also insist that students be told why
they failed the interview so that they’ll know how to prepare for the
next one, if there is a next one, i.e., if they do not end up going to
Canada, Australia, or another third country. More qualified students
studying in the US benefits educational institutions
and both countries in a long list of tangible and intrinsic ways.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly …request
that all Embassy and Consulate activities about the USA, including
those sponsored by the American Centers (AC), reflect the good, the bad,
and the ugly of US society and culture. (This includes both AC library
collections.) This would be in the spirit that
every country is part role model and part cautionary tale, including
the US. A part of this initiative would be to distribute the Vietnamese
translation of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (Lịch sử dân tộc Mỹ) free
of charge at US Mission events for young people.
Long-Term Employment …encourage
the USG to make it easier for young Vietnamese who study in the US and
who wish to work there for the long term, especially in certain priority
fields of study. This would be similar to Germany’s visionary and
practical Make
It In Germany
This reflects the letter and spirit of two tweets that candidate Donald
Trump made in August 2015: “When foreigners attend our great colleges
and want to stay in the U.S., they should
not be thrown out of our country” (first tweet) and “I want talented people to come into this country — to work hard and to
become citizens. Silicon Valley needs engineers, etc.” (second tweet)
Freedom of Speech: Walking the Walk
…allow freedom of speech to be exercised on USG and quasi-USG social
media sites, e.g., Fulbright University Vietnam Facebook fanpage. No
exceptions. No more hypocrisy.
The truth can be painful, at times, but it is also liberating and preferable to propagating lies or living them.
Global Citizenship over Nationalism …only
pursue US American “interests” to the extent that they complement those of Vietnam. This would represent a seismic shift from nationalism to
patriotism andglobal citizenship.
More Fulbright Grants …increase
the number of student Fulbright grants from
15 (used to be 25) to 50 per year. The overall cost
of the program is a drop in the bucket by US government standards with
inestimable long-term impact. Keep in mind that a MQ-9A Reaper Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV) costs about $12 million per unit, which means that
the total cost of this year’s worldwide Fulbright
program (PDF download, p. 166) is just over 12 Reaper drones.
Bob Kerrey, Self-Confessed War Criminal …
ask that Bob Kerrey, former US senator, university president, and self-confessed war criminal, who was forced
to resign as chairman of the Fulbright University Vietnam board of trustees, also resign from his position as a member of that board.
There
is no place for a self-confessed war criminal who has his very own
exhibit in the War Remnants Museum
in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) on the board of a US-style university in
Vietnam, quite literally the scene of his (war) crimes. Related to this
action and item #1, I would travel to Thạnh Phong to personally
apologize, on behalf of the US government and my fellow
citizens, to the survivors of the massacre, including Mrs. Bùi Thị
Lượm, whose grandmother, four aunts, and ten cousins were murdered by
Kerrey’s Raiders, as his unit was known.
Official Vietnam War Commemoration as Historical Whitewash …denounce
the official US Vietnam War Commemoration as a historical
whitewash and endorse the Veterans for Peace Vietnam Full Disclosure project as an honest and comprehensive effort to counter the propaganda
and lies of the official commemoration.
People Over Profit …
Initiate a dialogue with certain US companies that have entered the
“Vietnam market” selling products and services that have an adverse
effect on people’s health and the environment.
Rare Agreement with President Trump …express
my wholehearted agreement with President Donald Trump’s assessmentof Vietnam as “one of the great miracles of the world” and an assertion
he made in a speech at the APEC CEO Summit in Danang in November 2017 that Vietnamese students are
among the best in the world.
And that would be just the beginning. To paraphrase William Blum, the author of Rogue
State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, who
speculates about what would happen on his fourth day in The White House
in his own sociopolitical fantasy, how long do you think I would last,
dear reader?
Mark
Ashwill, Ph.D., is an international educator who has lived and worked
in Viet Nam since 2005. He is Co-Founder and Managing Director of
Capstone Vietnam, a
full-service educational consulting company with offices in Hanoi and
Ho Chi Minh City. Capstone works with accredited institutions of higher
education in the US and other countries on behalf of institutional and
individual clients. Ashwill was director
of the Institute of International Education in Viet Nam from 2005 to
2009. In 2003 he was the first US American to be awarded a Fulbright
Senior Specialist Grant to Viet Nam.
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