History Does Repeat Itself

Because I've heard so many people comment about David Halberstam's book "The Best and The Brightest," I decided that I had to seek this out and start reading it on my daily commute into work. I can't seem to concentrate on Kilkullen's book, it is a complicated read and I think I have to save that one for home reading. But I have to say, less than 50 pages into this text and I'm already hooked. Here's a snippet:

In 1961, when the Kennedy team was already on board and there was great enthusiasm over the new theories of counterinsurgency ... and Vietnam had been chosen as a testing ground, [David] Riesman [the Harvard sociologist] remained uneasy. In mid-1961 he had lunch with two of the more distinguished social scientists in the Kennedy government. On the subject of Vietnam the others talked about limited war iwth the combativeness which marked that particular era, about the possibilities of it, about the American right to practice it, about the very excitement of participating in it. All of this smacked strongly of the arrogance and hubris of the era, and Riesman became more and more upset with the tone and the direction of the conversation ... "You all think you can manage limited wars and that you're dealing with an elite society which is just waiting for your leadership. It's not that way at all," he said. "It's not an Eastern elite society run for Harvard and the Council on Foreign Relations."

Reading that passage just shocks me into the current time and debates on Afghanistan that it makes me really wonder if people fully appreciate that famous quote by George Santayana.

Comments

[TR]

The real kick to the "some things never change" groin comes near the end, where Halberstam describes the lingering bitterness of some of the war's architects once they returned to private life. He describes them as believing that, despite all of their lies, their imcompetence, and their self-delusions, Viet Nam was not their fault, but rather the fault of a country that was not worthy of them. Though Halberstam's book is now 37 years old, I do not think a more accurate description of the neocon mindset has ever been written.