Vietnam Syndrome

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton, wading into one of the most painful issues in the American psyche, said yesterday that the memoirs of former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara vindicate the position of those who marched against the Vietnam War during the 1960s -- including himself."

Palo Alto, Calif.NO NEWS was manufactured" by the Pentagon or the armed services during the Persian Gulf war. "None, period."There was no real dispute about this statement by Navy Capt. Michael T. Sherman at a California Forum of the First Amendment Congress, meeting this week at Stanford University.But was "manufactured" news the real question? Carl Nolte, a veteran reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, thought not. In his 10 weeks covering the gulf war, he said, the government succeeded instead in censorship by "access and delay.

Let's pretend this morning that our president goes by the name of Mitchell Gephardt, that he is a composite Democrat in charge of the foreign policy of the United States. Thus empowered, he would be marching in quite a few different directions, none of which are being pursued today by that non-composite Republican, George Bush.President Mitchell Gephardt would undoubtedly make it clear in his first State of the Union address that he is a highly principled fellow, one who would follow American values to the end of the Earth.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most notorious days in U.S. military history.On March 16, 1968 three platoons of Charlie Co., 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, U.S. Army, marched into Son My village and slaughtered about 400 unarmed children, women and old people in what came to be known as the My Lai massacre.The four-hour rampage through the hamlet included dozens of outright murders, rapes, mutilations and other atrocities committed by American soldiers.The press and public did not become aware of the event until nearly 20 months later; but then My Lai and its only convicted perpetrator, Lt. William L. ''Rusty'' Calley, became arguably the most prominent ingredients in America's final estrangement and eventual disengagement from the Vietnam War.My Lai provided the war protesters' refrain of ''baby killers'' much substance: Photographs taken at the scene showed numbers of killed infants in the arms of their killed mothers.

HOW DID America get to this place? It is the electorate in a democratic superpower that is ultimately responsible for the power wielded in its name. Citizenship demands focused attention. It requires staying awake, even for the boring parts. We have opted for distraction instead. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, education theorist Neil Postman notes how 19th century farmers and villagers turned out for hours-long debates by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. We would rather spend the night at Home Depot buying lawn furniture.

A taut and iconoclastic war film lies buried beneath the blood-soaked corn of We Were Soldiers. Rarely has a movie stuck so close to the facts, yet felt so false. Once the movie draws us into the little-known battles of the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965, the harrowing tale of 400 Americans going up against 2,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong rouses attention and respect no matter how awkward the execution. But writer-director Randall Wallace doesn't inspire belief even when history backs him up. He works too hard and hokily to establish Americans as warrior-idealists.

CLEVELAND -- Seeking to draw a sharp contrast with his own foreign policy record, Bob Dole lambasted President Clinton yesterday as a bumbler in world affairs whose "naive" policies are threatening U.S. security.In a caustic attack, the Republican presidential contender argued that Clinton's missteps in dealing with Russia, Bosnia and NATO have retarded progress toward peace in the Balkans and slowed the expansion of democracy in Europe. The president's policies, Dole said, also threaten to reverse gains made after the U.S. victory in the Cold War."

WASHINGTON - It is perfectly possible that a President Gore would have responded forcefully to the attacks on the World Trade Center. He would have been mindful of the feckless Clinton policy and propelled by the sheer scale of the devastation we suffered to do something other than lob a couple of cruise missiles at empty buildings. But he would not have done what President Bush is doing - topple the Taliban regime, hunt down al-Qaida members worldwide, send Special Forces troops to the Philippines and elsewhere, and prepare to upend the rogue regimes that are providing the territory, money and support for the worldwide terror network.

AND SO it begins: "American Mothers. Would you sell your baby boy for one barrel of crude oil from the Arabian Desert? WE DO NOT WANT WAR!"For now, that protest is buried back in the bunion ads of Little Rock's Arkansas Gazette. But this lone voice is the harbinger of many more if the uncertainty in the Persian Gulf continues, or if American troops get bogged down in a desert version of Vietnam.Hecklers already have begun interrupting presidential speeches.In Washington, demonstrators poured oil in front of the American dTC Petroleum Institute.

Paris. -- A year has passed since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Blockade, war and civil insurrection have followed. Kuwait has been freed of Iraqi occupation. Otherwise, nothing has been settled, although much has happened.A judgment on the year's consequences must be provisional. The war cannot even be said to be fully over, since an allied re-intervention force is being constituted in Turkey. The situation of the Kurds and of Iraq's Shiite minority remains fragile. Iraq's nuclear and chemical disarmament remains incomplete.