So here's a disturbing little tidbit: Sylvester Stallone is making another Rambo movie. So what's the big deal? After all, it would seem that the Rambo series is yet another harmless serving of the standard high-octane, hyper-masculine pabulum that Hollywood cranks out in its sleep. Right?
Wrong. Yes, the Rambo movies indeed represent all of these things, yet there is more to them than meets the eye. One need only cue up the final moments of "First Blood," the series' 1982 inaugural title, to be confronted with one of the more stunning distillations of Vietnam Revisionism available in American film.
Vietnam Revisionism is a term used by historians to describe the standard conservative myth concerning America's war in Indochina -- namely, that the brave fighting men of the U.S. military were stabbed in the back by godless hippie protestors and gutless liberal politicians who refused to "let them win." If only hippies hadn't spit on John Rambo in the airport, if only we had napalmed more villages or dropped more bombs on North Vietnam, then perhaps America would have triumphed in the end.
This is not only sheer fantasy, but a poorly constructed and morally irresponsible attempt to rewrite history according to our own wishes. The brave sacrifices of American servicemen notwithstanding, Vietnam was a sinking ship before the first Marines set food in Da Nang in 1965.
The "government" of South Vietnam was a politically unstable junta, rife with corruption of every kind and bereft of anything resembling the support of its people. Indeed, South Vietnam's very existence was predicated on the U.S.-supported refusal to commit to the reunification elections of 1956 out of fear that the communists -- who, like it or not, enjoyed great popular support -- might actually win.
The bombing of North Vietnam, during which more ordnance was unloaded than during all of World War II, did absolutely nothing to deter the communists from continuing the fight, while the scorched-earth tactics championed by American generals did little to endear our mission to the South Vietnamese people whose hearts and minds we were trying to win. Meanwhile the Johnson administration attempted to deceive the American people of their utter lack of progress by bandying about body counts and confident proclamations about "light at the end of the tunnel."
The type of fantasy on display in the Rambo movies is a sad construction of the collective American subconscious -- a way of rationalizing a war that was bloody and horrible and cost thousands of American lives while yielding nothing in return. It is our inability to cope with the reality of defeat in Vietnam that has spawned Rambo's popular message.
Well, so what?
What has happened to the Vietnam War in the American historical memory is in danger of happening with Iraq. The troop withdrawal will come as a matter of course in a war that only the most die-hard neoconservatives still support. Afterwards, we must resist the temptation to forget by consigning this failure to the black hole where Vietnam currently resides.
Lest you be fooled by the rosy rhetoric of the troop surge, we're looking at a conflict that concludes not with an iconic photograph of men raising a flag on a mountaintop but rather one of helicopters evacuating embassies. Once we leave, whether that's 12 months or 12 years from now, the Shi'a -- who, like the Viet Cong, can wait and wait and wait -- will be no closer to clemency for the Sunni or a liberal democratic society than they are now. We should all be mature enough to recognize that democracy means a lot more than just holding elections. Iran holds them all the time.
The new Rambo movie is dangerous because it encourages Americans to dress failure in victory's regal garments, praising our brave fighting men while ignoring the sobering lessons that -- if heeded -- are the one great boon of defeat. The last thing America needs now is another Rambo to confirm our illusions of victory.
Rather than consigning Iraq to the dark closet of our historical memory where the ghosts of Khe Sahn lie restlessly, we need to force ourselves to take responsibility for Iraq and face the reality of yet another lost war. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again.
