Debate on Vietnam

Sir: After reading the varied opinions put forward by your correspondents in the last month on the subject of New Zealand’s commitment in the Vietnam War, I wish to set down as a possible help to clearer thinking the main reasons why I, as a Roman Catholic layman and New Zealand citizen, have consistently opposed this commitment.

• (a) The Vietnam War is singularly atrocious. One may fear either to commit and condone or to suffer atrocities. There is no doubt that moral indignation against Nazi atrocities diminished our people’s reluctance to fight in the Second World War. Today the boot is on the other foot. Certainly there are Viet Cong atrocities, and I have no wish to minimise them. But the present head of State in South Vietnam has publicly stated that he regards Adolf Hitler as a hero and model; and the fire-bombing of villages, the wholesale destruction of food and crops, and the use of torture as a means of interrogation, are methods of the Government to which we have givenpage 719 military support. One fears to condone atrocities for moral reasons. At what point does a war cease to be just (assuming it may originally have been so) because of the methods of warfare being used? The blanket phrase ‘a dirty war’ conceals a possible abyss of moral degradation into which the Western world is sliding. A Christian is obliged to put moral survival before even physical survival – a hard and bitter thought, but one which concerns us.
• (b) The Vietnam War is a civil war. There seems no doubt that among the Vietnamese people who think politically and do not merely endure there are varying degrees of support either for the present South Vietnamese Government or for the National Liberation Front (I use with respect the name they themselves use). The just rule of any Government depends finally on whether it does serve and represent the ruled. This matter has grown doubtful in South Vietnam. The U.S.A. is supporting with very great military weight one side in this civil war; North Vietnam, with less weight, has supported the other. In this situation it is idle for either side to shout aggression. Of all wars, civil wars are the bloodiest and worst; and our troops are involved in an Asian civil war without necessity.
• (c) Many tend to regard the Vietnam War as part of a larger struggle against world Communism. In this context I recall the teachings of the Catholic Church which warn equally against the errors of Communism and those of economic liberalism. (By ‘economic liberalism’ that situation is indicated within which employers have freedom to determine at their own will the conditions and wages of the employed.) A Catholic is no more free to join in an economic liberal crusade against Communism than he would be to do the opposite; yet broadly we may have been invited to join just such a crusade in Vietnam. Pope John XXIII stated that some of the Communist aims were just – one might think in particular of the elimination of destitution, prostitution and graft. This does not mean that one may consider all Communist aims to be just; but it eliminates the possibility of a simple crusading spirit.
• (d) On the whole the Western democracies seem to be failing lamentably to establish a workable dialogue with Eastern Communist countries. The obvious move (in the interests of international justice) would have been to admit Red China into the United Nations; but the U.S.A., because of her Eastern commitments, felt unable to do this. We are now suffering the dangerous effects of a blind and narrow policy.
• (e) A predominantly atheist, man-centred philosophy has opened the door to economic development for a majority of the world’s population. Our possible attitudes may be agreement, opposition, indifference or dialogue. Dialogue (by its very nature difficult) includes both agreement and opposition. In this affluent country our profound complacency makes us tend to be indifferent. But now we are being stirred up to opposition. If we find ourselves involved in the genocidal crimes of nuclear war, it may be largely because we have lacked imagination. I do not deny one may speak with some reason of a Redpage 720 Peril; but one may speak also of a Dead Peril, the dead weight of material complacency that lies at the heart of economic liberalism. The demonological notion of a Yellow Peril I must reject, for it offends against the knowledge that all men are children of a common Father, and the stench of this notion may be the main reason why our Eastern neighbours are slow to accept our feeble movements towards negotiation.

1965 (349)