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罗伯特．F．甘乃迪
(ROBERT F. KENNEDY)
反对越南战争
Against the War in Vietnam
在战争结束时，只会有更多战死的美国人……以致他们可以说，正如塔西陀评述罗马时所说：
“他们造成一片沙漠，称它爲和平。”
罗伯特．F．甘乃迪(1925－1968)在他的哥哥约翰．F．甘乃迪总统的内阁中任司法部长。1964年罗伯特．甘乃迪从纽约州被选爲参议员，成爲越南战争的一个重要的批评者和自由主义民主党人的代言人。1968年3月16日他宣布自己的民主党提名总统候选人身份，两天后对美国的越南政策进行尖锐的抨击。两星期后，林顿．约翰逊总统宣布他不再参加竞选。
1965年约翰逊总统使美国对战争的卷入升级成了美国生活中最引起争议的问题。到1968年，在越南已有五十万美军。这场战争酿成一场愤怒的反战运动，损害了公众对政府、军队和其它国家机构的信任。1975年美国从越南撤出最后一批战斗人员以后很长时间，那场战争的阴影仍继续影响大众文化和国家政治。
……这是选择之年──在这一年我们不单选择我们由谁来领导，而且选择我们愿意被引向何方；选择我们自己想要的国家，以及我们为自己的子孙所要的国家。如果在这选择之年我们按旧幻想塑造新政治，那麽我们只能担保为自己的未来带来危机──而且我们将把这些危机的惨痛结果遗赠给子孙。……
今天，我要对你们谈谈……越南战争。我来这里……是为了同你们讨论为什麽我认为我们的有关政策破产了。……
我不想──我相信大多数美国人也不想──出卖美国利益，简单地撤出军队，举起白旗投降。那样做对我们作为一个国家和一个民族都是无法接受的。但我担心──我相信大多数美国人亦担心──我们目前遵循的方针犯了严重错误。我担心──我相信大多数美国人也担心──我们正在反对中立国和我们历史上的盟国的判断和愿望，仿佛其它国家概不存在似的。我担心──我相信大多数美国人也担心－我们目前的方针将不会带来胜利，不会带来和平，不会制止流血，不会增进美国的利益或世界和平事业。
我担心，在战争结束时，只会有更多战死的美国人，我们更多的财富被耗费；而且因为战争双方的痛苦和仇恨，又有千千万万越南人遭杀戮；以致他们可以说，正如塔西陀评述罗马时所说：“他们造成一片沙漠，称它称爲和平。”
而我认爲这并不真正是美国精神的全部含义。
让我以个人和公职的双重身份开始这一讨论。我曾参与制订许多对越南问题的早期决定，正是那些决定导致我们走上现在这条道路。很可能我们在越南问题上的努力一开始便注定要失败；从来就不可能真正把南越全体人民置于我们所支持的历届政府统治下──南越的一任又一任政府被腐败、低效和贪婪所困扰，没有也无法吸引和激发人民的民族情感。如果情况确是如此，我愿在历史和我的同胞们面前承担自己的一份责任。但过去的错误不能成爲它永远存在的借口。悲剧是活着的人赖以取得教训的工具，不是指引生活的向导。让我们一如既往用古老的检验标准衡量自身，以对自己作出公正的评价。如索福克勒斯的《安提戈涅》一剧所言：“人人都犯错误，但一个好人知错就改，并尽力弥补过失。世上唯一的罪恶是骄傲。”
最近几个月的退却迫使军方要求增加二十万六千兵员。本周末，已宣布说其中的一部分──被称爲“适度”的增援──将很快派出。然而这不正是我们过去干过的事吗?
假如我仔细回顾这场冲突的历史，我们会发现这可悲的故事一再重复。每一次──每当危机发生──我们总是否认出了差错；增派部队；发表更爲自信的公报。每一次我们总是得到保证，称这一最后步骤将带来胜利。而每一次，预言和许诺总是落空、被人遗忘，于是又提出在梯子上再爬高一级的要求。
但是所有的军事升级，所有的最后步骤，都并未比以前的行动把我们带到离胜利更近一点的地方。相反，战斗规模越大，南越政府越是无力组织和保卫自身，而我们则越来越驮起战争的全部负担。
而总统又一次对我们说，正如我们二十年来反复听到的，“我们即将获胜”；“胜利”在望。
但是真实情况怎样?我们当前形势如何?……
我们绥靖行动的意义过去一贯被描写爲“深得人心。”我们认识到，向农村提供抵御越共的军事防卫将是枉费心机，而且实际上也不可能，除非农村人民视自己的利益与我们的利益相同，不去援助越共，而是帮助西贡政府。爲此，我们认识到他们的思想必须加以改变──他们的自然倾向是支持越共，或至少消极观望，而不是爲外国白种人或遥远的西贡政府流血牺牲。
正是这种绥靖工作上个月遭到严重挫折。我们无法改变村庄里受敌人控制的人民的思想。……如果多年来这些村子由西贡掌管，政府带来诚实、社会改变、土地──如果它这麽做，如果对人民关于新的、更好的生活的很多许诺均已兑现──那麽，在再占领的过程中，我们便可作爲解放者出现：正如我们
1944－1945年间在欧洲所做的，尽管当时战争造成巨大破坏。但是在南越，改革的许诺并未履行。贪污腐化和滥用职权的现象至今犹存。土地改革从来就只是一句空洞的诺言。目睹西贡政府过去三年的所作所爲，南越农民没有理由爲这一政权的扩展而战斗，没有理由不把这种努力进一步造成的破坏看作灾难。……
过去两个月的第二个明显的事实是，西贡政府已不再是比以前更好的盟友；它甚至可能变得更糟了；这场战争正无情地越来越成爲美国的事。……事实是，数以千计的南越青年花钱买到缓服兵役的特权，而美国海军陆战队士兵却战死在溪山。
事实是，西贡政府已逮捕了僧侣和劳工领袖，逮捕了原总统候选人和政府官员──包括维护国家委员会的若干著名成员。仅仅几周前美国官员还在这些人身上寄予厚望。
同时，西贡政府的腐败愈演愈烈，正在削弱南越并损害我们援助其人民的努力。……
第三，这一点变得日益明显：我们取得的胜利将以对我们一度曾希望扶助的国家的破坏爲代价。……
一位美国指挥员在谈及槟知市时这麽说：“爲了救这座城镇，有必要毁了它。”当美军指挥员们决定用空袭和炮火拯救他们的士兵生命时，很难与他们争论是非；如果美国部队是爲越南的城市而战，那麽他们理应得到保护。我无法弄懂的只是，爲什麽重占顺化、槟知和其它城市以及随之造成的破坏，其责任竟首先落在美军身上。
如果共产党起义者或侵略者们占领纽约、华盛顿或旧金山，我们不会让外国人去收复它们并且在此过程中毁了这些城市及其居民。……
倘若西贡政府的部队不愿或无力爲他们的城市战斗，我们也不能毁了他们。那种救世之道不是我们设想自己能爲它们做出的行动。因爲我们必须问美国政府，问我们自己：这种逻辑推演到哪一步才是终结?
如果有“必要”爲了“拯救”南越而毁灭整个南越，我们也会这样做吗?
如果我们对南越漠不关心，乐意看到其国土被毁，人民被杀，那麽我们当初爲什麽要去那里?
难道我们能自授上帝庄严的权力──决定哪些城市村庄该被摧毁，决定人们的生死，决定哪些人将加入难民的行列，在我们创造的沙漠中流浪?……
我们且不要误解。对这场战争不可能有任何简单的道义上的答案，不能单方面谴责美国的行动。我们应当扪心自问的是：我们是否有权给另一个国家造成如此严重的破坏，而手头又无清晰可信的证据说明这种破坏乃是它的人民的要求，而这恰恰是我们所欠缺的证据。他们要求和平，不受任何外部势力左右的和平。这正是我们担保要尽力带给他们的，而且不是在遥远的未来，是在残存的些许生命亟待从大屠杀中得到拯救的时刻。
第四个事实现在比以往任何时候更明了，即越南战争根本就不是对美国最后的严峻考验，实际上它削弱了我们在亚洲、在世界的地位，侵蚀了在过去三十年间直接支撑我国安全的国际合作结构。……我们最初是要证明我们在世界任何一个地方承担义务的意愿。可是我们正在证明，美国人民已不可能再自愿投入这种斗争。与此同时，我国最老、最强的那些盟国撤回到自己的海岸，只剩下我们独自在全亚洲充当警察。……
我们有权质问，人们要求我们质问：还需多少兵员、多少生命、多少破坏来取得永远即将来临的胜利，填入我们梦的无底深渊?
但是对这一问题美国政府不回答也无法作出回答。它没有答案──除了在一场以往靠军事力量已不能解决任何问题的冲突中不断增派兵力，利用更多的我国英勇士兵们的生命。
人们早就该质问：这场战争正给我们带来什麽后果?
当然，它使我们耗费金钱──占联邦预算的整整四分之一。但这只是我们付出的最小代价。真正的代价是我们的小伙子，他们有数万人永远失去了生命。真正的代价是我们的国际地位──对于中立国和盟国都是如此，它们对一个自己无法理解的政策日渐感到困惑和疏远。
我们付出的更大代价在于我们的内心生活，在于我们国家的精神受到的损害。在一百年中，我们第一次公开反对爲国家的事业作出奉献。或许在我国历史上第一次在我们的军队中出现了由政治和道义上的原因造成的开小差行爲。我们的报纸头版刊登美国士兵虐待俘虏的照片。每天夜里我们在晚间新闻中都看到恐怖事件。暴力行动在全国无情地蔓延，骚扰街道，危害我们的生活。不论我们付出什麽代价，让我们想想派往越南的年轻人：不仅是那些被杀死的，而且还有那些不得不去杀人的人；不仅是那些残废的，而且还有那些不得不目睹他们所作所爲造成的后果的人。……
这战争目前的发展向我们或是向越南人民索取的代价远远超过了我们有理由希望从中得到的任何好处。这场战争必须也能够结束，只须怒火满腔，相信唯有自己才正确的双方勇士停止互殴，达致和平。我们已向不同的神作了祈祷，而双方的祈祷均未获完全的应答。现在虽然仍有时间等待一些祈祷得到部分应答，却是停止祈祷的时候了。
事实上可做的事很多。我们能够──正如我两年来一直催促，而我们始终未做的──与民族解放阵线谈判。我们能够──我们从未这麽做──确保让民族解放阵线在南越政治生活中切实占有一席之地。我们能够──我们今天仍拒绝这麽做──开始让战争降级，集中保卫居民区，以减少美军伤亡，减缓对农村的破坏。我们能够──我们从未这麽做──坚持要求南越政府扩大其基础，实行名副其实的改革，与他们的同胞共同寻求体面的解决办法。……
但只要我们的现任领导怀着军事胜利在即的幻想，在我们目前方针的泥淖中越陷越深，那麽即令这一适度而合理的方案也不可能付诸实行。……
附注：
. . . This is
a year of choice－a
year when we choose not simply who will lead us, but where we wish to be led;
the country we want for ourselves－and
the kind we want for our children. If in this year of choice we fashion new
politics out of old illusions, we insure for our- selves nothing but crisis for
the future－and
we bequeath to our children the bitter harvest of those crises. . . .
Today I
would speak to you . . . of the war in
Vietnam.
I come here . . . to discuss with you why I regard our policy here as bankrupt.
. .
I do not
want－as
I believe most Americans do not want－to
sell out American interests, to simply withdraw, to raise the white flag of
surrender. That would be unacceptable to us as a country and as a people. But I
am concerned－as
I believe most Americans are concerned－that
the course we are following at the present time is deeply wrong. I am concerned－as
I believe most Americans are concerned－that
we are acting as if no other nations existed, against the judgment and desires
of neutrals and our historic allies alike. I am concerned－as
I believe most Americans are concerned－that
our present course will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop
the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the
cause of peace in the world.
I am
concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed;
more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitter-ness and hatred on
every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese slaughtered; so
that they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "They made a desert, and called it
peace."
And I do
not think that is what the American spirit is really all about.
Let me
begin this discussion with a note both personal and public. I was involved in
many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which helped set us on our
present path. It may be that the effort was doomed from the start; that it was
never really possible to bring all the people of South Vietnam under the rule of
the successive governments we supported－governments,
one after another, riddled with corruption, inefficiency, and greed; governments
which did not and could not successfully capture and energize the national
feeling of their people. If that is the case, as it well maybe, then I am
willing to bear my share of the responsibility, before history and before my
fellow-citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetuation. Tragedy
is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live, Now as
ever, we do ourselves best justice when we measure ourselves against ancient
tests, as in the Antigone of Sophocles: "All men make mistakes, but a good man
yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only sin is
pride."
The
reversals of the last several months have led our military to ask for 206,000
more troops. This weekend, it was announced that some of them－a
"moderate" increase, it was said－would
soon be sent. But isn't this exactly what we have always done in the past? If we
examine the history of this conflict, we find the dismal story repeated time
after time. Every time－at
every crisis－we
have denied that anything was wrong; sent more troops; and issued more confident
communiques. Every time, we have been assured that this one last step would
bring victory. And every time, the predictions and promises have failed and been
forgotten, and the demand has been made again for just one more step up the
ladder.
But all
the escalations, all the last steps, have brought us no closer to success than
we were before. Rather, as the scale of the fighting has increased, South
Vietnamese society has become less and less capable of organizing or defending
itself, and we have more and more assumed the whole burden of the war.
And once
again, the President tells us, as we have been told for twenty years, that "we
are going to win;" "victory" is coming.
But what
are the true facts? What is our present situation?...
The point
of our pacification operations was always described as "winning the hearts and
minds" of the people. We recognized that giving the countryside military
security against the Viet Cong would be futile－indeed
that it would be impossible－unless
the people of the countryside themselves came to identify their interests with
ours, and to assist not the Viet Cong, but the Saigon government. For this we
recognized that their minds would have to be changed－that
.their natural inclination would be to support the Viet Cong, or at best remain
passive, rather than sacrifice for foreign white men, or the remote Saigon
government.
It is
this effort that has been most gravely setback in the last month. We cannot
change the minds of the people in villages controlled by the enemy. . . . If, in
the years those villages and hamlets were controlled by Saigon, the government
had brought honesty, social reform, land－if
that had happened, if the many promises of a new and better life for the people
had been fulfilled－then,
in the process of reconquest, we might appear as liberators: just as we did in
Europe, despite the devastation of war, in 1944－45.
But the promises of reform were not kept. Corruption and abuse of administrative
power have continued to this day. Land reform has never been more than an empty
promise. Viewing the performance of the Saigon government over the last three
years, there is no reason for the South Vietnamese peasant to fight for the
extension of its authority or to view the further devastation that effort will
bring as anything but a calamity. . . .
The
second evident fact of the last two months is that the Saigon government is no
more or better an ally than it was before; that it may even be less; and that
the war inexorably is growing more, not less, an American effort. . . .The facts
are that thousands of young South Vietnamese buy their deferments from military
service while American Marines die at Khe Sanh.
The facts
are that the government has arrested monks and labor leaders, former
Presidential candidates and government officials－including
prominent members of the Committee for the Preservation of the Nation, in which
American officials placed such high hopes just a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the government's enormous corruption continues, debilitating South
Vietnam and crippling our effort to help its people. . . .
Third, it
is becoming more evident with every passing day that the victories we achieve
will only come at the cost of destruction for the nation we once hoped to help.
. . .
An
American commander said of the town of Ben Tre, "it became necessary to destroy
the town in order to save it." It is difficult to quarrel with the decision of
American commanders to use air power and artillery to save the lives of their
men; if American troops are to fight for Vietnamese cities, they deserve
protection. What I cannot understand is why the responsibility for the recapture
and attendant destruction of Hue, and Ben Tre and the others, should fall to
American troops in the first place.
If
Communist insurgents or invaders held New York or Washington or San Francisco,
we would not leave it to foreigners to take them back, and destroy them and
their people in the process....
If the
government's troops will not or cannot carry the fight for their cities, we
cannot our-selves destroy them. That kind of salvation is not an act we can
presume to perform for them. For we must ask our government－we
must ask our-selves: where does such logic end? If it becomes "necessary" to
destroy all of South Vietnam in order to "save" it, will we do that too? And if
we care so little about South Vietnam that we are willing to see the land
destroyed and its people dead, then why are we there in the first place?
Can we
ordain to ourselves the awful majesty of God－to
decide what cities and villages are to be destroyed, who will live and who will
die, and who will join the refugees wandering in a desert of our own creation? .
. .
Let us
have no misunderstanding. The Viet Cong are a brutal enemy indeed. Time and time
again, they have shown their willingness to sacrifice innocent civilians, to
engage in torture and murder and despicable terror to achieve their ends. This
is a war almost without rules or quarter. There can be no easy moral answer to
this war, no one-sided condemnation of American actions. What we must ask
ourselves is whether we have a right to bring so much destruction to another
land, without clear and convincing evidence that this is what its people want.
But that is precisely the evidence we do not have. What they want is peace, not
dominated by any out-side forces. And that is what we are really committed to
help bring them, not in some indefinite future, but while some scraps of life
remain still to be saved from the holocaust.
The
fourth fact that is now more clear than ever is that the war in Vietnam, far
from being the last critical test for the United States is in fact weakening our
position in Asia and around the world, and eroding the structure of
international cooperation which has directly supported our security for the past
three decades. . . . We set out to prove our willingness to keep our commitments
everywhere in the world. What we are ensuring instead is that it is most
unlikely that the American people would ever again be willing to . . . engage in
this kind of struggle. Meanwhile our oldest and strongest allies pullback to
their own shores, leaving us alone to police all of Asia. . . .
We are
entitled to ask－we
are required to ask－how
many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to
provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into
this bottomless pit of our dreams? But this question the Administration does
not and cannot answer. It has no answer－none
but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave
soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything in the
past. . . .
It is
long past time to ask: what is this war doing to us? Of course it is costing us
money－fully
one-fourth of our federal budget－but
that is the smallest price we pay. The cost is in our young men, the tens of
thousands of their lives cut off forever. The cost is in our world position－in
neutrals and allies alike, every day more baffled by and estranged from a policy
they can-not understand.
Higher
yet is the price we pay in our inner-most lives, and in the spirit of our
country. For the first time in a century, we have open resistance to service in
the cause of the nation. For the first time perhaps in our history, we have
desertions from our army on political and moral grounds. The front pages of our
newspapers show photographs of American soldiers torturing prisoners. Every
night we watch horror on the evening news. Violence spreads inexorably across
the nation, filling our streets and crippling our lives. And whatever the costs
to us, let us think of the young men we have sent there: not just the killed,
but those who have to kill; not just the maimed, but also those who must look
upon the results of what they do. . . .
The costs
of the wear's present course far out-weigh anything we can reasonably hope to
gain by it, for ourselves or for the people of Vietnam. It must be ended, and it
can be ended, in a peace of brave men who have fought each other with a terrible
fury, each believing that he alone was in the right. We have prayed to different
gods, and the prayers of neither have been answered fully. Now, while there is
still time for some of them to be partly answered, now is the time to stop.
And the
fact is that much can be done. We can－as
I have urged for two years, but as we have never done－negotiate
with the National Liberation Front. We can－as
we have never done－assure
the Front a genuine place in the political life of South Vietnam. We can－as
we are refusing to do today－begin
to deescalate the war, concentrate on protecting populated areas, and thus save
American lives and slowdown the destruction of the countryside. We can－as
we have never done－insist
that the Government of South Vietnam broaden its base, institute real reforms,
and seek an honorable settlement with their fellow countrymen. . . .
Even this
modest and reasonable program is impossible while our present leadership, under
the illusion that military victory is just ahead, plunges deeper into the swamp
that is our present course....
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