War Remnants Museum: Where Peace Meets Propaganda

History is written by the victors, and there is no greater propaganda than propaganda based on fact.

The trip to the War Remnants Museum in Saigon began innocuously enough. Arrayed outside the museum were mock-ups of American helicopters, armoured fighting vehicles, aircraft and boats used in the Vietnam War. But for a few questionable translations, it was a perfectly neutral display.

Then came this.

A reproduction of the infamous Con Dao Prison. Inside was an unflinching reproduction of the horrors man visits on man.

The French brought many innovations to Vietnam, and among them was Madame Guillotine.

Past the guillotine were reproductions of the 'tiger cages' and 'ovens' used to house and torture prisoners.

Past the cells were photographs and descriptions of the tortures and punishments inflicted on detainees. The photographs are graphic and not safe for life; I will leave only photos of the written descriptions below.

Intermixed with scenes of brutality were testimonials and snippets of history. And here is where the propaganda began.

Pay attention to the adjectives: 'patriotic', 'martyrs', 'aggressive', 'butchers'. While what happened in the prison was undoubtedly a crime against humanity, the use of such emotionally evocative terms were designed to create and reinforce the national narrative: that the Vietnam War was a war of liberation against sadistic imperialists and their puppet government.

Inside, the entire first floor was given over to propaganda. Letters, books, photos, magazines and diaries, all in support of the communists, were placed on display.

These articles came from all over the world: Japan, Thailand, Europe, even the United States. The message is clear: We have international support, the enemy are aggressive barbarians, so our cause must be legitimate.

The second floor had a dedicated exhibition to Agent Orange. The lucky ones were merely mentally retarded. The rest were deformed. As above, there are many photographs in the original exhibit too graphic to show here. These are simply the least worst.

Past the photographs came the legal arguments: that the use of Agent Orange is a war crime.

It doesn't matter whether the lawsuit had merit: what matters is your reaction to the photographs and the statistics. Let the feeling of horror and disgust wash over you. This is how propagandists work: they stir up intense emotions, hijacking your rational brain and swaying you to their cause. This isn't a Vietnamese method; it applies to propagandists of any stripe everywhere and everywhen in the world.

Then the propaganda came on thick.

The above plaque is designed to make the US look like hypocrites. And so do the following photos.

Then comes this account of American war crimes.

Here the cracks show. There is no such thing as a 'Seal Ranger'; one can be a SEAL or a Ranger but not both. These men were SEALs from the US Navy. The account described above is the version that makes the Americans look like monsters; there are at least two versions of the story, and the one published was the one Kerrey himself denied. More information here.

Now come the lies.

What the photos won't tell you is that the Viet Cong disguised themselves as civilians in the day and fought at night. They were men and women, young and old. The Viet Cong hid weapons and munitions inside civilian huts, and employed children as spies and human shields. One particular tactic is to arm a child with a grenade and send him to the front line. If the Americans hesitated to kill him, the grenade would kill them. If they did shoot the child, the grenade would explode, leaving only a child's corpse.

The plaque claims that US troops dropped napalm bombs on Trang Bang village, 'destroying houses, farms and civilians'. The historical record shows that the NVA had attacked and occupied the village prior to the bombing. When civilians fled from the Cao Dai temple to South Vietnamese lines, a South Vietnamese pilot mistook them for NVA soldiers and dropped napalm on them. More information here.

It is one of the many tragedies of the fog of war, spun into a war crime.

Here, too, another lie. The topmost photograph is placed here among the war crime accusations. The implication is that it is yet another war crime. It is not.

The executed man is Nguyen Van Lem, an operative of the Viet Cong accused of commanding a death squad. Other sources claim Nguyen was simply a political operative. Regardless, the execution was not without merit: as a member of the VC, Nguyen was an unlawful combatant. He did not qualify for prisoner of war status under Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention. There is a definite argument for the legality of the execution.

Notice, also, the complete lack of information about North Vietnamese and Viet Cong war crimes. After all, the victors write the history books.

Here, at the topmost floor, the museum stopped pretending to tell the truth. Amidst statistics and historical photographs came plaques like these:

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Look at the emotive words: 'mercenaries', 'sovereign', 'repressive', 'murderous', 'henchmen', and on and on. The truth doesn't need to be backed by incendiary speech -- but narratives do.

John Boyd and William S Lind posit that there are three levels of war: moral, mental and physical. The physical level is where combat takes place. The mental level concerns mental and emotional activity to govern the physical level of conflict. The moral level refers to the cultural codes of conduct and standards of behaviour that constrain or sustain the mental level. As you can see, a higher level of war trumps the lower, especially in a conflict that epitomises fourth generation war.

America lost the Vietnam War by losing the moral level of war. The use of free fire zones and Agent Orange, approval of torture and war crimes, and harsh treatment of civilians and enemies alike guaranteed it. The Viet Cong and North Vietnam seized every opportunity they could to paint the Americans and South Vietnamese as barbarians, using the truth to hide their lies. The American public, weary of high body counts and appalled by what the Viet Cong and NVA wanted them to see, agitated for an end to the war -- and if you defeat American public opinion, you defeat America.

This is the key lesson for America and the West: always strive to win the moral level of war, especially in a 4GW conflict. This may mean taking higher casualties than a risk-averse public is believed to stomach, and it will require retooling doctrine and strategy to accommodate it. But in war, the moral level trumps all. War is about imposing your will on the enemy and everyone else -- and if people believe you are the good guy, they will believe anything you say and support everything you do.

Case in point: Vietnam.

Bonus Photos

There are many, many, many exhibits of American weapons and ordnance here. And, for some mysterious reason, there were no examples of Vietnamese equipment. I will leave you to ponder why they did not display the mines, punji sticks, poison arrows, child soldiers, human shields and suicide bombers the NVA and Viet Cong used.

In a museum celebrating a victory against Western imperialist aggressors, the day care centre celebrates holidays imported from the West in English. So does most of the rest of Saigon. I'll leave you to ponder what that means.