History has certainly vindicated the critics of US involvement in Vietnam. After World War II, the US bolstered the efforts of French imperialists to dominate Vietnam. (Imperialism is the efforts and policies of a dominant nation to control the people and resources of another nation so as to benefit itself.) After the French suffered a crushing defeat in May 1954 various academics were warning of catastrophic consequences for the US if it failed to allow Vietnamese independence. In June 1954 economist and Harvard teacher Paul M Sweezy wrote what turned out to be a prophetic warning in a small independent socialist publication, the Monthly Review. Concerning Vietnam, he wrote: “Are we going to take the position that anti-communism justifies anything, including colonialism, interference in the affairs of other countries, and aggression? That way, let us be perfectly clear about it, lies war and more war leading ultimately to a full scale national disaster.” It was urgent that everyone who cares about the future of our country stand up and speak out today. “Tomorrow may be too late.”

Over a decade after that prescient warning, in March 1965, US combat troops were sent into Vietnam. The US withdrew in April 1975 after losing over 58,000 troops. The consequences for the people of Vietnam were immeasurably more terrible and staggering: 3.8 million deaths, 11.7 South Vietnamese were forced from their homes, 4.8 million were sprayed with toxic herbicides such as Agent Orange, Moreover, the 30,000,000,000 pounds of munitions the US unleashed on that country has killed 100,000 people since the US pull out.

Today who can deny that the war was a “full scale national disaster”? What a terrible price millions paid because that prophetic warning was never heeded. But it never reached a mass audience. Sweezy was a Marxist; they were always at the vanguard of fighting imperialism and racism. The capitalist controlled press, especially in the McCarthy era, was very reluctant to publish Marxist viewpoints.

Similar warnings came from the left prior to the US invasions of Iraq. Before the first invasion in January 1991, the first President Bush repeatedly said that we would either face war with Iraq “now or later,”. He claimed it was wise to commence the war now and get it taken care of so we would not have to fight later. The leftist BYU professor Hugh Nibley warned that Bush was completely wrong; Nibley claimed that war at that time would cause war later. Nibley correctly saw that it was not a “now or later” situation; the choice was between no war or two wars.

Nibley’s prescient prediction occurred in March 2003. The US government lied to Americans claiming Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” Moreover, Americans were told that the vast social engineering project of taking democracy to Iraq would essentially be free of cost. The administration claimed the cost of a second invasion of Iraq would be about $50 billion and their oil revenues would cover the cost. Today a Nobel Prize winning economist estimates the actual cost was over $3 trillion. The government underestimated the cost by a factor of 60!

At Christmas time in 1989, US president George H.W. Bush invaded Panama to capture the drug dealer Manuel Noriega. (Although imperialist actions helped this president briefly achieve an 89% approval rating and enjoy popularity Reagan never had, when he sought a second term, he only received 37.4 % of the popular vote.) The US estimated the operation killed 500 Panamanians, but most groups and a former US Attorney General estimate it killed thousands. This raises questions: 1. In Utah, how many innocent people would law-enforcement be willing to kill to capture one drug lord? 2. What does it say about US respect for human life when it kills hundreds of people to impose a 40 year sentence on a drug dealer? 3. How could anyone deny that the US regards the lives of non-citizens as having little value?

Imperialist nations encourage their citizens to redline their compassion (redlining is a term that originated in the banking industry when banks would deny loans to anyone on the wrong side of a river or railroad tracks, etc.). Just as Putin would prefer that Russian citizens have no interest in the suffering of Ukrainians or Benjamin Netanyahu hopes that Israeli citizens are indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians, Trump hopes that US citizens are indifferent to the murder of Venezuelans.

At this holiday time of year, it’s good to remember that nothing is more antithetical to “peace on earth and goodwill to men” than imperialism.

Rick Jones is a retired adjunct professor of economic history from Weber State University who now lives in West Haven.