Concerning the Levande Framtid information campaign on crimes against humanity by the United States and its allies

In the course of preparing the Levande Framtid* initiative, a number of questions about its origins and logic have been raised. The following answers are intended to provide at least partial responses to those questions.

You have noted that this project is partly inspired by the Swedish government's public education campaign on the Holocaust, Levande Historia. Would it not be more appropriate for the government to take on this task, as well?

Indeed, it would be very appropriate- but not very likely. It is one thing to focus attention on the evil deeds of an almost universally detested regime that was stamped out a half-century ago. It is quite another to challenge the current global superpower whose influence is spread throughout Swedish society by the country's political, economic and journalistic elites.

Those forces could be relied upon to attack and obstruct any attempt by the government to scrutinize the criminal behavior of the United States. Even if such an initiative were, by some political miracle, to be officially sanctioned, it would almost certainly be watered down and rendered harmless. In our judgement, therefore, the only feasible alternative is a citizens' initiative.

Granted that a citizens' initiative is necessary in this case, why these particular citizens? On what broader "authority" do the organizers base their initiative.

We have no greater authority than any other collection of citizens. But on the basis of current public debate, as well as discussions with a wide variety of individual Swedes, we have concluded that there is definite interest in and need for a public education campaign of the type proposed. Our "authority" will consist of whatever positive response greets this initiative. If it turns out that no wider public interest exists, the project will be terminated.

We shall see. But it appeared that such an initiative should be taken by someone, and that it might as well be us. Most of us enjoy a measure of relative independence, and are not without experience in such matters. Two are former members of the Swedish parliament, one each from both major segments of the political spectrum. One has been awarded the so-called alternative Nobel Prize as "the father of peace research". Another is a former U.S. citizen who has written at some length on such issues. Yet another is a professor of communications studies with a special interest in media coverage of foreign policy issues.

*Levande Framtid is pronounced "LAY-vahnd-eh FRAHM-teed"

You have said that any government initiative on this subject would almost certainly be met with strong resistance. Don't you expect the same?

Naturally,. But the first response is likely to be an attempt to kill the thing with silence, which in Sweden is the preferred method of dispensing with disagreeable issues. If that frequently successful strategy does not succeed, then we can expect the heavy artillery to be rolled out. In either case, a careful observer will probably be able to learn a good deal about the issues and the forces behind them by observing the reactions of various interests. One useful piece of wisdom to keep in mind is that of the 18th-century Irishman, William Hazlitt: "If your enemies cannot find a flaw in your reasoning, they will find it in your reputation."

Why drag up the Vietnam War again - isn't it "old news" at this point?

When is it ever inappropriate to focus attention on crimes against humanity? The mere fact that such a question can be raised suggests the operation of a double standard where the United States is concerned. There is no apparent reluctance to discuss the crimes of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, two defunct regimes that are no longer capable of additional harm. It is obviously even more urgent to study the behavior patterns of a global superpower which is in a better position than ever before to destroy the lives of innocent millions who happen to get in the way of its perceived interests, and has often done so in the not-too-distant past.

In this connection, it is well to keep in mind that the present world situation resembles that following World War II, when the United States was widely regarded as the unchallenged "leader of the free world". Even then, it was laying the groundwork for what would soon become the Vietnam War, and for all the other destruction it has wreaked on the peoples of the Third World.

In any event, the Vietnam War is certainly not "old news" for the one-eighth of that country's population - a number roughly equivalent to the entire population of Sweden - who are permanently disabled from the lingering effects of the war. Neither is it a thing of the past for the tens of thousands of children with birth defects from the poisons left behind in the soil and water, or to the even greater numbers of children and adults killed or maimed by residual munitions. These are just some of the very real and present consequences of the Vietnam War, and one of the tasks of the Levande Framtid project is to increase public awareness of their nature and extent.

One of the most eloquent explanations of the need for such an initiative has been provided by Bennett Freeman, a U.S. State Department official responsible for Holocaust issues. Referring to the Swedish government's Levande Historia project, he has observed:

The Living History Project is a testament to Sweden's character. It is also an opportunity for the world to act, to teach, and to learn. It is the most inspiring, the most encouraging recent example of a reckoning with the truth - of a country's willingness to confront this most tragic and traumatic chapter.

The national discussion that has been underway, on Sweden's role during the Second World War, has been remarkable for its lack of rancor and defensiveness, just as the Living History Project is also remarkable for its comprehensiveness and for its emphasis on individual and national responsibility. Sweden is making the right links - the links between searing history and enduring memory, between a bitter past and a better future.

As my colleague, Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eisenstadt, has said: "A nation should be judged by its willingness to face the past honestly, to help right wrongs, and deal with injustices." The United States looks forward to working with Sweden, to make history live and justice come alive as this century draws to a close.

In that case, why not leave it to the United States to "make history live and justice come alive" with regard to the Vietnam War?

As Gandhi replied, when asked his opinion of western civilization: "That would be a good idea." Sad to say, there is nothing to indicate the slightest inclination on the part of dominant forces in the U.S. to confront the country's criminal past. The kinds of people and interests who were responsible for the Vietnam War remain very much in charge of foreign policy; if anything, their position is now even stronger.

To the extent that the Vietnam War is discussed at all, it is usually in terms of its terrible consequences for the United States; its consequences for Vietnam are not an issue. This is hardly a novel syndrome: Referring to the evils of slavery, for example, Thomas Jefferson once observed that, "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just." Two centuries later, the United States has still not come to terms with the terrible legacy of slavery. There is even less reason to expect a proper moral accounting of the Vietnam War, at a time when many of its perpetrators are still alive and in possession of considerable power. Given the nature of U.S. society, it can be quite dangerous - physically, economically and socially - to publicly challenge the self-pity and self-righteousness that characterize the generally accepted view of the Vietnam War.

Whatever the capacity and willingness of the United States to confront its own dark past, it is a matter of the utmost importance to the people of Sweden, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most important is the issue of Sweden's relationship to the United States and NATO, the latter being essentially an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. At this moment in history, Sweden and its largely unsuspecting population are being inexorably drawn into NATO - and thereby into the operational framework of U.S. foreign policy - by various powerful and/or uncomprehending forces who have chosen to ignore or trivialize the potential implications of such an alliance. In this connection, it is crucial to recall that Norway - whose society and cultural values in so many ways resemble those of Sweden - actually participated in the Vietnam War as a result of its NATO membership.

A broader issue is the Pax Americana that has replaced the terror balance of the Cold War and, among other things, has made it increasingly difficult for the United Nations to assume the global responsibilities for which it was established. This is obviously an issue of crucial significance for people everywhere, not just in Sweden. As Olof Palme so often pointed out with regard to the threat of nuclear war, no superpower possesses an inalienable right to determine the fate of the world. It is especially important to emphasize that principle at a moment in history, however brief and transient, dominated by only one superpower.

Isn't this yet another exercise in the sort of "anti-American Third-World romanticism" of which Olof Palme and the Swedish left were so often accused in the past?

The standard joke on that subject is that Sweden is the most Americanized country in the world - with the United States as a close second. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it is undoubtedly true that Swedes in general have a positive attitude toward the United States, even if they find it difficult to accept certain aspects of its international behavior and social policy.

This was certainly the case with Palme, who is still being depicted by right-wing forces in both Sweden and the U.S. as a fire-breathing anti-American. In fact, he was a great admirer of the positive ideals and accomplishments of the United States - whose population includes so many citizens of Swedish descent - but was deeply troubled by the glaring discrepancy between the promise of those ideals and the grim realities of U.S. policies both at home and abroad.

In this, he was hardly alone. Another Swede with a similar perspective on U.S. society was Gunnar Myrdal, whose collaborative study of race relations was published following World War II under the title of An American Dilemma, and was subsequently to play an important role in the civil rights movement.

In short, there is little evidence of any widespread tendency to anti-Americanism among the Swedish population, not even among the sharpest critics of U.S. domestic and foreign policies. In fact, there is a much more evident tendency to excuse the shortcomings of U.S. society and foreign policy, in order to preserve a mental image that is generally favorable. Most Swedes like to like America. For that and other reasons, they may be well-suited to analyze its deficiencies.

In Sweden, "anti-American Third World romanticism" is a term tossed about mainly by those who have consistently supported or ignored the worst excesses of U.S. foreign policy, in a fairly obvious attempt to divert attention from their own complicity in crimes against humanity. The very phrase betrays something of their general outlook: What could possibly be "romantic" about the destruction of tens of millions of innocent lives, in the Third World or anywhere else?

Our own view is that there are many positive forces in the United States, including all those who have protested against the Vietnam War and similar expressions of U.S. foreign policy. But for a variety of reasons, they have never exerted a decisive influence on that policy. For all the efforts of the U.S. anti-war movement, for example, Congress continued to finance the Vietnam War right up to the bitter end. We feel that this is something about which the Swedish people need to become more aware. If, at the same time, we can offer a gesture of support to all the positive forces in the U.S., so much the better.

Don't you Swedes ever get tired of pretending to be the world's conscience, especially now that some light has been shed on your own closet skeletons? What about your cowardly behavior during World War II, or the fact that you were in secret alliance with NATO even during the Vietnam War?

In the first place, we do not presume to speak for all of Sweden - although the Swedish tradition of solidarity with oppressed people everywhere provides an essential foundation of this initiative. Anyone who feels that there is something silly or pretentious about that tradition is urged to discuss the matter with Nelson Mandela and other victims of apartheid, the people of Vietnam and Nicaragua, or the thousands of Chileans who found refuge in this country after the United States helped to replace their democracy with a military dictatorship.

Of course, it is true that we are all sinners, and no one involved in the planning of this project is inclined to pretend otherwise. But it has been a long time - nearly two centuries - since a Swedish army roamed beyond the nation's borders to destroy the lives and property of innocent foreigners. Nor is it in the habit of using its economic and military power to force brutal dictatorships on entire populations.

As for alleged Swedish cowardice during World War II, that is a question very much subject to debate. At the time, the western allies acknowledged Swedish neutrality as the only viable solution to its predicament; the alternative was invasion and occupation by the encircling Nazi empire. It was only toward the end of the war and afterward that certain interests found it convenient to point the finger of cowardice and complicity. Whatever line one chooses to take on that question, it remains a fact that hundreds of thousands of non-Swedish lives were saved as a result of Swedish neutrality. (A more detailed discussion of this issue is available on the Internet at www.nnn.se/service.html.)

Sweden's relationship to NATO is likewise subject to alternative interpretations. Our own view is that Sweden has never been more closely allied with NATO than it has openly declared itself to be - i.e. as a last resort in case of invasion "by an enemy force" (presumably the Soviet Union). But even if the Swedish government were secretly more deeply involved in the NATO alliance than hitherto acknowledged, that would hardly make its condemnation of the Vietnam War any less legitimate. On the contrary: It would mean that it had jeopardized Sweden's national interests on behalf of a distant nation. As Daniel Ellsberg has observed: "I always thought that our allies and other countries were derelict with their silence. Sweden was the one honorable exception."

In any event, it is difficult to see how Sweden's role during World War II, or the nature of its relationship to NATO, could in any way diminish the enormity of the crimes committed by the United States against the people of Vietnam and in other parts of the Third World.

By drawing a parallel between this initiative and the Levande Historia project, do you not in effect diminish the enormity of the Holocaust?

We do not draw an exact parallel between the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. The former was undeniably unique in its intent to completely eliminate Jews, gypsies and other allegedly "inferior racial stocks". For that reason, it has been condemned as an singularly monstrous crime against humanity, and rightly so.

Every such crime has its own historical and ideological context. The Vietnam War was the most horrific concentrated abuse to which the ideology of anti-communism has been put, but it is far from an isolated instance. Although it was never the stated intention of the U.S. government to eliminate every Vietnamese on earth, it is an open question as to how many lives it would have ultimately destroyed if it had not encountered the stubborn resistance of the Vietnamese people and a world-wide protest movement, in which Olof Palme and a great many ordinary Swedes played a prominent role.

For those directly affected, the distinction between the Holocaust and the Vietnam War was probably of little relevance. In terms of human waste and suffering, what is the difference between being suffocated in a gas chamber and being burned to a crisp in a sea of napalm? In terms of numbers, it should be noted that Vietnam's population at the time of the war was about one-fifth that of the United States. It is not difficult to imagine the reaction in the western world if a technologically overwhelming force were to invade the U.S. and slaughter some 10-15 million of its citizens, while disabling thirty million more. Compare that scenario with the way that Vietnam has been treated since it finally succeeded in repelling the most recent in a series of invaders.

You have indicated that you may revive the issue of war crimes in relation to the Vietnam War and related events, in which case a figure like Henry Kissinger would become a prime target for prosecution. How can you possibly raise that issue in connection with someone who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and whose own relatives died in Nazi death camps?

It strikes us as highly implausible that anyone who suffered persecution at the hands of Nazi Germany would allow anyone else, not even a relative, to hide behind their suffering in order to justify the persecution of others. We prefer to believe that Kissinger's relatives would be among the first to condemn his role in the Vietnam War, which has been likened to that of the Nazis' von Ribbentrop during World War II.

The award to Kissinger is widely regarded as the most embarrassing fiasco in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize - which is to say much, given some of the competition (e.g. Teddy Roosevelt, Menachem Begin, F.W. de Clerk). Announcement of the award provoked massive protests around the world and a furious debate in Norway, where the Peace Prize is situated. The co-recipient, Vietnam's Le Duc Tho, refused to accept his share of the prize. Once again, Norway's involvement in NATO may well have had something to do with this particular embarrassment.

The issue of war crimes has become all the more urgent, now that the U.S. has acquired such a dominant military position and refuses to submit to rules of conduct that it seems to expect of other nations - most recently by rejecting an international treaty on the prosecution of war criminals.

To many in the West, this may seem like a vaguely academic issue at a time when the U.S. contents itself with dropping bombs on countries of the Muslim world. But in addition to the rights of those countries under international law, there is the question of what happens when the United States runs into serious difficulties at home or abroad.

At the moment, everything is just peachy from the official U.S. point of view. If one is able to ignore the country's ever-widening social divisions, the economy is perking steadily along, and there is no evil empire in sight to challenge the hegemony of the "world's policeman". But what happens when problems begin to mount, as inevitably they must, for example, when the seething tensions of U.S. society once again burst into open conflict, or a competing superpower emerges on the horizon - China, perhaps?

The world has seen what the United States is capable of when the interests that dominate its foreign policy choose to perceive that they are threatened. It will almost certainly witness such behavior again. Where will Sweden be when that happens?