Buckley, in my opinion, unequivocally won this debate for the following reason. His contention was that the principal motivation of our venture in Indochina was a “disinterested concern for the stability and possibilities of a region of the world.” In other words, he was arguing that America’s interposition had nothing to do with imperialistic or hegemonic will from our side; instead, it was intrinsically right and justified. Indeed, our conflict in Vietnam was purely reactive in nature, reactive specifically to Communist aggression (the Communist schematic here being China and the USSR channeling materials from the sidelines to North Vietnam). No matter what angle you take, this “disinterested” case seems to win. From a realist perspective, conceptualizing the war in terms of a Cold War power-balancing model, we needed to be there in order to (and ONLY in order to) check the intoxicated expansion of this tripartite Communist menace. From a moral perspective, we were obligated to be there as protectors of freedom, liberty, and self-determination (if and only if these ideals were being abrogated).

From the lens of a historian, the evidence between 1945 and 1969 was overwhelmingly against the Communists, as they systematically violated human rights, treaty obligations, territorial boundaries, etc. The ability to distinguish between the two sides based on the records, and based on the actual context of the conflict, is all-important. Chomsky’s presupposition of equivalence between the two sides is not plausible unless he slips into ignoratio elenchis.