In today’s speech in Kansas City to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Bush gave the reconstruction efforts in Iraq the historical context some of us have been writing about for some time: the need to avoid the sort of bloodbath that followed the Vietnam abandonment, and the need to try to mimic as much as possible the post-WWII success in Japan.
Of course each situation is not analogous to Iraq in its details. But there are still lessons to be learned from both histories about what to avoid and what to pursue.
Majority Leader Harry Reid begs to differ on the specifics of what those lessons might be. Reid, of course, has a dog in this race; he gave up on the surge before it even occurred, and recent surge-friendly news must be an embarrassment to him.
Reid stated:
President Bush’s attempt to compare the war in Iraq to past military conflicts in East Asia ignores the fundamental difference between the two. Our nation was misled by the Bush administration in an effort to gain support for the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, leading to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history.
So it seems, oddly enough, that Reid must believe that the controversy over the validity of the Gulf of Tonkin incident must be resolved in Lyndon Johnson’s favor (I happen to agree with that assessment, by the way). Perhaps it’s odd of the antiwar Reid to take that position—if he thinks about it at all, that is. But then again, Johnson was a Democrat.
John Kerry is another person with a rather large dog in this race, and a personal one at that. Kerry says Bush’s words in invoking the Vietnam analogy to defend his Iraq policy are both irresponsible and ignorant of what Kerry calls “the realities” of Vietnam.
Kerry should know about those realities. After all, he’s one of those who failed to predict them. Read the words Kerry spoke in June 1971 in his famous debate with nemesis John O’Neill on the “Dick Cavett Show:”
MR. CAVETT: No one has said that there’ll be a bloodbath if we pull out, which is a cliche we used to hear a lot. Does either of you still think there would be a –
MR. O’NEILL: I think if we pull out prematurely before a viable South Vietnamese government is established, that the record of the North Vietnamese in the past and the record of the Viet Cong in the area I served in at Operation [unintelligible] clearly indicates that’s precisely what would happen in that country.
MR. CAVETT: That’s a guess, of course.
MR. KERRY: I –
MR. O’NEILL: I’d say that their record at Thua, at Daq Son [phonetic spelling], at a lot of other places, pretty clearly indicate that’s precisely what would happen. Obviously, in Thua, we’ve discovered, how many, 5,700 graves so far, at Daq Son four or five hundred.
MR. KERRY: The true fact of the matter is, Dick, that there’s absolutely no guarantee that there would be a bloodbath. There’s no guarantee that there wouldn’t. One has to, obviously, conjecture on this. However, I think the arguments clearly indicate that there probably wouldn’t be. First of all, if you read back historically, in 1950 the French made statements – there was a speech made by, I think it was General LeClerc, that if they pulled out, France pulled out, then there would be a bloodbath. That wasn’t a bloodbath. The same for Algeria. There hasn’t been. I think that it’s really kind of a baiting argument. There is no interest on the part of the North Vietnamese to try to massacre the people once people have agreed to withdraw.
John Kerry. Part of the reality-based community.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Just so we’re clear: You’re claiming that the United States should have continued waging a war on behalf of a nation (South Vietnam) that it spent two decades fabricating, a nation that over the course of those two decades was never capable of defending itself — much less bearing any sort of meaningful internal legitimacy — without the overwhelming assistance of the US.
Are you suggesting as well that free-fire zones, defoliation projects, and massive air campaigns should have been sustained in the interests of avoiding a “bloodbath”?
I’m always interested to hear what people like you believe the US should have done after knocking the region into a cocked hat for so many years.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 pm
http://a517dogg.blogspot.com/2007/08/giulianis-foreign-policy-vision-ugly.html
My argument there with the author also concerns Vietnam and historical revisionism. Both by the victors as well as the defeated, those such as us so to speak.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I’m always interested to hear what people like you believe the US should have done after knocking the region into a cocked hat for so many years.
You people abandoned millions to their death and even more to concentration camps in Vietnam. Yet you would dare to speak filth about your American opponents bombing the crap out of people that executed men, women, and children out of hand?
I’m always interested in the ability of people to make themselves into tools, because as much as I hate weapons in the service of evil, I know that they don’t got enough will nor brains to come up with their own plans of destruction and racial eradication. I wouldn’t be against using d and Company as tools in our fight, if we could manage them.
Yet, there is something to be said for not using the blade that carved out the hearts of many innocents. Perhaps it is best to use our own weapons and tools, rather than the tools of the enemy, when all is said and done.
We can only use what we have, after all. Iraq will need everything they can acquire to prevent being disappeared down the memory hole.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
d:
Actually, if you were “always interested” in what “people like [me] believe” about Vietnam and the US role there, you probably would just go to the right sidebar of my blog, click on the category “Vietnam,” and start reading. There you would find, archived, fifteen posts I’ve composed (some of them very long) on Vietnam, only a fraction of the total of my output so far on the subject.
But to take another moment to respond to your query, and to refresh your knowledge of history, let me point out that at the time the pullout occurred in Vietnam the US had had no active fighting forces there for years. All we did at that point—and what many people such as myself now complain about—was cut off funding to the ARVN and make all the sacrifices of both the US and the South Vietnamese there for naught.
Take a look at this, if you’re interested in even more information, from one who was there.
But my guess is that you’re not really all that interested.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
John Kerry. Part of the reality-based community.
They’ve been upgraded: it’s now the community-based reality.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I’m reminded of this recent column in NRO:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTI2N2RhOTRjMTQxZGY2NWE0NmYzOWJjOWE4ZDhhMjg=
It was written after the death of David Halberstam. It might give one reason to rethink the supposed lessons of Viet Nam I suspect.
Cronkite’s not the only journalist who affected the history of Viet Nam it seems.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
dicentra:
“They’ve been upgraded: it’s now the community-based reality.”
The consensus approves of the change!
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
[…] of Doug L, a commenter at Neo’s post […]
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Actually, neo, I am quite interested; as an historian who’s taught courses on the American war in Vietnam and the foreign policies of the cold war, I’ve read more accounts from “ones that were there” than I care to think about.
Regardless, the right’s claim that the US “abandoned” South Vietnam is a simplistic dodge. By the terms of the Paris Peace treaty, the reunification of Vietnam — as originally called for by the 1954 Geneva Convention — was a foregone conclusion. The only way for the US to assure the existence of South Vietnam would have been to return American combat forces. Everyone understood this — the North Vietnamese especially.
So when you claim that you’re merely upset that the US ended funding for ARVN, you either don’t understand the history of the post-US withdrawal, or you’re not openly stating that you believe the US should have sent its forces back to fight a war it had already taken two decades to lose.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I suppose Mr. Reid conveniently forgot Johnson’s 1964 campaign promise that if elected, he would not send our boys to die in a war in S.E. Asia. How conveeeenient.
Neo, I disagree with you about the Gulf of Tonkin incident being resolved in Johnson’s favor, but that can be discussed another time. The fact remains that by far, the greatest foreign policy blunder that the US has made in the 20th century was the precipitous withdrawl of US forces and funding from Vietnam and the abandonment of Indochina to communist forces. This was a blunder that the left along with the democrats and their enablers in the media were responsible for and which resulted in the loss of millions of lives.
The US and South Vietnam were winning and had they not been betrayed by the American media would have prevailed. Even N.Vietnam’s commander, General Giap admitted in his memoirs that the news media reporting of the war and the anti-war demonstrations in America after Tet surprised him. The communists then decided that instead of negotiating what he called a conditional surrender, they would now go the limit because America’s resolve was weakening and the possibility of complete victory was within Hanoi’s grasp.
Fast forward to today…
It is the democrats who have a large stake in our Iraq venture failing having squarely called it lost and they are once again attempting to mislead the public.
Many of the democrats who now decry our involvement and claim they were fooled into voting for the invasion. They do so in the face of facts that prove otherwise. They had access to sufficient information to make a responsible decision at the time and they can’t lie their way out of it. Many are on the record saying that they were convinced Iraq possessed WMD and was a threat, even before Bush was elected.
Unfortunately the left, the MSM and many democrats rely on the knowledge as articulated by Mark Twain that, “a lie will be half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on.”
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 pm
d: and you obviously haven’t read the link I gave, nor my other pieces on Vietnam.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
So…South Vietname was kinda like
Belgium
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
France
Greece
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Yugoslavia
Abyssinia
Ethiopia
Libya
Burma
China
Malaya
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:24 pm
No, I read the link. It’s a reasonably interesting account of the US evacuation of Saigon, but if you’re going to rely on that to make a larger argument about the war, best of luck to you.
As for your posts on the war, the only one I really needed to see was this one, in which you spend most of your time breathlessly singing the praises of a book originally published three decades ago. Braestrup’s book is fine enough, but if you’re going to congratulate yourself for reading The Big Story and challenging the conventional wisdom on the Tet Offensive (circa 1977), there’s probably not much point in telling you that other works — written by folks with a bit more standing than an HNN intern — have been published in the past three decades that tell a more complicated story than the cartoonish one you seem to favor.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 pm
d: Since you call Braestrup’s work “fine enough,” I can’t quite imagine what its extreme antiquity (three decades old! Quelle horreur!) has to do with anything.
I’m not sure what your reference to a HNN (History News Network, I assume) intern means. Neither Braestrup nor the author of the other linked piece had this particular status.
Braestrup was the head of the Saigon bureau of the Washington Post from 1968 to 1973, among other sterling credentials (and, to top it all off, he was a liberal).
The author of the piece I linked to at History Net (”The Bitter End”) was Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr. He had served several earlier tours of duty in Vietnam, and became chief of the negotiations division of the U.S. delegation of the Four-Party Joint Military Team (FPJMT) in 1974, a position he held when the events he describes in the article occurred.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 pm
“as an historian who’s taught courses on the American war in Vietnam and the foreign policies of the cold war”
Well, now we know why very few of today’s students are well informed about the history of Vietnam. Thanks to “historians” like “d” and Ward Churchill, we have the most poorly-educated students of “history” the world has ever seen. What’s the matter, d, miss out on your chance to be an “HNN intern”?
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:42 am
Sounds to me like d’s just another troll trying to derail the thread. Also I have to say that I agree with Stumbley.
For such an ‘expert’ on the matter, d only alludes to but does not list any of the, “other works — written by folks with a bit more standing than an HNN intern.” Instead he backhandedly insults Neo by calling the reference from a past post her ‘cartoonish’ view, not to mention the obvious attempt to belittle Braestrup by referring to him as an HNN intern.
So how do you plan to belittle someone like Giap, since what he has to say doesn’t conform to your hackneyed narrative?
If insults and vague allusions are all you’ve got d, I suggest you turn out the light and go home. What a sanctimonious little twit.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:43 am
Here’s the link to the “history of that shameful episode” (as you called it) written by the HNN intern.
As for the “extreme antiquity” of Braestrup’s book — your phrase, not mine — thirty years is indeed quite a long time in terms of historical scholarship, especially if we’re looking at the American war in Vietnam.
And as for Stumbley’s comment, it’s always good to see a thread descend into pointless hyperbole . . .
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:15 am
back to the post: I’ve seen maybe the same excerpts of the Cavett interview as you. The thing your written dialogue cannot convey is the superciliousness of Kerry and, really, Cavett and the audience also. They treated O’Neill as a rube. The atmosphere was a cousin to the atmosphere when a conservative goes onto John Stewart’s Daily Show. Looked at from 30+ years distance, O’Neill’s responses and O’Neill’s comportment reflect honor on him.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 am
“thirty years is indeed quite a long time in terms of historical scholorship, especially if we’re looking at the American war in Vietnam.”
So, what d is saying is this case, more than any other, is one which needs to be looked back upon and reflected from a different point of view, and revised.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:40 am
I also notice d hasn’t linked to those “other works written by folks with more standing” than the head of Washington Post’s Saigon bureau, er, I mean, that HNN intern.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:21 am
d would have to link to either chomsky or zinn to find substantiation for his particular idiocy.
News flash, moron, even your thought bosses have moved on from the dumbassedness you’re spewing here.
You’re nothing but a mindless regurgitator of tired old, already discredited and disproven, black propaganda produced by the enemy we were fighting.
As an adherent to the enemy, you fall into that particularly degenerate, disgusting, filthy and universally despised subset of dysfunctional known as a betrayer.
Congratulations. You’ve made membership to one of the very few subgroups that is loathed and hated by every culture, every society to have ever existed.
No culture has long tolerated those who adhere to the cause, method, means or message of the enemy during a time of war.
The days of permissiveness in our society are drawing ever closer to being closed as well. The betrayals are becoming too obvious, too loud and too consistent to be excused for much longer.
That is, unless you’re just another nasty jihadi flying a false flag.
The radical left, which you give every indication of belonging to, is so deeply in bed with the jihadi already that there is zero rational reason to not lump all of you into the same method of engagment.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 am
d: … there’s probably not much point in telling you that other works — written by folks with a bit more standing than an HNN intern — have been published in the past three decades that tell a more complicated story than the cartoonish one you seem to favor.
- And that’s what these people consider an argument. Even as an attempt at a sneer, it’s weak.
Vietnam itself was complicated, of course (as, for that matter, is anything in history), but those noting the complications are generally those challenging the conventional wisdom that the US had simply lost the war. What complicated matters particularly was that Vietnam had evolved from a colonial war to an ideological one, with the former aspect used, quite effectively, as a weapon in the latter. But the real cartoon here is the simple-minded lefty depiction of the US as just another slavering imperial power — a cartoon behind which the left still thinks it can hide its real ideological intentions, as you can see at every dwindling “protest” march.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:47 am
D,d,d–your pose as an educated academic is slipping, perhaps you should try for more hauteur of the kind that Kerry has mastered.
At least most of the professors I studied under managed to radiate a certain cultured, civilized, urbane vibe that you, from the tone of your posts, lack.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 am
For those who’ve apparently never heard of historians other than the ones that Bill O’Reilly complains about, here’s one useful link for you. This is a useful Vietnam War bibliography compiled by Edwin Moise, who is a well-respected and widely published historian of US foreign relations. Go nuts.
As for Giap’s remarks — which I rarely see referenced except by conservatives who insist that “we couldda won! we was winnin’!” — I don’t really know what to tell you. If you’re the sort of person willing to take a retired NVA general’s memoirs as the final word on the Tet Offensive, perhaps you’d be interested in what Giap’s observations on other wars.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
“d” outed himself with the mention of “free fire zones”.
The tactic is to presume the term has been loaded with bales and bushels and tons of ominousity. One need only intone the words and, instantly, all thought ceases, to be replaced by ZinnChomskyian horror at the US’ unprecedented evilness.
Unfortunately for such as “d”, most folks know better.
I will not attempt to correct “d”, since I’m certain he knows better. I will attempt to correct his impression that he is fooling anybody. I know, I know, waste of time. But I persevere.
About 90% of South Viet Nam was and about 95% of the population of South Viet Nam lived in other than free fire zones. Those were referred to as no-fire or restricted-fire zones. The concept of non-free-fire zones was a puzzle to my father, who’d fought in Europe as an Infantry officer. When I returned from Ft. Benning, trying to explain the concept, his reaction was, “Which traitor made up those rules?” McNamara, of course.
The number of US and ARVN troops killed because of restrictions on fire support has never, to my knowledge, been addressed, but anecdotes about one case here, another case there, heard from veterans directly or in memoirs, and extended to the entire conflict would put the number pretty high.
I once asked, in an artillery class, how soon we could expect rounds on the ground after a call for fire. Three minutes. In a Rules of Engagement class, some other candidate asked how long to get clearance. An hour, a day, maybe never.
So, “d”, you see people know better.
Enjoy
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Any attempts at discussion with those given over to betrayal, like “d” here, are about as useful as talking dinner menus with a dedicated fecal phage.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Lots of cogent debunking upthread of d’s nonsense, but I couldn’t let this gem pass without comment.
In terms of historical scholarship, 30 years is a blink of the eye. Arguably something that happened 30 years ago is scarcely history yet, but just oldish news.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:44 am
d:
I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt; I like to think of myself as open-minded. Therefore, I can only blame myself for the minute of my life wasted reading that swill of Giap’s.
Perhaps, as an historian, you should have a better appreciation for the difference between your enemy admitting you were beating them, and your enemy continuing to disagree with your ideology.
Perhaps also the difference between observation and speculation. In particular, the speculation of those who think that the descent in communism is a victory for freedom.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Of course, I’m sure d and his friends “rarely mention” among themselves the fact that Kerry is a national hero in Vietnam, as well. One would think the left’s proudest achievements, and Giap’s statement, giving credit where credit is due, would be shouted from the rooftops. They take credit for ending the war, but suppress the fact the enemy gives them the credit, too.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:55 am
Occam’s Beard
Of course, it is a good for somebody who actually there to try and set down what actually happened near the time it happened. William of Tyre’s history of the crusades is still considered valuable, though he wrote it centuries ago.
History is, after all, what somebody decided to record. If it’s not recorded, it’s lost.
I notice, by the way, “d” shies away from the subjects of re-education camps, and the boat people.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 am
Lee
Well, if you were them, wouldn’t you suppress it too?
And I don’t see why Giap’s comments on the war should be dismissed. An enemy can sometimes give one good insights into what really happened, once the actual fighting’s over.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:01 am
d
As for Giap and Iraq, I’m not going to pay any attention at all to what he says while the war is still going on. Afterwards, maybe—-when he’s probably going to be more honest; but, for now, I think he’s just snowing the US again.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:34 am
d very illuminatingly said…
I knew that was exactly what he would reply. People like you are nothing if not simple and predictable.
A retired NVA general? Try the supreme commander of all north Vietnamese and viet cong forces both against the French and the US.
Ofcourse since what he, arguably the most authoritative voice on the matter, has to say doesn’t conform to your narrative, he will be sneeringly marginalized.
How predictable, how tiresome.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:35 am
John Kerry. Part of the reality-based community.
John Kerry is part of the vanity-based community.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
J Effing Kerry is suing Pres Bush over use of Vietnam imagery.
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2650
Parody of course, but not by a whole lot lol.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Note, to the impaired, that I “dismissed” neither Giap’s memoirs nor the 30-year-old book about media coverage of Tet. Like all sources, the truth value of a memoir has to be weighed cautiously; the reviews of Giap’s book — in journals of military history, no less — attest to that quite directly if you care to read them. Anyone who wants to use Giap’s memoirs as an unambiguous, insider’s account of the war is going to have a difficult time making a strong case.
And yes, good historical studies often have a long shelf life (though The Big Story is less a history than a close media critique). My point, which you folks are certainly welcome to distort, is merely that Neocon’s repeated citations of that book — in this post and elsewhere — suggest that she’s never heard of George Herring, Andrew Krepinevich, Marilyn Young, or George Donelson Moss. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but someone looking to disclose The Truth about the US and Vietnam would do well to read more widely.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 pm
d
Actually, I’ve taken a quick look though Neo’s articles on Vietnam: she talks about a lot of things: Ellsberg, Walter Cronkite, etc. She doesn’t just base everything on “The Big Story”. I think it would be a good idea if you actually read what she’s written.
And someone looking to educate others about reading more widely would do well to drop the snark and condescending sarcasm.
By the way, we still haven’t heard you say much about the Boat People, or the re-education camps.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
The thing that astonishes me about Kerry’s 1971 remarks are his claims that there was no bloodbath after the French pulled out of Algeria. That would be a surprise to the French Harkis allied forces, hundreds of thousands of whom were murdered by the victorious FLN. How could he make such an inaccurate statement and not get picked up on it ?
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I see it doesn’t take much to get called a traitor on this thread.
Here’s the choice: a short bloodbath when we leave now, or a long, drawn-out bloodbath over several years if we stay.
And by the way, d is right, and the rest of you are so wrong you can’t even see right where you are.
Let the flaming commence!!
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
The only weapons that work on folks like D are steel blades and psychological warfare attacks.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Anything embroils you in rules of engagement and other such self-restricted limitations.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
However, while anything, in a conflict sense, embroils you in such, it takes a special talent to use it as a weapon to destroy your enemies with. Giap didn’t do it by himself, but he certainly took advantage of the mistakes and the openings other gave him.
Giap knew as I do, that tools such as d are often very useful in warfare, should you be unable to unleash nuclear fire or devastating conventional attacks.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
The radical left, which you give every indication of belonging to, is so deeply in bed with the jihadi already that there is zero rational reason to not lump all of you into the same method of engagment.
Alright tough guy,
When you decide that you’re ready to try to kill every other American who doesn’t agree with you, go ahead and take your best shot. I’d advise you to shop for your own casket first.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
When you decide that you’re ready to try to kill every other American who doesn’t agree with you, go ahead and take your best shot.
The Left is superior to such conventional and direct methods of attack, because the Left is able to utilize tools and proxies to do their killing for them.
They didn’t kill any that died in Iraq. They just goaded them into signing up by calling them chickenhawks. Cleaner this way.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
d
Yeah, we did so poorly and so horribly bad a job in Vietnam that, by the enemy’s own admission, the war was all but won by us on 2 different occasions.
The only thing that kept the NVG from full capitulation was the 350000 Soviet troops and advisers stationed in North Vietnam and the Soviet KGB’s constant insistance that the American communist party would soon wear down resistance to defeat.
We know this from documentation of the periods in question from both the NVG and Soviets.
Only those committed to the continuation of the communist propaganda messages would use the terms and accusations as you used them.
Only a communist appologist would even try to minimize the hell and true horror that SEAsia became once our own betrayers won the day at home and the Vietnamese were fully cut off.
Only a moron would be able to believe that a nation could have been built up to sustainable level enough to face the might of an industrial logistics capacity as was provided by the USSR to North Vietnam in the short amount of time available. And please, dont be so ridiculous as to pretend you believe that just because some US elements were in the area at such early dates that anything substantial was possible starting so soon in the problem
We did much better at adjusting to the Vietnam problem than we did to the Korean. We managed to hold South Korea safe for long enough for them to have become fully economically self sustaining.
The only reason that Vietnam turned out differently is that, this time, the communists were ready on our homefront to work the same sort of erosion and defeatist dissension as you and your fellow travelers are doing today.
In Osama bin Laden’s own words: “It is my hope that the American people will rise up and defeat their own government for me, like they did for the communists in Vietnam.”
You work Osama’s will. That makes you enemy by every possible definition of the term.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
r4d20
This isn’t about difference of opinion. This is about those who’ve given themselves over to agitating and propagandizing on behalf of the enemy for our own defeat.
And yes, I will take my best shot, as I was trained to do, and as I am bound by oath of enlistment, once the issue can no longer be avoided and the call is given.
There is no justification for adhering to the cause of the enemy during a time of war. It is a universal taboo and listed specifically as a crime meriting death or banishment in our Constitution.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
johnr
Because John Kerry was a media darling at the time, and could say anything he liked. Was he ever taken to task for the alleged atrocities he claimed he’d taken part in, along with other American soldiers?
Unfortunately, there wasn’t an Internet around at that time, to expose him.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I find it interesting that after years of insisting that Iraq is nothing like Vietnam, suddenly the war’s supporters are saying it’s exactly like Vietnam.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Gus:
Most very wrong. The result of a cut and run will be just as disasterous for Iraq and the arab/mid east as it had been for Vietnam/South East Asia.
That is what we are saying.
What the defeatists were saying is that Iraq is the same “quagmire” that Vietnam had been. The idea of Vietnam as a quagmire was also an invention of those given over to defeatism and enemy sympathy.
There are some similarities. Both have insurgent/counter insurgent operations. Both in much the same general state of economic dysfunction and in need of comprehensive infrastructure development/repair, etc etc.
But none of these issues are much different that what was the case in South Korea and to varied degrees, Germany, Italy and Japan as well.
The major difference starting with Vietnam, and the major factor uniting them together, is the degree to which those advocating for the enemy are active on our homefront, in schools, in media and in politics.
The serious difference between Vietnam and Iraq situations is that there are a significant percentage of citizens fully aware of what damage and harm the agitators and enemy sympathizers were able to inflict in their efforts to erode the will of the nation to fight against the communists in Vietnam.
There is zero chance that such citizens will sit on their hands and let it happen again.
It is a very dangerous game that the left is playing. Tolerance for their acts and actions grows thinner by the day as their motivations become clearer and less easily excused away.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
The bulk of the commenters here seem to have no interest in the actual preservation of life, despite all the hand-waving about the murders and massacres that occurred post-1975 in Indochina. These past deaths are merely a tool with which to ferret out contemporary “traitors,” and condemn these “betrayers” to punishment for treason.
“You people abandoned millions to their death”
Only true if ‘d’ and a couple other commenters here actually made the withdrawal policy–and that’s buying the argument that the policy makers are guilty. This accuses the dissenters on this thread of being complicit in the deaths of millions, an amazing charge that ranks ‘d’ up there with the worst humans in all of history.
“their own plans of destruction and racial eradication”
Just in case it’s not clear that ‘d’ is a genocidist.
Doug L’s link leads us to an article on a treasonous reporter, who did his damnedest to make America lose.
“had they not been betrayed by the American media would have prevailed. … Fast forward to today … It is the democrats who have a large stake in our Iraq venture failing”
Just to make sure we know that the treasonous continue to operate in the present.
“you fall into that particularly degenerate, disgusting, filthy and universally despised subset of dysfunctional known as a betrayer.”
“most of the professors I studied under managed to radiate a certain cultured, civilized, urbane vibe that you, … lack.”
Yes, he’s the barbaric one. And we all know how we should treat barbarians. (And wasn’t someone upthread complaining about the academy? Get your narrative straight!)
“those given over to betrayal, like “d” here”
And what do “we” do to traitors? Eliminate them:
“No culture has long tolerated those who adhere to the cause, method, means or message of the enemy during a time of war.”
“there is zero rational reason to not lump all of you into the same method of engagment.”
“The only weapons that work on folks like D are steel blades”
“There is no justification for adhering to the cause of the enemy during a time of war. It is a universal taboo and listed specifically as a crime meriting death or banishment in our Constitution.”
Because ‘d’ is arguing that neo-neo-con has incoherent policy prescriptions for the past, he should be eliminated now.
In closing:
“In Osama bin Laden’s own words: ‘It is my hope that the American people will rise up and defeat their own government for me, like they did for the communists in Vietnam.’
You work Osama’s will. That makes you enemy by every possible definition of the term.”
You buy Osama’s telling of American history? He’s the authority? (I’m not sure about the defeat of the American government that he’s citing. Oh wait, that traitorous press and Nixon’s resignation, right?)
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Grimmy,
Please explain:
“Tolerance for [the Left’s ] acts and actions grows thinner by the day as their motivations become clearer and less easily excused away.”
The motivations of “the Left” are not becoming clearer and clearer for me. Could you please explain what you mean?
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Fats:
I can offer a guess as to why its not clear to you.
The left is activily engaged, and has been since soon after the war started, in sowing defeatism, dissension, marching in support of and along side with representatives of our enemy, purposely working to misinform the general public about every aspect of this war in an effort to further erode the will of the citizenry to keep up the fight against our enemy.
This is not about difference of opinion. There is much and many things that everyone disagrees on, about or over. But standing firm during a time of war is not, nor has it ever been, optional.
This drive to force our own military into pulling out of Iraq in defeat is an act of betrayal.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Ah yes, Braestrup’s “Big Story” an old book, therefore out of date and wrong because fresh, new books, including all the latest research, must be better.
Decades ago I remember an undergraduate who asked me to recommend a good book on the French Revolution and when I suggested one of the old classics–I believe it was Thomas Carlyle’s “The French Revolution,” he refused to look at it because it was not new. Rather some piece of “new” badly written, badly researched crap with a glossy cover than an old, well written and well argued old book any day.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
There is no justification for adhering to the cause of the enemy during a time of war.
All anyone did was dispute a particular analysis of the vietnam war. No radical leftist has come anywhere near here, let alone spouted anything remotely close to promoting mass murder of rightwing Americans.
YOU are the only one talking about how you are to start to start killing your countrymen. YOU are the one hating America - at least all the parts who hold ideas that dont meet your approval. THE ONLY traitor around here is YOU.
I’m saying to you what I’ve said to dozens of other “tough guys” who have made thinly veiled threats about a coming mass extermination of anyone to the left of Sean Hannity:
“Bring it.”
You’re gonna find out that there are a lot of strong, intelligent, capable people who are more lethal than you think and who are NOT on board with your plan for an American gulag.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Grimmy [an exchange between ‘Fats’ and ‘Grimmy’ is pretty funny, I gotta say],
Your answer doesn’t explain the Left’s motivation, just what you perceive as the Left’s actions. Why do they want defeat, as you claim they do? What’s in it for them to betray the country?
“This is not about difference of opinion.”
Doesn’t a democratic system run on majority opinion?
Snowonpine,
Ugh. Carlyle’s prose–at length, there are gems–is enough to turn a person off history forever.
Carlyle didn’t have access to a number of sources that subsequent historians did, not to mention that he was often more credulous of his sources than a more recent historian would be. Which brings us to the larger point: more recent histories have access to a whole lot of data–especially government documents and memoirs of survivors–that accounts written in the 1970s did not. Of course, this doesn’t automatically make a more recent history better, as ‘d’ points out upstream…
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Ah yes, Braestrup’s “Big Story” an old book, therefore out of date and wrong because fresh, new books, including all the latest research, must be better.
Did I write that, or are you simply inventing arguments and ascribing motives that haven’t been presented and don’t actually exist?
It’s quite simple. If you want to read a good book about the French Revolution, or the Vietnam War, or the special variety of delusional thinking from which Grimmy apparently suffers, there are lots of options. However, if you — like the host of this blog, who seems to do a bang-up job of attracting thoughtful, articulate commenters — want to write hairshirt essays about how wrong you were to oppose the Vietnam War, and how everything you thought you knew about the war is incorrect, you would do well to show some familiarity with the literature on the subject.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm
The idea that advocating the defeat of your own forces during a time of war is somehow just another form of differing in opinion is false.
There are only two sides of a war to pick from for a citizen of a nation at war. Either your own or the enemy.
Those who have allowed themselves to fall into the pit trap that this is a war that could have, or even should have been avoided have done so only through the acceptance of the infospin and propaganda of those who have chosen to support victory for the enemy.
This is as uncomplicated as any issue can ever be.
Now, in this particular thread of comments, I will openly and freely admit that I may well have jumped wrong on what d was saying. And if so, I do owe him an apology. I qued off his listing of the usual actions listed as crimes by Americans by those who shout from the crowds of ANSWER marchers. One of the problems with communicating like this is the inability to see expression, hear intonation and relate body stances. Misinterpretations are common, unfortunately. Especially when the topic is one that holds heat and hurt.
Now, as to your recent question. Motivation? Couldn’t tell you. I can guess but doubt any real single motivation could be listed that fits enough of that gaggle of mishmashed ideologies to have any real validity.
There is the drive toward cultural obliteration and replacement that has been the cap stone of all communist inspired movements since communism got codified and officially -ismed. There is also a deep undercurrent of adherence to generalized anti-Americanism that can be heard in the words and speeches of the more active and radical.
Some on the professional political side are simple exploiters with no real beliefs of their own. Simply seeking path of least resistance to personal power.
But if I had to guess, I would guess that most have no clue why they do what they do. They see it as their inherited obligation to oppose the success of the US. Much of their personal mythology was built around the justifications and rationalizations of the acts and actions committed by Americans against American success in the war against communism in asia.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
d
My delusional variety comes from having had the job as a USMC intel analyst in studing the area of South East Asia with particular emphasis on how the area was decaying during the early to mid ’80s.
Every enlisted man in my unit above the rank of Sgt was a combat veteran of Vietnam. Our commanding officer was a “mustang” former enlisted commissioned during the Vietnam war for his actions during the siege of Hue.
Many many late nights were spent in discussions on that one single topic of Vietnam.
Not all of us depend on the writings of other academics for the foundation of our opinions.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Ah yes, calling for troop withdrawals has done beaucoups for those seeking the “path of least resistance to personal power.” The path of least resistance that includes random people howling for their elimination.
Lithium, Grimmy: look into it.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Fats:
Calls for withdraw if it’s a war started or heavily supported by those who oppose them for power and seen as a way of discrediting the opposition.
This is “George Bushes War” after all. Defeat the war, defeat the man. Defeat the man, defeat his party.
Like I said, I was guessing, since I am not of them or among them I have no real access to what particular mechanism drives them.
Thanks for calling this closed. There is never any value in discussion on such issues with those who are so opposed as we both are to each other’s world view.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Without looking back, I think the motivation argument is tossed out as a refutation of the idea that some Americans would want defeat or that many would follow not seeing what was going on.
A book called “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer discusses the mentality of the promoters and close followers of this sort of thing.
I found this quote from it in a review on Amazon:
“”The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. He who is free to draw conclusions from his individual experience and observation is not usually hospitable to the idea of martyrdom… All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth or certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”
http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movements/dp/0060916125
In the Viet Nam days the holy writ was written by Chomsky (and others I would expect.) This poison does not die a sudden death, it gets diluted over time and then perhaps revived in a perverse form to fit the times. Trutherism seems to be its heir. It’s too tedious to read enough of it to discover how closely allied they are.
Conspiracy theories are popular on account of a need to have a simple model of the world. Few have time to see the world through more than a single simple model. If the model is one of a militaristic and therefore evil American Empire, then the motive is as simple as being against evil.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:32 pm
“What’s in it for them to betray the country?”
They get to be nobles of a dark age, rather than mere citizens of an enlightened one. When everyone has equal opportunity, the only way to make oneself seem greater than one’s talents will allow is to strike out at one’s brethren, destroying their lives and society. Better to be king of a ruin, than just another ordinary person in the world’s greatest civilization.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Talkinkamel (above at 12:31 PM) advises “d” that he “…would do well to drop the snark and condescending sarcasm.” It is good advice if “d” actually wants to persuade anyone. But there is not a chance in a thousand that he will take it. For without snark and sarcasm, what does he have?
Civility? Facts? Reason? On the evidence of his comments in this thread, not much of those.
Of course, sarcasm is one of the great temptations in this sort of debate. No need for the dull work of putting together logical arguments based on facts. Just unleash the almighty sneer!
Our hostess here maintains a tone that is consistently rational and courteous (one of the reasons why I read her regularly.) If “d” and his ilk cannot engage at that level, I hope they leave and don’t come back.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I qued off his listing of the usual actions listed as crimes by Americans by those who shout from the crowds of ANSWER marchers.
Thats is exactly problem man.
You hear someone says something that kind of resembles something said by some chump from ANSWER and you jump to the conclusion that he must be some stereotype “Leftie” clone with no individuality whose every opinion comes from “Official Handbook of America-Hating Leftist beliefs”.
You talk of “Leftists” like they are some monolithic block of mindless automatons rather than REAL HUMAN BEINGS whose thoughts and opinions are primarily shaped by their own personal experiences and NOT simply adopted because they are the “official” positions of their “team”. Do YOU get your opinions by looking them up in the “Official Book of Rightwing Opinions on Everything”? I didn’t think so.
You are not a stereotype and neither is anyone else.
There are only two sides of a war to pick from for a citizen of a nation at war. Either your own or the enemy.
The administration spent 3 years denying an insurgency even existed. It was OBVIOUS by late’03 - early’04 that we faced an insurgency and NOT the “last throes” of dead enders but the WH spent 3 years asserting that it was, that it would all soon peter out on its own, and there was no need for US to re-assess our approach to the occupation. We all know SunTzu’s remark about “Know they enemy and know thyself” and the consequences of not doing so - How can you fight an enemy when you won’t even acknowledge his existence?
I believe that in their blind refusal FOR YEARS to re-evaluate their approach in the face of reality, the administration and their supporters did more to help the enemy, and hurt us, than all the anti-war marchers in the country combined. The administration and their supporters, objectively if unintentionally, aided the enemy and undermined our chance at victory.
You want to see the world in black & white? Fine, but at least consider that YOU may be confused about which is which.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Thanks for calling this closed. There is never any value in discussion on such issues with those who are so opposed as we both are to each other’s world view.
??? (Calling the “case” closed? Me?)
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe a person on one side of an argument doesn’t actually feel comfortable when the persons on the other side are calling for their execution because they hold a different point of view.
They [the Left, er…traitors] get to be nobles of a dark age, rather than mere citizens of an enlightened one. When everyone has equal opportunity, the only way to make oneself seem greater than one’s talents will allow is to strike out at one’s brethren, destroying their lives and society. Better to be king of a ruin, than just another ordinary person in the world’s greatest civilization.
This is the sort of comment that really deserves nothing better than mockery and sarcasm.
love,
d’s ilk
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:08 pm
What was our purpose in Vietnam?
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
“What was our purpose in Vietnam?”
To protect the democratic government of South Vietnam from being conquered by the authoritarian government of North Vietnam, until they grew strong enough to defend themselves, reaching the same parity South Korea reached with North Korea. This was called “containment” by the UN of the 1960s.
Ever been to Seoul? It’s a nice place, much nicer than pollution-choked Bejing, and leaps and bounds beyond Pyongyang (with the Pyramid-That-Must-Not-Be-Looked-At dominating the skyline), Hanoi, or Saigon.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
“To protect the democratic government of South Vietnam”
from “Big” Minh?
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
“You want to see the world in black & white?”
It’s preferable to seeing everything as a morally equivalent shade of gray.
There are none so blind as those who insist everything is no different a color as anything else.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:45 pm
You work Osama’s will. That makes you enemy by every possible definition of the term.
rd4 is an ally of d and is defending d. What else is there to say?
The true history is buried beneath hideous amounts of text written by the victors, Grimmy. We only have the voices of those that are still alive, such as your folks, to contest the histories written by the victors.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Ymar,
Funny you should mention Diem’s portrayal in the press, as today, many now call for the ouster of Maliki.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Or how quickly the left turned against the “insurgents and freedom fighters” of Anbar and Diyala, who were “merely doing what any of us would do in their shoes, resisting the unjust occupation of a foreign invader”.
That is, until the awakening. Now that they cooperate and fight alongside us, suddenly these very same people are “the terrorists we’re supposed to be fighting in the first place”.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
You know, here’s what I don’t get. Neo-neocon claims to have once been a liberal. Okay. But she changed her mind after 9/11, and gradually became a neocon. Well okay, that happened to a few people: they stopped pretending to be liberals and accepted that really they were something else. (After all, that’s what the original neocons were: hawkish liberals with dreams of a liberalish empire.)
But neo-neocon, if you were once a liberal, don’t you think some shred of fellow feeling, some warmth and humanity might still inhere in your writing? And you might not attract some of the most deranged wingnuts I’ve ever seen. I mean, these guys are suggesting that d and others should be executed for having a different analysis of Vietnam, and are taking “my country right or wrong” to the extreme.
See, my country (the UK) has involved itself in quite a few wars that have been at best dubious. Iraq, obviously, but also the Falklands War, the Crimean War, the Ashanti War, and so on. Am I traitor because I disapprove of our past militarism? By these guys’ views, not only is the answer yes, but I, and many millions of my compatriots, require executing. Indeed, in your own nation, the majority of the population now needs to be killed, according to the lunatics here.
So I suppose I’m asking, what kind of liberal were you that you associate with these lunatics? That you attract them? Are you proud to have them as commenters, friends?
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
“Neocon” — that means a hawk who won’t enlist, right?
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
In 1972, The South Vietnam Government was in no way democratic, and could only marginally be considered a “government.” It was in fact never really popularly elected, and Ho Chi Minh was arguably more of a democrat than Diem.
It is no more a “fact” that the genocide in Cambodia would not have happened had we stayed in Viet Nam than it is a “fact” that 9-11 would not have happened had Gore won the 2000 election. This is Harry Turtledove speculation that belongs in alternative history novels, not foreign policy debate.
You are attempting to debate the history of the Viet Nam war with a trained historian who has studied the subject his entire adult life. It takes a special kind of anti-intellectualism to simply dismiss his arguments with a wave of a hand. Yes, when people study something for years at a time, they come to know something about what happened. Yes, we learn more over time and the most recent work probably contains the best information. This is especially true when it comes to history–it either happened or it didn’t, and new information surfaces constantly. I wouldn’t have to say this to anyone with a lick of sense. Besides, General Giap saying we could have won the war is not history–it is opinion.
I am a retired combat soldier who deployed to a hostile fire zone. I think that our strategy for dealing with terrorism is counterproductive and foolish. I believe we should withdraw from Iraq immediately and refocus our resources on the real enemy before our military establishment is destroyed by the incompetent boobs running our government.
By your logic, this makes me a defeatist traitor who hates America, and you are not shy about telling me so. Since I spent so much time in the mud training to kill for my country, this pisses me off more than just a little bit–especially when so many of you have not made this sacrifice.
If you can make a logical case that the Bush Administration–which quite literally has done nothing right in six years except distort the electoral process by keeping poor people from voting–can effectively fight terrorism, then I’m all ears. But I can’t help but think that your support for this war has more to do with your Bush Worship Syndrome than your concern for Iraqi women and children. You argue for sacrificing American soldiers and treasure to stop genocide in Iraq, but where were you when the Serbs were killing Bosnians?
Succumbing to Clinton Derangement Syndrome, I think.
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Ah, yes,
Those evil geniuses. So smart, they knew EXACTLY which Dade County street intersections to park police cars to intimidate blacks from voting. Crunched the numbers and knew all they had to do was fuck over the voters of Franklin County, Ohio(and ONLY Franklin County).
Yet, it never occurred to any of them to plant ONE weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, thus ensuring everlasting support of their contrived and unjust invasion.
Baaah….ha…ha….ha….ha….
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
“You are attempting to debate the history of the Viet Nam war with a trained historian who has studied the subject his entire adult life.”
Yo, RSS: Funny, I never heard “d” claim this at all. All I ever read was that he was “an historian who’s taught courses on the American war in Vietnam and the foreign policies of the cold war”. Now, Mike Bellesisles was “an historian” too, wasn’t he? As was Ward Churchill.
And as a substitute teacher, I taught high school students about radio waves and electromagnetics…yet I wouldn’t call myself a “physicist.” I merely knew a little more than the students themselves. “d” has evidenced precious little understanding of the Vietnam conflict through his comments here…I wouldn’t say it bade well for his “training,” lifetime or otherwise.
You claim to be a retired soldier, and that we should “refocus our resources on the real enemy”…who is, who, exactly?
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:58 pm
“You claim to be a retired soldier,..”
And he obviously loathes being such, having been “trained to kill for my country”, as opposed to pride in “defending” her.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
i always wondered what it would have been like had the internet existed in berlin circa 1919. now i know.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Oh, well hell. A substitute radio wave teacher. I give. You must certainly know more Viet Nam war history than d and I put together. That you can name one historian that faked data cinches it.
And Lee, I was in fact trained to kill for my country, and I am proud that I was good at it. Whether or not I regret it, at least I woke up one morning and signed on the dotted line. What have you done for your country besides paint your keyboard orange with Cheetos dust?
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Easy enough to make the same claim myself…
But, since I’m not and you are…
Your MOS?
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
If by “precious little understanding of the Viet Nam conflict,” Stumbley, you mean “precious little interest in right-wing folklore,” then I suppose you’ve got me pegged. Obviously, the comments section of a blog is no place to defend my own credentials; you can assume I’m a fraud if that makes you happy. I really couldn’t be bothered.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
“the comments section of a blog is not place to defend my own credentials”
Leftie-liar speak for: “I have no credentials to defend”.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:53 pm
d: I really couldn’t be bothered.
Contradicting himself, obviously, and lacking the wit to realize it. He thinks the comments section of a blog is a fine place to claim expertise he’s unable to demonstrate — he just doesn’t like having to defend those claims. Which is where the “fraud” comes in.
As for poor old R. Stanton and his By your logic, this [believing we should cut and run from Iraq] makes me a defeatist traitor who hates America,… — no, sadly, it just makes you a fool. That, and your naive faith in anonymous commenters who claim they’ve taught history.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Geez, “cheeto dust” is the mot du jour of the trolls, today, isn’t it?
Wouldn’t be related to Donkey Kong at all, would you, RSS?
August 24th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Oh, and I named two “fake historians” (unless you count “d”, and he makes three). Admittedly, Churchill was ostensibly a “Native American Studies” prof, but he loved to plagiarize history….
August 24th, 2007 at 12:29 am
It takes a special kind of anti-intellectualism to simply dismiss his arguments with a wave of a hand.
Psychological warfare doesn’t a give a damn what you think about arguments.
Ho Chi Minh was arguably more of a democrat than Diem.
That’s what people tell themselves in order to excuse the defeat in Vietnam.
it either happened or it didn’t
Then there is the third option which says, “you don’t know what happened.”
Besides, General Giap saying we could have won the war is not history–it is opinion.
Thomas Jefferson’s letters and Washington’s personal words weren’t history, they were opinion…
Primary sources are the only really reliable source of historical information. The only “historians” that would call primary sources “opinion” are propagandists. To propagandists, everything is an opinion. Some are just stronger than others.
By your logic, this makes me a defeatist traitor who hates America
By your logic, anyone that disagrees politically with you is calling you a traitor. Your logic sucks.
except distort the electoral process by keeping poor people from voting
What happened to your solidarity with veterans and military personnel? It was Gore that tried to invalidate military overseas votes, not Bush.
with your Bush Worship Syndrome than your concern for Iraqi women and children.
Another opinion coming from someone who has neither read Neo or my posts, nor could even if he wanted to.
but where were you when the Serbs were killing Bosnians?
About the same spot we are right now. They’re still killing, US troops are still there, etc. Heck, the UN being there guarantees some killing at least. US troops still in that area north of Greece from the CLinton days, but it is Iraq that is the diaster. Hah
***_____________
It doesn’t matter what d’s credentials are. This ain’t no academic hearing over a doctorate thesis.
no, sadly, it just makes you a fool.
No, it doesn’t.
and your naive faith in anonymous commenters who claim they’ve taught history.
Given the state of American education, he probably has.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Guess his MOS was “assmaster”.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:40 am
You guys are priceless. The best counter argument you have to the assertion that Ho was more of a democrat than Diem is to wave your hand and say, “that’s what people tell themselves?” He either was or he wasn’t. If you have evidence, present it.
Ward Churchill is not a historian, does not pretend to be and therefore cannot be a fake one.
Lee seems to think that I am falsely claiming military experience. I wonder how making further such claims will suddenly make him believe, but for what it’s worth I was a 19K–M1A1 tanks. Platoon sergeant and all that jazz. So what did you do in the war, Lee?
Gore did not try to invalidate military absentee ballots–in fact he said that even those military absentee ballots that were technically invalid should be counted–even though he knew that most would go against him. It was Bush, in fact, that stood on technicalities to invalidate votes for Gore that were not perfectly cast.
Of course, this is a waste of time. If a story does not fit your narrative, it cannot be true. d cannot be a real historian, because he disagrees with a bunch of sunny day patriots who cannot be bothered to “stand up next to you and defend her here today.” (Don’t worry–Lee Greenwood didn’t either.) Ho could not have sought to establish a democracy because that would mean you are all wrong about what happened in Southeast Asia. And I cannot be a former soldier because soldiers all fall to their knees to support the leader while he destroys the Army I love (they are recruiting gang members, for chrissakes!).
Since you have a substitute radio wave teacher to tell your version, and you don’t mind slinging personal insults at soldiers who don’t buy your tale, you obviously win.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Lee and Stumbey, your oppo-research skillz are lacking. If you want to check up on the credentials of “d,” here’s all you have to do: click on the highlighted “d” at the start of his posts. that takes you to a site. click again on the “d” on that site, upper left corner. that takes you to his profile page. you’ll find two other blogs there, which should give you lots of info.
I’d like to second Dr. Zen’s questions to the blog proprietor. i’d be interested to know her take on grimmy’s “death or banishment” bit, for instance. i recognize she’s not responsible for the content of his comments. i’d just like to know where she stands on this issue: are people who advocate withdrawal from Iraq “defeatists” who “advocate the cause of the enemy,” and are thus subject to “death or banishment”?
August 24th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Lee and Grimmy:
Stop being defeatists. We already won the war by getting rid of Saddam. If we didn’t win, who did? You’re with us or against us logic may help you sleep at night but it is shallow and uninformed. There are more than two sides to the issue. There are at least the following positions:
1) Start a draft and flood the country with US troops
Exit Iraq by moving into Iran
2) Precipitous withdrawal
3) Withdrawal w/o timetables (at varying speeds lending itself to even more positions)
4) Withdrawal with timetables
5) Try to bring Syria and Iran into a diplomatic agreement concerning the country as proposed by the iraq Study Group
6) Stay the course
7) Surge II: Now with guarana
9) Have a referendum and allow Iraq to democratically decide if we should stay or go; nevermind that’s crazy to allow a young democracy to make their own decisions, sorry i was being so silly
I’m sure you will just dismiss this as lefty gobbledlygook but I figured I might as well get accused of treason to complete my week. Does seeing everything in black and white increase your sense of smell?
August 24th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Just for the fun of it, relating to military ballots and the 2000 election, what Gore did or didn’t do is beside the point.
The dems sent 300 lawyers to Florida to fight military ballots. C-Span had some extended footage of one –that I saw–arguing in some back country courthouse against counting military ballots.
In fact, there was a federal court case on the subject which considered a large number of military ballots in dispute. It went moot when the election was decided without them. You don’t have a court case and a dispute without somebody trying to have them invalidated.
Gore could say what he wanted to, or he could be said to have said what it would now be convenient for him to have said, and neither is relevant. There was an organized effort to fight military ballots.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Not sure what you saw on CSPAN, Mr. Aubrey, but I do know that both Gore and Senate Majority Leader Mitchell said publicly that military absentee ballots should all be counted, whatever postmark and signature irregularities they may have had. While I expect that the Democratic Party send an army of lawyers similar to that of the Republican effort, I challenge you to show that 300 of them were devoted solely to challenging military ballots.
There are two important things to keep in mind about this issue. One is that Florida law was pretty specific about its absentee voting procedure and the sorts of mistakes that would invalidate a ballot. One was postmark, probably on the grounds that it would be easy for someone to “stuff the ballot box” with absentee ballots if no evidence existed–such as a postmark–showing that the ballot had actually been delivered through the mail. Absentee ballots were also invalid if improperly filled out, and in some cases poll workers completed them–which sounds OK as long as they do so with all incomplete ballots, and not just those for a particular candidate.
Certainly some democrats did challenge ballots that did not meet the standard of the law, and rightfully so, military or not. If no standards exist, then we could all just write our votes on cocktail napkins and mail them in. This raises the second point–Republicans were very swift to demand the law be ignored when it looked like it would help them.
The bottom line is that my position on absentee ballots in Florida’s 2000 Presidential election has nothing to do with my solidarity with GIs. I was an NCO, and I am very comfortable with the notion that if some troop is too lazy or stupid to correctly send in his ballot it should not count–actions have consequences. Republicans were comfortable with this principle as well when the voters were “Jews for Buchanan.”
August 24th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Scott. Anybody can say anything, seeming above the fray.
But the challenges existed, they were mostlydone by out-of-state lawyers on the dems’ dime.
And the cases, large and small, did exist.
In other cases, Pennsylvania (Rendell) tried to screw the troops as did Washington state.
Lazy troop is one thing, late pickup by the authorities is another.
And to claim the dems are interested in standards for voting…. jeez.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
He either was or he wasn’t. If you have evidence, present it.
He either was or he wasn’t? This is your idea of deception and intrigue? No wonder you have no idea that evidence has little place in psychological warfare. The only evidence that matters is whether a specific attack has shredded the mental defenses of the target.
are people who advocate withdrawal from Iraq “defeatists” who “advocate the cause of the enemy,” and are thus subject to “death or banishment”?
Scott Thomas Beau.
Grim Beorn listed the legal requirements for treason, or at least mutiny in the armed forces.
We already won the war by getting rid of Saddam. If we didn’t win, who did?
Like Yglesias said, we didn’t go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or WMDs or whatever. And he is right.
shallow and uninformed
You can’t change how humans are by calling people shallow or uninformed. humans will still be humans, regardless of how much you may wish to change this.
Does seeing everything in black and white increase your sense of smell?
You do understand that white is the composition of all the other colors in the rainbow right? Having sides to an issue doesn’t mean you divide up what is the Light and the Dark, and say you got more than two sides. You don’t.
Leader Mitchell said publicly that military absentee ballots should all be counted
By all means, believe the public persona.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Ymarsakar, my question was addressed to the owner of the blog. I’m not asking the “legal requirements” of treason, I’m asking her whether she thinks advocating withdrawal from Iraq is treason. Perhaps a more precise way of putting the question, which you might also want to answer, is: “should advocating withdrawal from Iraq result in prosecution for treason?” I phrase it this way since I’m assuming neither Grim nor you advocate doing away with trials for treason. Please tell me if I’m mistaken in that assumption.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Ever notice how those from the left who “served” were tankers?
Maybe he could tell us the difference between APCR and APDS.
But what do I know, I was 4-F. Caught HIV from a transfusion.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
With absentee ballots, it’s easy enough to trace the voter to the ballot submitted by the voter. But at the polling place, they check your eligibility to vote, then hand you a standard slip or card, since votes are supposed to be “annonymous”.
How exactly did they figure specific Jewish people voted for Buchannan against their wishes?
August 24th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
rd4 is an ally of d and is defending d. What else is there to say?
Of course, because the last thing you want to do is think about how YOU spent 3 YEARS saying:
“Iraq is doing just fine. We dont need more troops. There is no insurgency. The violence is just the last throes of dead enders and anyone who says otherwise is a defeatist who gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Iraqi is nothing like Vietnam. !!”
You didn’t want to damn “anti-war” types any ammo so you denied we faced any problems lest they overhype the ones that did exist.
But the problems got worse until you couldn’t deny them, so now you try to claim them for your own:
“Iraq is in serious crisis. We can only stop it by adding a relatively paltry number of additional troops. The insurgency is an imminent threat to all Iraqis. The violence is endemic but if we leave it will only get worse and result in millions of deaths - just like in Vietnam!”
Your fear of giving the anti-war movement even a little bit of ammo back then guaranteed that you gave them an entire arsenal now. It would be funny if many thousands of People - iraqi and American - hadn’t died while you spent 3 years pretended the problem didn’t exist.
Just like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, you lied until no one would believe anything you said and THEN decided to tell the truth - and, just like with him, the blood that will be spilt is on YOUR hands and not those who stopped listening to your lies.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
The surge is creating an opportunity for peace.
Bush and his supporters will find a way to squander this opportunity.
I’m not anti-war.
I don’t dislike Neocons because they start wars. I dislike Neocons because they cannot win them.
August 24th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
It would be wonderful if in Iraq we could mimic the post-WWII success in Japan. Wait a minute. Didn’t we pay an enormous price for that success? You know, WWII in the Pacific? Four hard years of brutal fighting, beginning with Japanese victories throughout the Pacific, eventually culminating in the destruction of the Japanese empire? Sound familiar? That defeat created the conditions that allowed for the great success that followed. Viewed through that lens, the current situation in Iraq bears little resemblance to post-WWII Japan.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
the current situation in Iraq bears little resemblance to post-WWII Japan.
We have to thank you folks for having blunted the influence of the Total War party for both VIetnam and Iraq on this score. You have made a desert and called it peace, and I would like to congratulate you on this marvelous act of destruction and deceit.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
should advocating withdrawal from Iraq result in prosecution for treason?
Don’t you think you need to define what treason is before you start talking about it?
August 24th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
The actual rule of law requires some legal niceties to be drawn first, if trials are ever going to occur. If you don’t want trials, then don’t define treason legally.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I’m sorry, Ymarsakar, but I don’t understand why you won’t answer my straightforward question, which you quote above at 8:12. I’m actually more interested in Neo-neocon’s answer, but if you’d like to answer it, please do. The question of treason was raised by Grim, by the way.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
John Protevi:
No, not treason. Acts must reach a very high standard of proof and seriousness to be defined as treason. Everything that undermines a war effort is certainly not treason, not by a long shot.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Say, John P:
Did what you asked. Point taken. Still think he’s an idiot. Okay?
August 25th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Thank you for your answer, Neo-neocon. It seems the poll is now 1 for yes (Grim), 2 for no (you and me), 1 unclear (Ymarskar).
August 25th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Ymarsakar, but I don’t understand why you won’t answer my straightforward question
Because I don’t know what your question concerns.
Grim Beorn listed the legal requirements for treason, or at least mutiny in the armed forces.
In case I wasn’t clear, he made the case that Scott Thomas had undermined his own forces in war time, which is a mutinous charge for court martial, rather than civilian justice.
Since mutiny and treason are not the same things, I asked you to define one. In this case, it was treason. I am under no obligation to answer unclear questions which make it look like the originator doesn’t even know what he is asking.
There are a lot of people advocating for withdrawal. Do you wish me to clear such people because of your question? Do you wish me to label those that are guilty that aren’t, because of your question? I will neither free the guilty nor imprison the innocent, simply because you wish an immediate answer.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Ymarsakar, the person to whom I addressed the question (Neo-neocon) answered it simply and clearly at 10:00 p.m. last night. It’s really not a trick question, but as I really wanted to hear from her, not from you, we can leave it at that.
FYI, though, “Grimmy” introduced the topic on this thread in talking to “d,” “r4d20,” “Fats,” and “Gus.” Those comments didn’t concern Beauchamp.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I think in a sense, my views on diplomacy, negotiation, and intrigue does not allow me to assume that when a person asks me a question, that the meaning I take from it is the same meaning present in the one that asked the question.
Nor am I politician to take a question and then start talking about it only in in relation to my views and interests.
Answering a question that one does not fully understand was one of the easiest ways to get yourself killed in political intrigue, and not even Byzantine intrigue at that.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Grimmy, is not Grim Beorn, though. So if you were talking about Grim as if he was Grimmy, then I just want you to know that I wasn’t.
August 25th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Well, maybe that was part of the problem. I was talking about Grimmy, though I used “Grim” as an abbreviation.
As for your comment about intrigue, I can assure you that all my interlocutors run a very low risk of getting themselves killed in political intrigue while writing blog comments in response to my questions. It seems that Neo-neocon calculated that the risk was minimal enough that she dared a straightforward answer. If your calculations are different, I guess I’ll have to continue to list your position with regard to my question as “unclear,” as at 8:44 a.m. Should your risk calculations change and you want to remove that ambiguity by listing yourself in either the yes or no columns, I’ll check back on this thread periodically.
August 27t