Scott Ganz on the silliness and childishness of much of the antiwar criticism these days. In brief: I agree. I'm probably repeating myself, but I don't think it can be said enough that "War is icky and makes my hair frizzy!" and "Zeeble bop fickle fack Bush Bush BUSH!"* are not good arguments against war in Iraq or anyplace else. Neither are "you guys don't remember Vietnam and all the casualties quagmire blah blah blah." Well, I remember Vietnam and all the casualties and how we just sort of got bummed out and abandoned the Vietnamese to their fate. It seems, in the end, to have turned out less horrid (at least in Vietnam) than it could have -- at least, the country is no North Korea -- but to this day I don't know why every Vietnamese person on earth just doesn't hate our guts. We dropped them like a hot rock and let the commies have them. "Sorry! It's just too hard to keep doing this! That cool blond chick in the bell bottoms won't let me date her if I keep up the war stuff, so -- gotta go!"
We dropped Iraq too, like a hot rock, though this was at the behest of the United Nations, an act which not only left Hitler Jr. in power, but in retrospect made the rest of the world think that we were the United Nations' bitch. No wonder everyone's so upset now. The high-class hooker thinks she can go into business without her pimp now, and you know nothing pisses pimps off more.
Anyway, I've got to get out of the Bytecave for a while. Laters.
(*Stolen from Juan Gato.)
Posted by Andrea Harris at March 13, 2003 01:50 PMWell, I remember Vietnam and all the casualties and how we just sort of got bummed out and abandoned the Vietnamese to their fate. It seems, in the end, to have turned out less horrid (at least in Vietnam) than it could have -- at least, the country is no North Korea -- but to this day I don't know why every Vietnamese person on earth just doesn't hate our guts. We dropped them like a hot rock and let the commies have them. "Sorry! It's just too hard to keep doing this! That cool blond chick in the bell bottoms won't let me date her if I keep up the war stuff, so -- gotta go!"
THANK you!!!!
That needs to be thrown into the face of every anti-war protestor who was born after 1975. What's more, I remember how horridly the anti-war crowd then treated the returning veterans...and the parroting of their epithets in the face of the present day military is dismaying to say the least. I thought we had learned our lesson...but then I forgot...a lot of the Mini-Me Generation hasn't learned much in todays decrepit education system...other than how to be an activist.
Posted by: Sharon at March 13, 2003 at 03:05 PMI think Scott really hit the nail on the head in his piece. On another note, I kind of resent the way these anti-war radical leftists are being puffed up as "the voice of a new generation". Not all of us want to follow in the footsteps of our '60s-radical parents.
(Alex Keaton LIVES!)
Posted by: TV's Grady at March 13, 2003 at 05:12 PM"Voice of a new generation"? Wasn't that a Pepsi slogan once upon a time?
Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 13, 2003 at 06:57 PMMeanwhile, the revisionism continues...
At one blog, a commentator declared that, in fact, the mistreatment of returning Vietnam vets was mostly "urban myth." No one ever spit on vets. Kinda funny, since I've a number of friends who were not only vets, but were spit on.
Which was ascribed to a combination of false memories and anecdotal evidence.
As for the Vietnam War, and the general opposition to Communism in the region, here's a test:
We fought in Korea and Vietnam, and aided the Nationalists against the Communists. At the end of the day, of course, we left Vietnam to its own devices. In which cases are the populations better off, and in which cases are they worse off? Did US intervention help or hinder? Discuss....
Posted by: Dean at March 13, 2003 at 07:15 PMGreat metaphor. Reminds me of a poem, written IIRC by a pimp in the classic movie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka," that starts with the line: "The bitch better have my money..."
Posted by: ScrapOfCat at March 13, 2003 at 08:08 PMI was in Viet Nam and we hated the fact that the fucking politicians would not let us fight. We essentially 'fought' that war with both arms tied behind our collective backs. I'll be willing to bet that our guys in the military are sitting over in the Middle East getting impatient with all the diplomacy bullshit that's going on and grumbling about the politicians delaying the start of the impending war. Let's get it on already!
Posted by: Denny Wilson at March 14, 2003 at 09:46 AMVietnam was a proxy war into which America was suckered. At no point should the conflict have been simply about Hanoi; America's enemies were the Chinese and the Soviets. For every battle won - despite Johnson's endless, whimsical haggling for an agreement with authoritarians - the two Communist entities would simply funnel more manpower and weaponry into the jungle.
I can't imagine the frustration and disillusion a soldier must have faced on a daily basis. God Bless 'em.
Iraq may benefit from a black-market triangle for bio-chem-atomic components, but not so for its conventional military. That alone is reason enough to turn one's ears off when the words "Iraq" and "Vietnam" are used in the same sentence (beyond a description of their contrary nature).
Posted by: Michael Ubaldi at March 14, 2003 at 02:56 PMI hear you talk about 'Anti-war Radical Leftists', but what do you know of the world? You think you can go in with your bombs and guns and military fight and fix everything. Wars are never free, they are paid for in full in blood, blood of soldiers and innocents alike, be it Iraqi's due to some stray American missile, or Americans due to a hijacked aeroplane crashed into a skyscraper. Do you think those who died and will die in such ways will care who killed them, whether it was an American Bomb 'freeing' their country or a crazed psychotic socalled 'islamist' terrorist? Wake up and smell the coffee, before you end up spilling it all over your self-rigtheous 'i-didnt-realise-it-was-hot-until-it burned-me' butts.
Posted by: A at March 18, 2003 at 08:13 PMWow. I can't believe I've been so wrong all this time. Yes, "A", I see the light now! Your brilliant rhetoric has cut through all the BS and cleared the scales from my eyes!
Come on everyone, let's all sing!
Kumbaya dot-com!
Kumbaya!
Shhh, Kevin -- don't you know that "A" wrote this from the _heart_??? (How on earth would I spill coffee on my butt? Never mind -- I'm not sure that I want to know how "A" drinks his or her coffee.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 18, 2003 at 10:18 PM