Posted on 05/14/2004 11:29:58 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Awesome, good for you. Time to fight everyday like tomorrow is election day!
Maybe this will help for the big picture, history is our greatest teacher. The ENEMY North Vietnamese General Giap thanking the American war protestors (LIKE KERRY who was a major player then) for helping them "win". Its not a stretch to blame American soldiers deaths on "anti-war" protestors by encouraging the enemy to continue the fight. Note: "anti-war" protestors should be called "anti-freedom" for that is what is at stake. Who isnt anti-war? Soldiers most of all.
Good luck! We can all take a few minutes a day to do what we can.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5001328
HANOI (Reuters) - Twenty-nine years after the end of the Vietnam war, communist military mastermind General Vo Nguyen Giap remains grateful to the Americans who opposed it.
The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand.
"I would like to thank them," the 93-year-old veteran said on Friday of those Americans who opposed the war.
Giap was speaking during a two-hour interview with foreign and domestic media on the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, capital of the then U.S.-backed South Vietnam, that marked the end of the war.
The four-star general, who also led Vietnam to a stunning defeat against the French army 50 years ago at Dien Bien Phu, declined to be drawn on comparisons between the U.S. war in his country, that ended in 1975, and the U.S. involvement in Iraq.
But he sounded a note of warning.
"Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he said.
"Each nation should have the right to independence," he said, wagging a finger at reporters and Foreign Ministry staff in an ornate French colonial style government guest house in the capital, Hanoi.
The frail, snowy haired general, who was a teacher and dabbled in journalism before becoming revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh's top commander, peppered long stories about Dien Bien Phu with anecdotes and jokes.
Giap spoke mostly in Vietnamese, replying to questions submitted in advance as well as to four asked on the spot. But he broke into fluent French when a question was posed in that language.
Regarded as Vietnam's most famous living figure, Giap appears in public for a few national events, and this year has been promoting the anniversary of the victory of his Viet Minh forces, a coalition of communists and nationalists, over a much better equipped French force.
The culmination of the 56-day siege of Colonel Christian de Castries' forces in the valley town of Dien Bien Phu, about 490 km (300 miles) northwest of Hanoi, came on May 7, 1954.
Giap will be the star of the 50th-anniversary celebrations, which are expected to draw thousands of Vietnamese and foreign visitors to the battlefield.
Others here will help you more than I can. I'm just dropping in to say you are correct, sir!
I heard that caller to Rush, she really did have it all nailed down.
The thing that scares me is that opposition to the Vietnam war took a long time to reach critical mass. It was only after the war had gone on for years, and thousands of Americans had died, that the anti-war movement started to have real influence and success.
In the current day the left seems to have jumped right in where they left off after the fall of Saigon. It is also manifest that in this war we, not the South Vietnamese, are the primary target. But the left wants America and our entire way of life destroyed. Its what they wanted back in the days of Vietnam, when many Americans who joined their cause failed to see the Communist underpinnings of it; and it's what they want now, when the power mad democrats seem more than happy to surrender to the Islamofacists, if they can only regain some of the power they abused for decades.
North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."
"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.
Visits to Hanoi by Kerry anti-war allies Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.
Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.
"Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.
The Giap interview is of key importance as mentioned.
Also, look very close at the fall of South Vietnam. Nixon's stratgey had worked and we were only providing support for the most part - weapons, air sorties, etc.
Well, then Nixon lost all his political power thanks to Watergate and the leftists in Congress shut off the aid we had been giving. THEN, and only THEN, did the South fall.
Even with every other dirty nasty trick the left played it was this one that made sure a million people would die in concentration camps and while forced to flee the country...
I believe NRO had an article on this topic too - so try searching their site if you want a more polished analysis of it.
ANTI-WAR OR ANTI-U.S.?
By AMIR TAHERI
The rebirth of the peace movement. This is how sections of the Western media describe the marches that attracted 30 million people in some 600 cities, in 25 countries, across the globe in recent weeks.
Last week, a group of "peaceniks" gathered in London to discuss ways of nursing the "reborn" child into adulthood. By coincidence,today marks the 50th anniversary of Josef Stalin's death. The Soviet dictator was the father of the first "peace movement," which for years served as an instrument of the Kremlin's global policy.
Stalin's "peace movement" was launched in 1946 at a time when he had not yet developed a nuclear arsenal and was thus vulnerable to a U.S. nuclear attack. Stalin also needed time to consolidate his hold on his newly conquered empire in eastern and central Europe while snatching chunks of territory in Iran.
Pablo Picasso, a "fellow traveler" with the French Communist Party, designed the famous dove of peace as the emblem of the movement. French poet Paul Eluard, another fellow traveler, composed an ode inspired by Stalin. The "peaceniks" were told to wear white shirts, release white doves during their demonstrations and shake their clenched fists against "imperialists and revanchistes."
Soon it became clear that the "peace movement" was not opposed to all wars, but only to those that threatened the U.S.S.R., its allies and its satellites. For example, the peaceniks did not object to Stalin's decision to keep the entire Chechen nation in exile in Siberia. The peaceniks did not march to ask Stalin to withdraw his forces from Iranian Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. When Stalin annexed 15 percent of Finland's territory, none of the peaceniks protested. Neither did they march when the Soviets annexed the Baltic states. Nor did they grumble when Soviet tanks rolled into Warsaw and Budapest, and a decade later also in Prague.
But when America led a coalition under a U.N. mandate to prevent North Korean Communists from conquering the south, peaceniks were on the march everywhere. The movement targeted Western democracies and sought to weaken their resolve against the Soviet threat. Over the years nobody marched against any of the client regimes of the Soviet Union that engaged in numerous wars, including against their own people.
The wars that China's Communist regime waged against the peoples of Manchuria, Tibet, East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia, lands that were eventually annexed and subjected to "ethnic cleansing," provoked no protest marches. Even when China attacked India and grabbed Indian territories the size of England, the peace movement did not budge.
In the 1960s the movement transformed itself into the campaign for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Here, unilateral meant that only the Western powers had to give up their arsenal, thus giving the Soviets a monopoly on nuclear weapons. The peaceniks spent much of the '60s opposing U.S. intervention in Vietnam.
The 1980s gave them a new lease on life, as they focused on opposing American Pershing missiles in Western Europe. The Pershings represented a response to Soviet SS-20 missiles that had already been stationed in central Europe and aimed at Western European capitals. But the peaceniks never asked for both the Pershings and the SS-20s to be withdrawn, only the American missiles. President Ronald Reagan's proposal that both the SS-20s and the Pershings be withdrawn was attacked and ridiculed by the peaceniks as "an American Imperialist trick." Francois Mitterrand, then France's Socialist president, put it this way: "The missiles are in the East but the peaceniks are in the West!" No peacenik, not even Joschka Fischer, now Germany's foreign minister, marched in support of tearing down the Berlin Wall and allowing the German nation to regain its unity. All that is now history.
The "evil empire" of communism has gone for good, but the deep anti-West sentiments that it promoted over the decades remains. It is this anti-West, more specifically anti-American, sentiment that provides the glue of the new peace movement. Last month, the British daily The Guardian asked a number of peaceniks to explain why they opposed the use of force to liberate Iraq? The main reason they felt they had to support Saddam Hussein was that he was disliked by the United States.
When the Tanzanian army invaded Uganda and removed Idi Amin from power, no one marched because the United States was not involved. When the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and changed the Khmer Rouge regime there, no one marched. Again, the United States was not involved. When French troops invaded the Central African Republic and changed its regime, again no one marched. The reason? You guessed it: America was not involved. And what about a march in support of the Chechens? Oh, no, that won't do: The United States is not involved.
The peace movement would merit the label only if it opposed all wars, including those waged by tyrants against their own people, not just those in which America is involved.
Did it march when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran? Not at all.
Did it march when Saddam invaded Kuwait? Again: nix!
(Later, they marched, with the slogan "No Blood for Oil," when the U.S.-led coalition came to liberate Kuwait.)
Did it march when Saddam was gassing the Kurds to death? Oh, no.
Stalin died 50 years ago to the day. But if he were around today he would have a chuckle: His peace movement remains as alive in the Western democracies as it was half a century ago.
Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri is based in Europe. E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com
Keep writing those letters. And if you have a subscription, cancel it, and mention it in one of your letters to the ed.
I have the same thing with our hometown newspaper. It's a Gannet publication, and very liberal. In fact, it is one that JR got a letter from disallowing articles being posted. I cancelled my subscription long ago because of their liberal slant, so I just go to their website and get the same news for free.
One of my relatives sends letters to the editor of our local paper constantly. I'm sure they hate him, but at least his voice is being heard.
If they discontinue to publish your letters, DEMAND answers, as to why.
The problem with the Nick Berg-Aby Ghraib story is that the scopes are inequitable. Abu Ghraib offends the moral sensitivities of Americans because this is the type of behavior we don't condone. However, trying to compare one to another, as so many liberal papers have done is absurd and illogical.
Sure the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were humiliated; so what? At the end of the day, they still had all their body parts and the ability to continue breathing. The same cannot be said of Nick Berg. Mr. Berg saw Iraq as an opportunity to try and make a living and help restore Iraq to a sovereign, democratic, independent nation. There's nothing wrong with that and there was no reason for him to lose his life over it.
The vermin who butchered him have tried to make the claim that hsi murder was in response to the Abu Ghraib humiliations but, again, that story doesn't jibe with the facts. Mr. Berg was absucted well before the Abu Ghraib story broke and, because he is an American Jew, he was probably going to be killed anyway. Abu Ghraib was just a convenient excuse.
Remember that his murderers initially said that they planned to exchange him for the release of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. As a number of our Congresscritters and talk show hosts have noted, people don't get sent to Abu Ghraib for parking ticket violations and petty theft. These people are hardcore Muslim insurgents who have either participated in the murder of American troops or planned to participate.
As things have worked out, the murder of Mr. Berg and the pressure of our leftist press have caused to release of a number of Abu Ghraib prisoners - thereby increasing the risk to our troops. The liberal media isn't concerned about the danger to Americans that they are encouraging, they only want us to retreat and apologize to the rest of the world for being so successful at making fredom and democracy work.
We will lose in Ieaq because we have now embarked on a mission that can only be conducted by the Iraqi people: imposing democracy. The rest of our missioins are complete. It's time for us to leave.
Actually the Soviet "peace" movement predates the cold war.
Though it is rarely talked about for some reason, the Soviets and NAZI were allied from 1939-1941 when Hitler sneak attacked Stalin.
During that period, communists throughout the west publically opposed the war. Their slogans were essentially the same as today's. Churchill is a warmonger. He hates Germans. He's still mad about the last war. It is a war to fund the British weapons industries...etc...
After the sneak attack, the Comintern's line on the war changed immediately. Now the whole world was to unite in an antifascist alliance against the evil warmongers in Germany.
To say this flip flopping cost them alot of support would be an understatement...but most of the the international communist movement stayed true.
While I agree that there were Communists who opposed WWII, Prior to Hitler turning on Stalin, they were not allies. Hitler and Stalin had signed a nonaggression pact...quite different than the formal alliance Germany, Italy, and Japan had.
First, you can't make accusations about what the press would or wouldn't do until they do it, if you expect them to take you seriously.
Don't try to make them feel like they're biased, because they really and truly aren't going to believe they are biased, no matter what the evidence!
That's the whole thesis of both Bernie Goldberg's books, and the reason for the rise of "alternative media." They're like smokers that refuse to believe they stink, because they can't "smell it" on each other. And as long as they can't find another smoker to say "I don't smell anything," they're not going to listen to you.
Why don't you try the business angle? Simply say you're tired of hearing about prisioner abuse. To you, it's a mountain from a mole-hill, and not something you're interested in no matter who thinks you should be.
Now that Nick Berg story really interests you, and if you have to go to the internet to find out more about it, so be it. But do they really want you to get into the habit of going to the net every time you feel like you're being "directed" instead of "informed?"
Don't bother trying to persuade them. That's what they're trying to do to you. And they think they're better at it than you are.
Offer them the carrot and the stick. If there are enough others making the same offer, their sales figures will do the work for you.
I would add something about North Vietnam's "most trusted American," Walter Cronkite, and how his distortions of the Tet offensive (1968) spooked LBJ. As president LBJ knew the truth but the "reporting" was damaging him with the public and threatening his "great society" legislation. He denied the generals' request for additional troops that IMO would have sealed the fate of the Communists and forced them into serious peace talks. Instead tens of thousands died because the Communists were encouraged to fight on by sending in more and more regulars from the north.
The problem is, all the subversion of the Cronkites, Fondas and Kerrys is viewed by the likes of the editors as successes. Criticism means nothing to them. If anything they will feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel that they are being encouraged to step up the "good work" of subverting this generation of U.S. military.
I am acutally writing a letter that I am going to mail to all their advertisers. This is a liberal college town in a rural area, so I have no idea what the median political viewpoint is, other than all the dilitentes who set up an anti-war protest at the main post office on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The same people from the sixties, I swear.
But even if I can only convince 10% of their advertiser to stop advertising, I will hurt them.
I have just started the letter, but here is the beginning of it:
In their blind hatred and lust for power, the Democrats and the mainstream American press are attempting to make the United States lose the war in Iraq.
Just as they considered denigrating the sacrifice of the 50,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam a small price to pay to defeat Richard M. Nixon and regain personal power, they consider denigrating the sacrifice of the 750+ killed and hundreds of thousands who have served in Iraq a small price to pay to defeat George W. Bush and regain personal power.
Absolutely. This way we know where they are and we have our killing machine handy.
That's really great stuff. I am going to use it almost verbatim. Thank you so much for the help.
Here is a rough draft of what I am going to send to the paper's advertisers. I am open to lots of constructive criticism.
As a Columbia business that advertises in the Columbia Daily Tribune, I am asking you to suspend advertising in the paper as long as they continue to endanger our troops in Iraq for political purposes.
In their blind hatred and lust for power, the Democrats and the mainstream American press are attempting to make the United States lose the war in Iraq.
Just as they considered denigrating the sacrifice of the 50,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam a small price to pay to defeat Richard M. Nixon and regain personal power, they consider denigrating the sacrifice of the 750+ killed and hundreds of thousands who have served in Iraq a small price to pay to defeat George W. Bush and regain personal power.
North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin, who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, Col. Tin explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were "essential to our strategy."
"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal.
Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and others, he said, "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
"We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war," the North Vietnamese military man explained.
John F. Kerry did much the same thing in widely covered speeches such as the one he delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.
"Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win," Col. Tin concluded.
The pressure by the Columbia Daily Tribune and the rest of the mainstream press over the Abu Ghraib aberration have caused the release of over 300 Abu Ghraib prisoners - prisoners captured in the actual act of fighting our troops - thereby increasing the risk to our brave young men and women.
The liberal media isn't concerned about the danger to Americans that they are encouraging, they only want us to retreat and apologize to the rest of the world for being so successful at making fredom and democracy work.
Please tell the Columbia Daily Tribune that you are through advertising with them as long as they continue to harp on stories like the Abu Ghraib prison aberration.
Don't do it, friend. I can tell you from lots of experience, they will classify you as a nut, and ignore you.
If one of their advertisers brings up your letter, the paper's rep. will point to your obvious emotional involvement and pejorative rhetoric to discount your validity.
Ask the editor does he/she remember this picture from vietnam. It won a pullitzer prize. The MSM had no compunction about printing it. NBC filmed the killing and ran the footage on their network. A clear double standard.
http://www.treefort.org/~cbdoten/rvntanks/080-4450.htm
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