Posted on 07/10/2006 4:37:21 AM PDT by Curlyhead
If slavery was truly the United States’ original sin, then Vietnam is our guilty conscience. It was too complex and too disorienting and too many Americans lost far too much for the nation yet to understand it fully. More than 30 years later, the country still labors under the psychological weight of that experience. They say that the victors write history, but this was a war that nobody won. The South Asian battlefields may have long fallen quiet and the domestic tumult that pit parents against children and brothers against brothers may be over, but as long as many of the key players still draw a breath, the war to write history will not cease. The front lines have merely shifted from the fields of Vietnam to the screens and pages of the American media.
(Excerpt) Read more at familysecuritymatters.org ...
Were you ever in Cambodia?
The article pointed out what you point out - that Iraq is no Vietnam and to go in that direction will surely lead America down the path to defeat!
We will be bogged down in Iraq until either the administration screws up the courage to do what it takes to win, or the rats regain power. The never ending urban warfare patty cake we're playing with the terrorists is a crime against the best trained, most professional troops in history, our brave soldiers and marines.
it was complex and disorienting for American citizens whose only information source about it was the blasted American liberal media - who utterly destroyed our chances of winning there.
I'm in a hurry here, and only read of the article, the amount posted above -- but i agree with that much.
If we don't win THIS war I fear for America. Not that we will go down, but rather that we will change to become something we never were before -- either an isolationist non-power, or more likely {We ARE still very very powerful} a dictatorship.
AH but the speculation is based upon a false premise.
The American Colonies had the African slave trade foisted
upon them by the Brits. And it was a combined effort by
the British and American Christians that ended slavery at
a time when the Islamic State continue to employ that despicable act(as a means of glorifying hteir false god,and
bloody religion of conquest) I too lived through the Vietnam
era. Enlisted in the US Army in 1969 to find out from the source why my Country was being torn apart by the great unwashed over them war games.I was spat upon by an unwashed
hippie whore in Atlanta -and called baby killer -despite the fact I was a Medic and trained to save lives. If "Nam
is our guilty conscieous I suppose it would be because the Left is looking a return to those heady days of anarchy and misrule. And the Right has not found a way to bring the lost back into the fold -the scism has NOT healed.
IB4TZ?
The only similarities between Vietnam and Iraq are the anti-war crowds and the gutless politians. If there were a draft today, there would be draft dodgers. These people will never understand the sacrifices to maintain freedom. We didn't start this war. War was declared against us by Saddam himself (look it up) and terrorists throughout the Middle East. We simply took their words to have meaning and stepped up their challenge. Forget WMD was ever mentioned, war was declared on us and we responded.
"IB4TZ?"
Nah, looks well intended, although I hate when newbies come out of the box like this.
There a lot of differences. First, both sides were quicker into the fray. Aging boomers are eager to relive what pleases them to perceive as their glory days and to again prevent the victory of American arms under a Republican president.They are in a race against time and the Iraqi National Guard. They are reduced to claiming that it is a "defeat" for Bush when one of his generals suggests that it will be possible to begin drawing down American troop strength in Iraq next year.
And, obviously, the WWW is available to both sides. The political lesson of Vietnam is that journalism is neither objective nor neutral but actually the nexus of radical politics. Conservatives have learned to treat news reports generally and broadcast breaking news in particular with suspicion. We aren't having to learn that lesson in Iraq: we knew it from Vietnam. That is undoubtedly why Buckhead was so quick to call "Fraud!" when CBS did its "TANG memo" hit piece on Bush. And the web gave Buckhead a voice which could reach a wide enough audience quickly enough to defeat the objective of that fraud. Publishing has been decentralized.
The effect of the WWW is asymmetrical because the advantage of the web is low cost publishing, and radicals dominate high-cost publishing with what is now so obviously their New York Times. Since liberals already had a voice in all the big propaganda organs, gaining more capability to publish simply opened up more radical channels on the left, reducing unity. But having propaganda organs, even small ones, available on the Right has opened up whole new vistas.
Mom, Apple Pie, and the Ghost of Quagmires Past. Really good writing on Vietnam by freeper marron.
What's that mean?
'Splain somethin' to me. Why is it no one ever mentions the FACT that it was the DUMMOS that put us in Vietnam???
Didnt care for this article. The writer manages to put slavey and Viet Nam in the same sentence which I see as just an attempt to blame America for every thing wrong in the world.
Because its the dummos themselves who usually bring up VN
A democrat president started the Vietnam War by sending 14,000 ground troops, in an enormous blunder, even though the democrats are trying to cover that fact up. (We had advisors all over the world at that time).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.