I wish I had that much faith in my neighbors.

I don't actually agree with any of what you just said. I mean, actually, I think it's so wrong that I don't even know where to start. From your very first sentence I think you divorce yourself from reality.

But ... what the heck. Maybe it's a good thing that someone believes what you believe. I don't think it matches reality at all, but I think it makes a good goal.

Merry Christmas.

So... what you are suggesting is that the media is the 4th check and balance?

I'm sorry, but legalizing wiretapping yields a great deal of power in the hands of a small group of people, with very little oversight and accountability. It would be wayyy too easy for someone to abuse that power.

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I was born, but i wasn't there.

But so what? The soldiers themselves have wildly different ideas about the rightness or wrongness of that war, so being there does not give any edge to knowledge.


Particularly when one's "knowledge" is predicated on nationalist myths--masturbation, in short--plagiarized from Homeric epics and children't tales.

You aren't even talking about soldiers...that's a pretence. You're only talking about people who have the same political outlook as you do.

So let's skip that pretence, shall we?

further, you are now telling me--insisting, in fact--that you have no knowledge, and can offer no opinion, on anything that happened before you were born.

So noted. Not that you'd dare hold yourself to the same absurd standards that now wish to hold me.

Once again--hostility towards any notion of personal responsibility, as is always the moral result of partisan double standards like this.



this approaches the truth when it comes to Iraq (it's not quite there...as you know perfectly well...but close enough for the sake of argument).

As for Vietnam...hogwash.





I find our soldiers frequently remarkable myself, humbling even.

But you mistake what soldiers think and feel for US foreign policy? Why?

You see--since you seem unaware--we are usually run--including at the curent moment--by dainty, effete, cowardly, aristocratic little gangsters, war criminals on a large scale who use pretty, manicured hands to pay off (with our tax dollars) sophisticated PR agencies that turn them into cowboys and knights and altruistic heroes for public consumption.

That you think the PR is actual reality is astonishing...I'm afraid that's your problem...don't try to sell it to me.



I find lots of good in America...just because I don't moan and whine about the magnificence of powerful men doesn't mean I don't love America.

And I suggest YOU should probably get the fu*k out of here (if you insist we use these tired, cowardly, petulant little "love it or leave it" nonsense insults); i like it just fine right here. You, on the other hand, seem to think "America" means the tiny minority of far-right folks, with extremely delicate sensibilities, oversensitive to any critique about foreign policy.

It's much bigger, much more than that. And thank the probably-non-existent gods that it is.

Merry Christmas back at you, from a proud American.

Amazing TB, on one hand you call our Vietnam veterans murderers, baby killers, it's OK to spit on them, so what's the big deal, right? All VN vets deserve to get that treatment (your interpretation).

Then you find our soldiers remarkable in your above statement. Do you drool when you double speak like that?

Like you said, you weren't there, so how would you know what most of us faced? You probably listened or read some so called VN vet against the war, mouthing off his phony experience there. Believe me, I have ran into many of them, most are panhandling money. But when you look at these phonies, the majority of them were not even old enough to have been in VN.

For one thing slick, I don't blindly follow anyone's marching orders, but I am smart enough to realize the benevolence of what Americans have done in places like Vietnam. I flew a helicopter there, and I have been from one end of VN to the other. I can't begin to count the times when Americans helped out the the Vietnamese, with the use of our military, and our equipment, from hauling livestock, rebuilding their infrastructure, to medical evacuation.

I'd suggest you read up on your non-experience in Vietnam, and then try talking to those that actually served, instead of blindly following the hateful loons that did the spitting.

Being that you have strayed completely away from this topic, and more so, I followed you, you might try and post those that have been unfairly charged from our surveillance, and while you're at it, please post any atrocities where American GI's purposely targeted civilians in VN. But first let me clue you into the fact that many times, we had no idea who the bad guys were, because they dressed like, and acted like the rest of the indigents, then they would try to kill us. Fair target in my book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor

Mackubin Thomas Owens, an adjunct fellow at the Ashbrook Center and a professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport and a Marine infantry veteran of Vietnam, wrote:[5]

Mr. Burkett did something that any reporter worth his or her salt could have done: he used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to check the actual records of the "image makers" used by reporters to flesh out their stories on homelessness, Agent Orange, suicide, drug abuse, criminality, or alcoholism. What he found was astounding. More often than not, the show case "veteran" who cried on camera about his dead buddies, about committing or witnessing atrocities, or about some heroic action in combat that led him to the current dead end in his life, was an impostor.

Indeed, Mr. Burkett discovered that over the last decade, some 1,700 individuals, including some of the most prominent examples of the Vietnam veteran as dysfunctional loser, had fabricated their war stories. Many had never even been in the service. Many, like Joe Yandle, had been, but had never been in Vietnam.


The statement below is where the controversy lies regarding VN. Our nation at the time, when many Americans felt this way, looked at using our power to stop a brutal regime, and as time wore on, and US casualties mounted, the popularity of VN waned. Blaming the soldiers, should never happen again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurembe...erican_Tragedy

When Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy was published, those in favor and opposition to the United States involvement in Vietnam frequently cited the Nuremberg trials in support of their positions. Those in favor of United States involvement argued that North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam in violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter; South Vietnam was justified in using force to repel such an attack; and this in turn allowed the United States to join with South Vietnam as provided by Article 51.

Those opposed to the United States involvement in the Vietnam conflict asserted that both South Vietnam and the United States violated the Geneva Declaration of 1954 by attacking North Vietnam, rearming illegally, preventing the 1956 national elections which were provided for in the Declaration, and subsequently bombing North Vietnam. Such actions would constitute “aggressive warfare” by the standards of Nuremberg. Taylor points out that the definition of “aggressive warfare” is ambiguous, thus severely hindering any attempt to determine which of the belligerent powers involved in the Vietnam conflict could be deemed the “aggressor.” What’s more, such ambiguities lead to several related questions, such as the legality of refusing to serve in Vietnam. At the time, many conscientious objectors refused to serve in Vietnam on the grounds that their complicity in an illegal war made them, by implication, guilty of crimes against humanity.

More reading for you regarding the Veteran against the Vietnam War;

Allegations of collaboration with North Vietnam

Some declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files allege that VVAW leadership was actively coordinating with members of the North Vietnamese Peace delegation toward the common cause of ending US participation in the war and changing US policy in Southeast Asia. Some leaders in the VVAW organization were alleged by informants to the FBI to have cultivated ties with the North Vietnamese representatives, forming collaborative efforts to oppose US policy in Southeast Asia. The FBI managed to gain the confidence of several VVAW members and used them to perform surveillance of the group’s activities, as part of its controversial COINTELPRO operation.[citation needed]

Mike Oliver had hoped to send a VVAW delegation to Hanoi to coordinate an American Prisoner of War (POW) release with the North Vietnamese government. The rationale behind this was the release of US POW’s would be credited by the North Vietnamese to the VVAW organization, thereby boosting notability and credibility. Oliver had hoped that the successful release of prisoners could lead to more negotiations page 12. The VVAW's leadership also decided in a July 1971 Executive Committee meeting that terms such as "Vietcong" and "North Vietnamese" were not to be used in VVAW press releases and communications, because their use supported the "establishment idea that there are two Vietnams." Instead, they used PRG (Provisional Revolutionary Government) and DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam), to indicate the groups acceptance of these designations.[citation needed]

According to FBI records dated November 24, 1971, an informant "who has provided credible information in the past" stated that Al Hubbard had just returned from meetings with peace delegates in Paris, and described those meetings. Representatives from the VVAW, the Communist Party USA and a "Left Wing" group from Paris were invited to meet with individuals from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Peoples Republic Government from Vietnam. Hubbard said his trip was financed by the CPUSA. Hubbard said he, while in Paris, spoke with a representative of North Vietnam about possibly having a VVAW delegation travel to Vietnam to discuss the release of American POWs. The FBI informants report also stated that Joseph Urgo, a VVAW employee at the national office, traveled to Hanoi 90 days earlier and also spoke with North Vietnamese representatives. Urgo’s aim coincided with a planned international action by active duty people to demonstrate against the Vietnam war. Urgo proposed to send tapes to the North Vietnamese to use in Radio Hanoi broadcasts to get US servicemen to stop fighting in Vietnam, and proposed to send a VVAW delegation to negotiate the release of American POWs. [38]

The following year, on April 4, 1972, a confidential source reported that “a representative of a North Vietnamese Government at the Paris Peace talks telephoned the 'movement' in the United States telling them to be ready to take action, presumably demonstrations, to counter expected escalation of bombing by American air forces in South Vietnam and North Vietnam as a result of the increased military action of North Vietnamese forces in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.” The source reported that VVAW had no specific "actions" planned at that time but that the National Steering Committee would take it up at the next meeting, and announce its plans during a press conference.[citation needed]

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

You know, you're obviously not only a political fanatic and a sycophantic littlew worshipper of power---you're also an extremly dishonest debater.

You put words into my mouth that i never said nor implied...and then accuse me of doublespeak?

Man, I enjoy debating with you dainty little members of the political Faithful, the real Servant class of government power, who have delusions about being "real men", in some masculinist fantasies. Your sensibilities are so delicate, that criticism of political power and gangsters is translated, in your fevered imagination, for attacks on the troops.

As for what you faced...that has nothing to do with it. The war crimes belong to the leaders and planners and policymakers. And no, it's not from some "fake" vets...it's from the Pentagon Papers.

the Penatagon Papers are PROOF of massive war crimes; proof of intentional killing of civilians; and proof that we were lied to continually.

now, you prob'ly think that the PP's are some lefty invention--because self-serving, self-adoring and obedient little nationalist myths are more improtant to you than reality--but they are the words of the leaders and planners THEMSELVES.

Now, that you think your fantasies about "benevolent" America somehow erase what the leaders THEMSELVES say they were up to...now, THAT takes real discipline. Political fanaticism always takes tremendous discipline, because you MUST ignore relaity itself to be this way.


In other words, bronco, your disagreement is not with me; your disagreement is with the leaders and planners of the vietnam War. THEY disagreed with you entirely.

My argument is against those that say US soldiers purposely targeted civilians in South Vietnam, that is what you have been saying, and you are wrong. So laying your pompous personal attacks on me doesn't help your argument.

I suppose you read all 7000 pages of that report, so you should easily find where is says, our soldiers have been purposely slaughtering the South Vietnamese.

Maybe you should refresh your knowledge of what PP were;

Among other things, the Papers revealed that the United States government deliberately expanded its role in the war with airstrikes against Laos, raids off the coast of North Vietnam, and U.S. Marine Corps attacks before the American public was told of them, while President Lyndon B. Johnson was promising not to expand the war. The document widened the credibility gap between the U.S. government and the American people, hurting the Richard Nixon administration's war effort. Ironically, it showed how the Democrats got the U.S. into Vietnam. Nixon, the Republican, was more worried that people would not trust the government.

According to Anthony Lewis's contribution in the coursepack from James Goodale's (former inhouse counsel to the Times) law school course on Old Media, New Media the Times received advice from inhouse counsel not to publish. Goodale counseled otherwise, reasoning that the press had a First Amendment right to print material of such significance to the people's understanding of government policy. The Nixon administration, however, argued that Ellsberg and Russo had no legal authority to release classified documents and were therefore guilty of a felony (treason) under the Espionage Act of 1917 in providing them to the Times.

One of the "credibility gaps" that the Times wrote of was that a consensus to bomb North Vietnam had developed in the Johnson administration on September 7, 1964, before the U.S. presidential elections.[3] However, according to the same Papers, none of the actions recommended by the consensus on September 7 involved bombing North Vietnam.[4] On June 14, 1971 the Times declared that the Johnson administration began the last rounds of planning for a bombing campaign in November.

Another controversial issue was the implication by the Times that Johnson had made up his mind to send U.S. combat troops to Vietnam by July 17, 1965 and this became the basis for an allegation that he only pretended to consult his advisors from July 21–27. This was due to the presence of a cable which stated that "[Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus] Vance informs McNamara that President has approved 34 Battalion Plan and will try to push through reserve call-up."[5] When the cable was declassified in 1988, it was revealed that it read "there was a continuing uncertainty as to [Johnson's] final decision, which would have to await Secretary McNamara's recommendation and the views of Congressional leaders, particularly the views of Senator [Richard] Russell."[6]

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Cheney is the second executive officer to shoot someone in the face and chest. Clinton was the first.

I not saying any such thing. You are inventing--perhaps because you’re not understanding; perhaps because you don’t wish to debate honestly.

So, I’ll now choose to keep a cool head (cuz I am a hothead, it’s true) and believe it’s the first one. And so I’m happy to explain myself to you:

I hold, and have always held, that the blame is to be laid almost entirely at the feet of the people who plan and execute wars from the highest leadership positions. In fact, I believe in giving soldiers a lot of leeway, including for doing things they shouldn’t do, as sometimes inevitably happens in war. I don’t mean they should get a blank check; but I do believe in leeway, because of the difficult and often dangerous situation they are in.

For example: even on those rare occasion where a rogue soldier does something truly awful—commits an act of totally unwarranted killing (which is murder) or commits a rape…I believe their situation and surroundings must be taken into account. Not everybody agrees with this, and that’s fine, but I think a lot of people do agree with it also. Punish them according to American military codes of justice; but take their situation into honest and compassionate account.

Or look at Abu Ghraib; Lynddie England became the scapegoat. Well, what she did wasn’t good, but the blame was misapplied (as always, upon the weak and ignorant, like Ms. England). The real blame lies much higher up, all the way into the administration, in fact.

Even the investigator, General Taguba, says this: which is why most people ignored what he said. Too uncomfortable.

Better to blame the troops than the administration.

And you’ll note well that every time something awful has happened in Iraq in our names, the ADMINISTRATION HAS BLAMED THE TROOPS EACH TIME.

And so have the so-called “conservatives” who support the administration.

So it’s not me who blames the troops; it’s the (misnamed) conservatives who really, really admire this ridiculous administration, this Big Government, this band of rogue criminals.

At any rate, this is a far cry from what you’re indicting me with.

Further, I have never, ever said anything about how it’s ok to spit on troops or shout insults at them…I find it repulsive, especially since anyone doing this has a pretty good chance of having no idea what the soldier did or didn’t do anyway.

As for the Pentagon Papers…I see you concede part of the point. It would be hard NOT to concede that the leaders lied to us; it’s right there. If the war was “benevolent,” then our leaders chose to keep that a secret from themselves (odd, don’t you think?) though publicly they moaned about how altruistic they were.

As is always the case…and so is always meaningless.


And as for "pompous personal attacks"--you began by informing me that I"m "loony"...and that I support sipttingon the troops, and other vile nonsense.

So, if you don'tt want personal attacks, don't dish them out in the first place. That's pretty elementary.

"My argument is against those that say US soldiers purposely targeted civilians in South Vietnam, that is what you have been saying, and you are wrong. "

Never happened? What happened to that neocon war cry, "War is hell" or "Things happen?"

Also, we did target Japanese civilians on purpose in WWII so we do have a history on this.

"hurting the Richard Nixon administration's war effort."

Well, is that's true then that's what caused us to stay for 6 more years. Must have been a real road block for Nixon.

"pretended to consult his advisors"

yes, Eisenhower didn't pretend to listen to advisors - he sent them - long before a Demo was in office.

Mmmm. but not so worried that he considered being honest and accountable.

I mean, it's not as if we should consider honesty and accountable important considerations for our leaders, I take it.

Man, I've heard some weak defenses of criminals like Nixon...but this is one of the weakest yet.

I disagree; it is the people who want to talk to avoid fighting at all costs.

There are some circumstances where talking is insufficient. Do you disagree? Do you think Hitler could have been reasoned with if only we'd given him a chance?


Which is exactly why I am not all that concerned with abuse. If it has been exposed in the past, what has changed now? The government is unlikely to abuse this power for anything petty, because they have a lot to lose if they get caught.


Yeah, pretty much.


And too worried about appeasing our enemies (Red China).


Not from me you havnt. The man was a borderline traitor. He forced America to bend over and grab it's ankles for the communists. He was worse than any President in modern history. Even Carter.

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My Political Blog (Updated Oct 3rd) - Which Flame Warrior are you?