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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
I was taking issue with the "chicken hawk" motif that suggests that to make security policy, you have to have been in the military |
A "chickenhawk" is someone who is loudly prowar, who, when they had the chance to be in the military, weasaled out. Examples include: Rush Limbaugh, who got an exemption for having a pimple on his bum, Cheney, who claimed to have a bad knee, Dubya, whose father's friend got him moved up to the top of the list to be in the champagne division, despite having the lowest pilot test scores while his dad was a supporter of the war, etc.
Clinton was not a chickenhawk, because he opposed the war he would have been called upon to fight.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
A "chickenhawk" is someone who is loudly prowar, who, when they had the chance to be in the military, weasaled out. Examples include: Rush Limbaugh, who got an exemption for having a pimple on his bum, Cheney, who had a bad knee, Dubya, whose father's freind got him moved up to the top of the list to be in the champagne division, despite having the lowest pilot test scores, etc.
Clinton was not a chickenhawk, because he opposed the war he would have been called upon to fight. |
the word is routinely applied to neocons like Wolfie without any reference to what their position on Viet Nam was.
BTW, we havent had a draft since 1971. So is anyone who turned 18 after 1971 automatically exempt from being a chickenhawk?
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
Ahh, of course.. Someone who turned 18 when the country was at peace, and when there was no draft is a chickenhawk whenever they support any US war. Basically that confirms that its simply a rhetorical method to silence as many voices in support of any particular war as possible.
Its interesting to do a quick net search on chickenhawk. You get lots of lists of who didnt serve in Viet Nam, with NO explanation of why, whether they had a legitimate exemption, etc. YOu get it from far leftie web sites, paleocon websites, and even Larouchies web sites. Some of the rhetoric is quite vile. |
I was in the Army ROTC in high school and the Air Force ROTC in college. Had to leave the ROTC due to my bad eyesight. Even so, after college I was drafted, but washed out, 4F, due to my eyesight. By the time I was drafted I thoroughly did not want to go to Vietnam. No one I knew did.
When the war was young, I was in favor of it. But I agreed with Nixon that we had to pull out. The real liar in that war was LBJ. But there is also a good amount of opinion that Westmoreland was a liar as well for saying there was "light at the end of the tunnel" when he knew better.
BTW, here are some links to several "Bright Shining Lie" reviews. Many of you may not have seen it as it was an HBO movie. It is not a great film but it does chronical the failures of the ARVN.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click...ge=1&rid=210541
http://www.americanwriters.org/clas.../tr_sheehan.asp
"Based on a true story, this made for cable television movie is both a heavy indictment of our involvement in Vietnam and a rallying story of American patriotism.
Bill Paxton plays Army colonel John Paul Vann. In March 1962, he is sent to Vietnam as a military advisor. The advisors are supposed to be hands-off instructors, helping the South Vietnamese drive back the North Vietnamese. Vann is looking for action and he knows Vietnam is going to be a hot spot. He is right in more ways than he will ever know.
Vann leaves his wife Mary Jane (Amy Madigan) in the States with his young children, and immediately takes up with English language teacher Lee (Vivian Wu). We learn that Vann has little respect for his marriage vows, and sleeping around is in his nature. Right away, the wool is being pulled over everyone's eyes, as photos of dead Viet Cong are being doctored to increase the number of dead the South Vietnamese are "killing." Vann repeatedly butts heads with South Vietnamese brass, and after a disastrous raid that kills many undertrained South Vietnamese as well as some of the "advisors," Vann goes to reporter Steven Burnett (Donal Logue). Vann has had it with the corruption, and pours his heart out to Burnett, who prints the story.
Vann is taken on a tour of briefings around Washington, where he comes up with a new strategy for the Vietnam War- win the hearts and minds of the peasants and they will stay on our side. He is rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and resigns in protest. Vann and Mary Jane work on their deteriorating marriage, and see a counselor (Richard Libertini). Vann seems to be a sex addict, and it stems from a deep dark secret involving his mother. JFK is assassinated, and Vann tries to get back into Vietnam after Johnson begins increasing troop presence there. He is offered a job with Civilian Aid, and sent back to Vietnam, where he is assisted by Doug (Eric Bogosian) to help the people there. Corruption is now rampant as the Americans fix a school's leaky roof. In the meantime, he offends the local criminal colonel Dinh (Les J.N. Mau), who kills Vann's native staff and orders the bombing of the village in retaliation.
Vann launches a campaign against the corruption, still preaching his idea about helping the people directly. He finds out his mother dies, and returns for her funeral. We find out why he treats women the way he does, his murdered mother was a prostitute. Mary Jane asks for a divorce, and Vann heads back to Vietnam. He also shuns Lee, getting another local girl pregnant and marrying her. Doug returns to the states, where he becomes an anti-war demonstrator. Vann predicts the Tet Offensive, but General Westmoreland (Kurtwood Smith) ignores him. The Offensive is defeated, and Westmoreland is out. Vann soon finds himself a civilian running things in a capacity normally reserved for active duty officers. He is referred to as a senior advisor, and finally gets his own battle and routs the enemy troops in a daring maneuver involving carpet bombing of his own location. On the way back from a medal ceremony, Vann is killed in an unceremonious helicopter crash due to poor weather, ten years after arriving in Vietnam.
Bill Paxton is probably the last actor you would think of to play a major part like this, but he pulls it off. His style is so laid back, he makes his character more real than some other performer who might spend the whole film chewing the scenery and making little scenes that could be shown to the Emmy nominations committee. Amy Madigan is good in the clicheed long suffering wife role, and Donal Logue is okay as the reporter. My problem was more with the character of Lee than Vivian Wu's portrayal. The character is completely unnecessary, and I could not figure out what her function in the film was.
Despite the self important title, the film is surprisingly not anti-military. Paxton has a great line to Logue at the end, where he blames the Vietnam War on Kennedy and all the reporters who said we should be there to help these poor unfortunate people in the first place, then these same reporters worked to end the war by questioning why we were there in the first place. Westmoreland is clearly portrayed as less than effective, the South Vietnamese military cannot seem to put one foot in front of the other, but Vann is no saint either. His sexual dysfunction and personal ambition cloud his judgement.
George wrote and directed the film, and his budget seems to be larger than your average cable film. He handles the war scenes with appropriate horror and gore, and the Thailand locations work perfectly.
No matter what your politics are, this film addresses a number of issues. The people involved and the constant change of strategy (the press conference after Westmoreland's departure is a comedy of semantics) all cloud the fact that, according to end credits, almost 60,000 U.S. troops and close to a million Vietnamese died in the conflict.
While we pay attention to our dying World War II generation, we should also be getting the stories of our Korean, Vietnam, and later war veterans. Waiting until these veterans get their own "Saving Private Ryan" will prove too late. "A Bright Shining Lie" is another thought provoking war film that I highly recommend."
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click...ge=1&rid=820998
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Clinton was not a chickenhawk, because he opposed the war he would have been called upon to fight. |
Clinton is a chicken choker, and a chicken, at least, because he weaseled out. It doesn't matter if I "oppose" a war when I'm in uniform - if I get orders to go, I go.
In Clinton's case, if he'd stuck around and opposed the draft, like a number of people did and went to prison for, at least Clinton could be considered to have the courage of his convictions, no pun intended. If he'd just sat around and took his chances, even as I-A draft bait, the worst he'd do in any year during 'Nam was about 110/365 on getting his day picked. He could have done a bullshit job like joining the Navy, and using his college and test scores to make the cut when a lot of other draft bait wouldn't have.
But Clinton always kept an eye out for his own ass, and he was too precious to deal with the knuckledragging babykiller set, despite his political ambitions, so he wormed it. Having done so, he should at least have had the decency to stick to being a governor or being in Congress. His handling of the military in general, from his little yuppie staff's overt rudeness to uniformed personnel, to the FUBAR in Somalia, to the PR driven way he played into and out of the Balkans, to the defense budgets, to handling Bin Laden in the Cole and embassy bombings era, to the endless NFZ enforcement dance with Hussein, was mediocre in it's best moments to disastrous in his worst.
So Clinton may not be a chickenhawk, but that certainly doesn't elevate him in my book.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
MtG, I am not sure I understand you. Are you objecting to the concept of Vietnamization or just its execution. If you are objecting to the concept, what is your alternative?
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WRT Vietnam Vietnamization, it was just an excuse. If we announced and immediate withdrawal, then all of the g**ks would have been shooting at us, instead of just the overtly commie ones. We had to give the functionaries who were too far below the Thieu and Ky levels to buy their way out the delusion that they would be able to maintain their security situation vis-a-vis the NVA.
We also had to cater to the egos of the peanuts like Thieu and Ky, so we never put our boots up their asses to make meaningful structural reforms in the government and the ARVN officer corps.
None of the political sideshows apply in Iraq.
quote:
Cut and run?
Is that the exit strategy you advocate?
Or do you oppose an exit strategy?
Your posts are very unclear on what you favor. |
The "exit strategy" has already been defined for us by Georgie "Bring it on" Bush. He put the US credibility on the line even before the invasion with all that yammering about beacons of hope and democracy.
So we're stuck covering the check his mouth wrote. Anything less, and we convince our enemies that we have nothing other than a little initial flash of firepower, behind which there is no substance, no staying power, and neither vision nor sincerity. Do you want to give our enemies that kind of a present?
So we're stuck, if if costs us a thousand dead and another hundred billion, or if the costs go up well beyond that, we're stuck with carrying out miracle man's proclaimed vision.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Sorry Michael, but I don't think you can win a guerilla war by killing everyone who hate you. For every hater you kill, you will get 2-10 new haters. To win this war you have to win the hearts of the Iraqi people, not send chock infantry who will just make them hate you more. |
Grab 'em by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow. 
There's three types of Iraqis in the Sunni triangle. Those who hate us and are loyal to the Baath party. Only thing to do with them is kill 'em.
Those who may hate us, but fear the Baath party and are unsure which way the chips are going to fall, so they stay non-committal.
Those who support us. With the latter two, we need to give them reasons to stay on our side, but we also need to be able to dictate the location and tempo of operations to the *******s, not have them play hit and run with us at will.
If we can't demonstrate to the last two groups that we can contain and eliminate the first one, they're not going to be won over by any happy horseshit we do for them.
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Bereta_Eder
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Is it true that American soldiers have begun killing themselves because of the pressure?
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Bereta_Eder
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Suicides at the Gates of Bagdhat as the Iraqi Information Minister said. Only with a time delay?
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:31.
Apolyton Time is 00:31. |
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01-11-2003 01:50
275,000 Bananas have been deployed against the terrorist threat in Iraq...
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