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Barinthus
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A Magical Moment...
Jan 2004
time: 21:35
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Is Vietnam really a vital issue for the presidental campaign?
quote:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parsons3sep03,1,5764952.column?coll=la-headlines-california
It's Time to Move Beyond Vietnam
Dana Parsons
September 3, 2004
As a noncombatant in Vietnam, I may have little standing when it comes to talking about the war that never seems to go away. But surely I can't be the only voter wondering how a discredited war that ended 30 years ago can possibly bear on this year's presidential election.
Yet here we are, with a drumbeat echoing all the way from the Mekong Delta of the 1960s to the presidential campaign trail of 2004.
Any wonder why people tune out to politics? Who could blame them for feeling detached from reality as they're told to consider that John Kerry is unfit to be president because he protested the war as a returning veteran in 1971? Or that George W. Bush should be penalized because he got a cushy post with the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s and then blew off some of his duties? And, the icing on this crazy cake: that Kerry's heroics in Vietnam are overblown and that he didn't deserve the medals he got.
I have strong opinions on each issue, but here's my point: Even if the absolute worst about either man is true, I don't care. To my mind, nothing their critics are saying about the candidates from 30-plus years ago — with the implication that it says something about their character today — is relevant.
If you want to call Bush a hypocrite for being a war president but taking an easy assignment during Vietnam, isn't there a statute of limitations? Call Kerry an opportunist and say that reflects his character, but how about a more current example than when he skippered patrol boats in enemy territory, knowing that snipers and the fates held his life in their hands?
Bush, understandably, has avoided bringing up his Vietnam-era record. Kerry has made a point of his war record and, in so doing, brought out the wolves. I understand why he thinks he needs to do it, but I wish his advisors would tell him to please stop doing it.
If it's appalling to hear Kerry's critics attack his war record, it's getting a bit unseemly to continually hear him say, "To those of us who know what it's like to be in combat…."
Why does this Vietnam talk rankle?
Why not let it go in one ear and out the other?
To those of us for whom the Vietnam War dominated our lives for several years, these are echoes we'd like to drown out. We'd like to forget the graceless bashing of returning vets. We'd like to forget the families and communities that were split wide open by opinions on the war. We'd like to forget the horrible things that happened during the war and the lingering effects on so many participants' lives.
For a war that we learned, belatedly, was cynically waged by the men running it, about the only thing worth remembering is the valor that servicemen no doubt showed and the national lessons we learned.
Thirty years after the war ended, that strikes me as all that matters. Kerry's heroism is to be applauded, but I don't link it to presidential capabilities. Bush's safe port during the war is worth raising an eyebrow over, but not even close to being a significant consideration of someone's presidential mettle.
Anyone old enough to remember the Vietnam era well probably thinks of it as something from a previous lifetime. As a 1971 college graduate who missed being drafted only because of a midrange lottery number, I recall it that way.
The current Vietnam redux is a total turnoff. If the masterminds behind it are trying to disengage the voters, they may be succeeding brilliantly.
If, on the other hand, people actually want an honest campaign decided on important issues, there's still time.
They used to say that the "real" presidential campaign begins on Labor Day. If that's still true, let's crank up the 2004 campaign this weekend with no more talk about Vietnam.
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Straybow
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SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:35
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quote:
I believe Uncle Ho asked us for help, recognise them and stop backing the French. We declined that request and insisted on supporting the corrupt government we helped create in the South. |
 That's rich, Berz! "Uncle Sam, please help Uncle Ho build Marxist peoples' paradise. Love you long time!"
 Ho could have partaken in the legitimate political process of a free Vietnam. He chose otherwise. I doubt Japanese POWs would have been used for troops if Ho weren't causing trouble. You can't analyze a decision in a vaccuum.
quote:
If a bunch of people don't have a government, that doesn't justify imposing one upon them. But of course they had government, a localised agrarian system. At least until Marxists discovered resources. It's the same story over and over... one group of people with more strength threaten weaker groups to get what they have. That's what Vietnam was about... |
OK, I admit I substituted "Marxists" where Berz said "Europeans." The point is made, though. It doesn't matter whether it is the French, the Japanese, the Chinese, or Ho and his Viet Mingh. Nobody was "respecting" the localized agrarian system.
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Straybow
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SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:35
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quote:
Of course America was so revolted by the perpetrators of genocide in Cambodia that following Viet Nam's successful liberation of the country from the Khmer Rouge America cosied up to them, supporting them in maintaining their seat in the United Nations and ensuring their fighters received food aid and medical supplies, and arms and money. |
That was Carter, you know, the guy who said he saw the "love of God" in Idi Amin's eyes. (Where's that puke smiley when you really need it?) More likely it was syphalitic insanity.
Oh, that's Amin, not Carter. 
quote:
As for the United States being concerned with the millions slaughtered in the neighbouring states, if they were so concerned why undermine Cambodia's legitimate government in the first place?
Why reduce parts of Cambodia to a moonscape?
Why bomb Laos and Cambodia until the peasant farmers sick of the incessant rain of high explosive, defoliant and napalm willingly joined the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge? |
Yes, the old "What if you held a war, and nobody showed up?" You're probably sure that the Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao would have laid down their arms if the US hadn't been bombing and had withdrawn from Vietnam. Ho's VM and VC would've withdrawn from Laos and eastern Cambodia, respecting the legitimate governments.
Yes, let's just rewrite history.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
K, the Khmer didn't get "support" because of the bombing. They got support by having the King ally with them and by being supplied heavily by the NV. |
Patently not true. Cambodian farmers and villagers were willing recruits for the Khmer Rouge after the Americans started bombing.
'I visited refugee camps regularly and consistently heard both accounts. Some peasants didn’t flee at all; the Khmer Rouge used their anger about the bombing to recruit them as soldiers and porters.'
http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/cambodia.html
'Lon Nol declared that the entire area east of the Mekong and north of Kompong Cham had fallen under enemy control. Giving the area the rather odd name of "Freedom Deal," he then announced that any personnel or vehicles within Freedom Deal should be considered enemies, and could be attacked without Cambodian approval.
This policy, needless to say, was not well-received by peasants who happened to live in those areas.
The high-altitute B-52s, however, were used against areas where there were no friendly forces or (supposedly) no population centers. Targets were selected by the Cambodian military in Phnom Penh, and then approved by the Seventh Air Force.
The problem, as William Shawcross notes in his excellent book Sideshow, was that it was nearly impossible for a B-52 to avoid hitting populated areas. "...[M]aps used by the bombing panel were only 1:50,000 in scale and several years out of date; the embassy had no recent photography to show the location of new settlements in the massive forced migrations that the Khmer Rouge were now imposing on the areas they controlled.... Inside the embassy, [Political Officer William] Harben was appalled and did what others might have done. He cut out, to scale, the 'box' made by a B-52 strike and placed it on his own map. He found that virtually nowhere in central Cambodia could it be placed without 'boxing' a village. 'I began to get reports of wholesale carnage,' he says. 'One night a mass of peasants from a village near Saang went out on a funeral procession. They walked straight into a "box." Hundreds were slaughtered.'" (Sideshow, pp. 271-272.)'
http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/rustic.htm
'The single most important factor in the success of Pol Pot’s revolution, according to most scholars, was the carpet-bombing by American B-52s between 1970-1975. By the time Phnom Penh fell the people of Cambodia were massively traumatized from years of dodging falling explosives that wiped out their villages, families and animals.
....how was a Cambodian peasant to protect himself from a massive cluster bomb falling from an unseen American warplane? And not just once but night after night, week after week? When the Khmer Rouge came to town they didn’t have to ‘recruit’. The people swarmed to anyone who claimed they could stop the bombing.'
http://www.hackwriters.com/sometimes.htm
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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:35
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quote:
JOHN FORBES DUKAKIS
It's hard to criticize John Kerry these days. Apparently, every criticism of him is unfair.  At least, we're not supposed to criticize his time in Vietnam -- or even what he's said about Vietnam more recently -- because that would be a "smear" (even when the Kerry campaign admits, as it has regarding Kerry's Christmas-in-Cambodia claims, that he hasn't been telling the truth). That he served in Vietnam 35 years ago, we're told, tells us all we need to know about his character.
But what he did more recently, in testifying against his fellow soldiers and opposing the war after returning, doesn't tell us anything about his character at all, because it was a long time ago -- nearly 35 years! So we're not supposed to talk about that.
And, apparently, it's unfair to talk about his record in the Senate, as Zell Miller did Wednesday night, because, well, those Senate votes are so complicated that nobody can really understand them anyway. (You can see Chris Matthews trying -- without much success -- to make this argument here, on video.)
So what's left? His time as Michael Dukakis's Lieutenant Governor? Actually, that's off limits, too:
Kerry's decision to keep Dukakis at arm's length may be an effort to avoid a repeat of Dukakis' defeat. In the 1988 presidential race, Bush's campaign successfully painted Dukakis as a Massachusetts liberal out of touch with most of America.
But the Dukakis parallels are hard to escape. And, in fact, even some Democrats are making the comparison:
A friend of mine tracked me down a little while ago to relate a dream. He was walking through a big office that he realized was the headquarters of the Kerry campaign. He saw a door marked "Campaign Manager" and entered, to see Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, appropriately enough, sitting behind the desk. As he drew nearer, however, the woman suddenly ripped off her Cahill mask, behind which was ... Susan Estrich, Michael Dukakis' campaign manager! At that point, he woke up screaming.
Ouch. The difference, perhaps, is that the Bush campaign isn't having to paint Kerry as out of touch -- he's doing it himself. He certainly did it in his screechy and off-key response to President Bush Friday morning. As Ann Althouse notes, Kerry's haughty and demeaning approach isn't likely to play with voters:
So, your big answer, after all of these attacks, is that you somehow "will not have" any questions. I simply will not have it. You hear that? He does not want to be questioned. He went to Vietnam, and therefore, he simply will not have any questions about whether he has the qualifications to be President. Come on, that's a roar, isn't it?
And by the way, any man who didn't volunteer to go to Vietnam who was of age at the time--all you Baby Boomer men who had student deferments or even if you served in the National Guard, I mean were in the National Guard--you were all refusing to serve.
Apparently, anyone who wasn't in a swiftboat in Cambodia somewhere in Vietnam is a traitor, or something.
And Kerry complains that people are questioning his patriotism?
Actually, from his perspective, it's worse: they're questioning his viability as a candidate. As Virginia Postrel observes:
John Kerry made Bush look even better with his petulant and rambling midnight address. What was he thinking? Doesn't Kerry have advisers to tell him not to give poorly prepared speeches that project desperation?
Apparently not.  Kerry's response has been -- as in the past -- to blame his staff:
Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.
"The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no."
I'm reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit involving a debate between Michael Dukakis, played by Jon Lovitz, and George H.W. Bush, played by Dana Carvey. At one point, Lovitz/Dukakis turns to the camera and says, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!" I guess if it were remade for this election, Kerry would be turning to the camera and saying, "I can't believe my staff is losing to this guy!"
One question for voters -- among many, many others that we're apparently not supposed to be asking -- is this:Â If Kerry can't run a campaign, how can he run the Presidency? |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5886604/?#040903
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:35
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Ned - quote:
B, I won't respond to your post in detail. Just let me say that you substitute blind hatred of colonialism for reason. |
What's reasonable about a colonial power walking into your home and country and ripping you and your neighbors off?
quote:
After WWII, the only government in SV was the French government. |
Yes, a brutal colonial power - illigitimate.
quote:
They were in a fight with Uncle Ho. Soon, the French set up goverments of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. But rather engage in a democratic process within these governments, Uncle Ho continued to fight to get the French out and impose his own, communist, governments throughout the region. |
I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert on Vietnam but all I really need to know is that the French were there before us. That tells me there was alot of corruption and brutality if they behaved anything like they do in other places. But we should have taken the side at least vocally of the commies in that one, they had the moral highground (albeit that ain't saying much given French participation of events).
Straybow - quote:
Berz, I'm talking about Iraq, you know, the other half of the discussion in this thread. |
You think Iraq was the result of reliable data and truthful politicians? Both were the result of unreliable data and less than truthful politicians.
quote:
That's rich, Berz! "Uncle Sam, please help Uncle Ho build Marxist peoples' paradise. Love you long time!" |
Build? No, just support them against the French and leave the Vietnamese alone. The war on terror is the
result of decades, even centuries, of bad treatment of 3rd world peoples by the west, that ill-will has been and will continue to be an ugly inheritance should the US continue as global policemen.
quote:
Ho could have partaken in the legitimate political process of a free Vietnam. He chose otherwise. I doubt Japanese POWs would have been used for troops if Ho weren't causing trouble. You can't analyze a decision in a vaccuum. |
Damn stupid to be using Japanese soldiers after what SE Asia was subjected to... But from what I've heard, that was not a legitimate political process. It was rotten to the core and transparently so...
quote:
OK, I admit I substituted "Marxists" where Berz said "Europeans." The point is made, though. It doesn't matter whether it is the French, the Japanese, the Chinese, or Ho and his Viet Mingh. Nobody was "respecting" the localized agrarian system. |
Strange substitution if you're trying to make a point. The Europeans, specifically the French, were there long before Marxists. Probably the majority of Vietnamese were respecting the localised agrarian system, they've lived like that for eons. So who should I morally side with when two powers are vying for control of an agrarian people? Neither, but the problem is one of these powers had been there abusing people and alot of their victims became the competing power. So the French are not synomynous with the Marxists in moral terms.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Hey, Berz, we rule Peuto Rico. Are we a brutal colonial power as well?
Also, ask the people of Samoa, another American colony, what they think.
And, what about Hawaii? Not that long ago, it was a colony. Now it is a state. |
Yeah, France in 1946 sure behaved the same way as the US today.
Did you know we have " mankind's museum" in Paris, which was basically a human zoo displaying the "savages" of our colonies, prior to WW2. Did you know we forced the denizens of our colonies to pay taxes in Francs, and these Francs they could only get by working for the State (= forced labor).
Fact is, we treated our colonies like utter dirt. We went there to exploit and pillage their territory, their riches. We contributed very little to their development (actually, the Japanese did more for Vietnam's infrastructure during WW2 than we did during our entire colonial occupation).
We were about as much of a legitimate ruler of Vietnam as Japan was the "legitimate ruler" of Korea
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03-09-2004 21:08
You're still on my dance card for when we get to Hell 
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