I was dumb enough to have served there, so for the last nearly 20 years I was simply waiting for what I knew was going to happen. Somehow, our glorious elites managed a bigger cluster fuck than they achieved in what Kenny Rogers sang about in "that old crazy Asian war."
I was dumb enough to have served there, so for the last nearly 20 years I was simply waiting for what I knew was going to happen. Somehow, our glorious elites managed a bigger cluster fuck than they achieved in what Kenny Rogers sang about in "that old crazy Asian war."
You were not dumb. Many people were drafted or believed the govt. Anti-War protest were because of the draft, not because of principles. College exempted.
No, I was dumb, but I took my stupidity and learned my lesson, so not all was lost. As for the anti war protests being only anti draft and not principled, you're simply wrong. Making a flat statement like that is just an effort to deny the rightness of the anti war crowd, just as we were about these last 20 years, where thousands died and trillions were borrowed and spent on wars not in the national interest and foisted on us largely by people who, if they were old enough, dodged the draft for a war, Vietnam, that they supported. Of course, some of them, as Dick Cheney said, had other priorities, those priorities being themselves, as per usual for narcissists.
Though there was much intellectualizing I knew many whose inspiration came from the looming draft. Would like to think it was otherwise, but why no major protests against war since? There weren't but half a dozen of us outside the gates of CENTCOM in 2001. My husband, a drafted member of UBC (who has died from AO) was asked by a professor why he was too stupid to go to college and avoid it? I think a lot who who used deferments later said they were principled. Of course there is always Senator Blumenthal to confuse things by saying he was in country when he was not.
Obviously the draft was a part of the anti war movement which is why our endless war elite duopoly ended it, but it's an overstatement to say all were there solely because of the draft; women, not subjected to the draft, veterans of the war, clergy, and older people were protesting the war also.
Everyone who died in Vietnam did so for no good reason, for the false narrative about a global communist expansion, all led by Moscow and simply refused to understand that nationalism was always a far bigger attraction than global communism. Today, Americans can go to Vietnam as tourists, work there, be seen house hunting on HGTV, and buy products there even though we "lost". How would "winning" have made things any different? The country is still a totalitarian one party state, with a mix of private and state operated business, much like the PRC.
While I disagree with his conclusions, H. R. McMaster exposed the rot in Vietnam with his book "Dereliction of Duty" where officials acknowledged as early as 1965 the war could not be won and quoted one US politician or general, I forget which, who said after the war was over that it wasn't a total loss because we showed the Communists we were willing to lose 58,000 in a worthless backwater like Vietnam so it would give them pause about attacking in some strategically important part of the world. Needless to say, such a comment was no surprise to me, nor should it have been to anyone who was in actual combat and kept their eyes and mind open to reality.
The important point in Vietnam and the wars of the last 20 years, none of which, other than a brief foray into Afghanistan to kill bin Laden and cripple AQ, were in the national interest, is for Americans to reject the false narrative of militarism and concentrate on the real challenge, which is the economic contest between us and the PRC, and one which we are losing, in large part to our addiction to global military supremacy, a goal that is unworthy and unachievable.
I was dumb enough to have served there, so for the last nearly 20 years I was simply waiting for what I knew was going to happen. Somehow, our glorious elites managed a bigger cluster fuck than they achieved in what Kenny Rogers sang about in "that old crazy Asian war."
You were not dumb. Many people were drafted or believed the govt. Anti-War protest were because of the draft, not because of principles. College exempted.
No, I was dumb, but I took my stupidity and learned my lesson, so not all was lost. As for the anti war protests being only anti draft and not principled, you're simply wrong. Making a flat statement like that is just an effort to deny the rightness of the anti war crowd, just as we were about these last 20 years, where thousands died and trillions were borrowed and spent on wars not in the national interest and foisted on us largely by people who, if they were old enough, dodged the draft for a war, Vietnam, that they supported. Of course, some of them, as Dick Cheney said, had other priorities, those priorities being themselves, as per usual for narcissists.
Though there was much intellectualizing I knew many whose inspiration came from the looming draft. Would like to think it was otherwise, but why no major protests against war since? There weren't but half a dozen of us outside the gates of CENTCOM in 2001. My husband, a drafted member of UBC (who has died from AO) was asked by a professor why he was too stupid to go to college and avoid it? I think a lot who who used deferments later said they were principled. Of course there is always Senator Blumenthal to confuse things by saying he was in country when he was not.
Obviously the draft was a part of the anti war movement which is why our endless war elite duopoly ended it, but it's an overstatement to say all were there solely because of the draft; women, not subjected to the draft, veterans of the war, clergy, and older people were protesting the war also.
Everyone who died in Vietnam did so for no good reason, for the false narrative about a global communist expansion, all led by Moscow and simply refused to understand that nationalism was always a far bigger attraction than global communism. Today, Americans can go to Vietnam as tourists, work there, be seen house hunting on HGTV, and buy products there even though we "lost". How would "winning" have made things any different? The country is still a totalitarian one party state, with a mix of private and state operated business, much like the PRC.
While I disagree with his conclusions, H. R. McMaster exposed the rot in Vietnam with his book "Dereliction of Duty" where officials acknowledged as early as 1965 the war could not be won and quoted one US politician or general, I forget which, who said after the war was over that it wasn't a total loss because we showed the Communists we were willing to lose 58,000 in a worthless backwater like Vietnam so it would give them pause about attacking in some strategically important part of the world. Needless to say, such a comment was no surprise to me, nor should it have been to anyone who was in actual combat and kept their eyes and mind open to reality.
The important point in Vietnam and the wars of the last 20 years, none of which, other than a brief foray into Afghanistan to kill bin Laden and cripple AQ, were in the national interest, is for Americans to reject the false narrative of militarism and concentrate on the real challenge, which is the economic contest between us and the PRC, and one which we are losing, in large part to our addiction to global military supremacy, a goal that is unworthy and unachievable.
@michael t nola
Testify, Brother Michael, Testify !
It was both. Women and seniors (including my mother) also protested.
Or Pete SeegerтАЩs тАЬWaist Deep in the Big MuddyтАЭ!