Reply #17: It's Time The Old Anti-War People Stood Up! [View All]

[KharmaTrain]

I'm tired of the crap these Chickenshithawks blather, consider the ultimate hypocrisy in supporting a war yet avoiding serving in it. Now they're attempting to rewrite history as Vietnam being some noble war (at least from the military side) and those who opposed it as being just unpatriotic slime.

Where are those, and there were millions of us, who rose up during those years to make the Johnson and then Nixon administrations accountable about that war and to expose the terrible situation we had gotten ourselves into. We protested to get out the truth as to not only why we were there (that came out in the Pentagon Papers), what we were doing there and how we can avoid this type of mess again. Those who spoke up against the war did so at peril (especially during the Nixon Enemies list days) and still live with those days as a scar on their lives just as any combat veteran did.

I admire Kerry standing up at the time to denounce what, by 1971, had become a stalemate with no end in sight (the Paris Peace talks were a joke) and our military being hung out to dry by its own government! Many veterans I know who served in Nam blame the government for their plight, not the protesters. In fact, many have said if it wasn't for us, the war would have continued at an excelerated rate for years to come...no Vietnamization that cut down our casualties and the protest surrounding the Cambodian invasion put an end to any thoughts of expanding the war. In the wake, we avoided foreign adventures and, in retrospect, the lesson of Vietnam was that we got stuck in a civil war where all sides hated us and to use our power wisely. Looks that message is totally lost on Gingrich and the others who now have blood on their hands.

Personally, I know history is on our side on this and those who are responsible for this current military incursion will be singled out and villified for their roles in this fiasco. Unlike Vietnam, Iraq can't be blamed on some organized international conspiracy (like Communism...Domino Theory...and then see how that was a farce, too) and now the reasons that rushed us into sending 100,000 plus of our young men and women into a trap shoot are being questioned.

I just wish those who spoke up...and we didn't have the internet or television...it was free press, underground radio and word of mouth that kept us informed in those days. We need to remind people who were around in those days what is really going on and whose responsible.

Of course Gingrich and his ilk are gonna try to frame Kerry as a traitor. This is kinda jury nulification to off-set the embarassment of bunnypant's military non-record and to try to throw that issue (which goes to the core of being Commander In Chief) into distortion and misinformation.

The only way we rise above is to shout the truth. When they yell back, we shout the truth louder.