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Verisimilitude
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Nice post.
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SoCalRC
Guest
It depends on what you mean by ‘fight’. If you mean, should we stand for the inalienable rights of the human person, yes. Otherwise we have no validity as a society in the eyes of God.
If you mean, by constantly finding ourselves in arrangements of convenience in military conflicts, I would say no. History seems to suggest that always comes back to haunt us. After all, OBL and SH where once US allies in other conflicts, just as Pakistan, a hotbed of Islamic terrorism and nuclear prolifieration and Saudia Arabia, the primary bankroll for terrorism, are both allies of convenience now.
In other words, you don’t win the hearts and minds of people by propping up corrupt leaders, just because you hate someone else more. Look at how much of the trouble in Central America, along with lingering anti-US sentiment, can be traced to such misguided policies in the 50s and 60s.
Ultimately, you are looking at a war of ideas - but it is not the ideas that we espouse that matter, but the ones that are enacted. If you prop up someone who is a tyrrant, then you represent that to the people effected. Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan. It did not rise to power because of more appealing ideals, but because it was able to establish basic security. We see the same in the middle East now. We tend to worry about Hamas in a big picture, but its political successes have far more to do with basic, practical, everyday concerns of the people than ideology.
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SoCalRC
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This annecdote also appears in Bob Greene’s book “Homecoming”, but I’ve never been able to find a police report, etc. to back it up.
Sociologist Jerry Lembcke’s book “The Spitting Image” also tries to verify the event, but came up empty.
Unlike Lembcke, who seems to assert that no altercations every occured, I believe that some alteracations occured. Unlike Iraq, which is small, grossly overstretched, footprint, there are millions of Vietnam vets like ourselves. When you take millions of people, you are going to have instances of violence.
But I would have to agree with Lembcke’s assertion that the supposed scale is all urban myth. If violence were occuring on even a modest scale, politicians would have been publicly milking it and we would have public documents. I don’t know about you, but if someone had spit on me there would be a hospital or arrest record (poor Catholicism, I know, but I have to be honest about what my response would have been).
There are actually several records of law suits regarding the Pentagon’s decisions involving transport and clothing. It seems that avoiding commercial airports and encouraging civilian clothing had more to do with avoiding the media than protesters. Much as we are so secretive about returning metal caskets and seriously wounded personel today.
If it isn’t clear, I am not trying to question either your sincerity or your service. I enlisted in the Corp myself, though completed my service through two deployments as a combat medic. Most of time in country was with the Walking Dead, whose deployment I believe still holds the USMC record for KIA ratio among bats. So I hope my comments above won’t be taken as a personal offense.
Peace
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
SoCalRC,
Semper Fi and all that.
I have no doubt about what you’re saying.
Heck, for all I know, my drill instructor may have been BS’ing us, to get us motivated, who knows. Although, he was in Force Recon and three tours in Vietnam, with the ribbons to show it. He was also up for Sgt Major of the Marine Corps, but lost out to one other guy. He retired after 33 years and became a border patrol agent in Texas. I don’t think he needed to exaggerate or BS us, but you really never know. Like you said, there would be documentation on this sort of stuff, if it were prevalent.
As far as this loony war in Iraq, all you had to do is watch the build up for it, and how it was sold to the American people and Congress. Just before the vote in October, 2002, when George Bush made his state of the union address before Congress, and he was trying to sell their support for going into Iraq, as I watched the only thing I could see was an arrogant clueless man, who had no idea or concern, what war actually was. I wondered if he was merely envisioning the victory parades and popularity his father saw, after the first Gulf War. He doesn’t match his father, at all.
The justification for going into Iraq, was weak, in my opinion.
I watched Colin Powell’s testimony before the UN, and I didn’t buy what he was selling. Turns out, neither did he.
The justification for going to war, must be overwhelming.
Other than WWII, I can’t think of any others that were justified.
Jim
Semper Fi and all that.
I have no doubt about what you’re saying.
Heck, for all I know, my drill instructor may have been BS’ing us, to get us motivated, who knows. Although, he was in Force Recon and three tours in Vietnam, with the ribbons to show it. He was also up for Sgt Major of the Marine Corps, but lost out to one other guy. He retired after 33 years and became a border patrol agent in Texas. I don’t think he needed to exaggerate or BS us, but you really never know. Like you said, there would be documentation on this sort of stuff, if it were prevalent.
As far as this loony war in Iraq, all you had to do is watch the build up for it, and how it was sold to the American people and Congress. Just before the vote in October, 2002, when George Bush made his state of the union address before Congress, and he was trying to sell their support for going into Iraq, as I watched the only thing I could see was an arrogant clueless man, who had no idea or concern, what war actually was. I wondered if he was merely envisioning the victory parades and popularity his father saw, after the first Gulf War. He doesn’t match his father, at all.
The justification for going into Iraq, was weak, in my opinion.
I watched Colin Powell’s testimony before the UN, and I didn’t buy what he was selling. Turns out, neither did he.
The justification for going to war, must be overwhelming.
Other than WWII, I can’t think of any others that were justified.
Jim
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SCALCO
Guest
You make some interesting points. I think I mostly agree. We should be more careful about who we make allies with and who we support.
I don’t think our policies are to blame in all cases. We will always have regimes that want to dominate or destroy us no matter what we do. I don’t think we can reason with a Hitler type. Now, we have Ahmadinejad test firing missiles in the Perian Gulf who pretty much wants to wipe us and our allies off the face of the earth. What can we do to appease an enemy like this?
Having allies that do not necessarily share our principles and ideals is not as big a problem IMHO as having regimes/enemies who kill anyone who disagrees with their way of life.
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distracted
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i agree with most of what you are sayig. However, i can’t help but think that it is easy for one who has never had to live under communism to say… True, i never have either… but this country has enough corruption with democracy… imagine how much worse things are in non-democratic countires…
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distracted
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well, that would disprove the validity of the buddhist religion if nothing else did…
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distracted
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i rest my case (against the wwar protesters in general)…
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grandfather
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I have friends who were cursed as they walked through airports in uniform. Another friend was on leave and had to pick up his paycheck in uniform and was assaulted. The country was on the brink of revolution or appeared to be. There were protests everywhere in the country, some violent, and that is what pressured LBJ to cut and run. There was a social revolution taking place in the country driven by sex, drugs and rock and roll. The North Vietnamese were ready to collapse and could not sustain the effort, but we did not know it. They knew the U.S. was under tremendous pressure to end the war.
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JimR-OCDS
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Well, I worked with three engineers who lived under the USSR, probably the most brutal form of communism. They would never opt for war.
The USSR fell without a shot being fired.
Currently, I work with engineers from China.
China is transforming into a more open society. Again, no shots were fired.
Communism, is horrible, but doesn’t come close to experiencing war in your own backyard.
Jim
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JimR-OCDS
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JimR-OCDS
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When I came home in 1971, I wore my uniform in transit and while on leave, I wore it to go to Church(ironically) and wore it
to visit my teachers at my high-school.
Otherwise, I wore civilian clothes. It had nothing to do with people’s feelings against the war, but more so, being a Marine, various aggressive types, wanted to see how bad I was.
Jim
to visit my teachers at my high-school.
Otherwise, I wore civilian clothes. It had nothing to do with people’s feelings against the war, but more so, being a Marine, various aggressive types, wanted to see how bad I was.
Jim
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SCALCO
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communism = no freedom
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SCALCO
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Shots were fired, just not directly, in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and in Afghanistan, maybe others.
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grandfather
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The USSR fell as a result of the strengthening of the U.S. military by Ronald Reagan. We outspent them and they collapsed trying to keep up. The misery in the Soviet Empire created by the atheist regime was horrendous. Stalin murdered 20 million of his own people and almost as many Ukranians. He starved millions to death by taking the countries’ food and selling it to buy industrial equipment in their industrialization. Would it have been better if the countries of the USSR were liberated after the war by force? Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, and all the other countries who hated their slave masters in Moscow and their dictators at home suffered for another four decades would have thought so. I clearly remember the Hungarian revolt being brutally crushed. I remember the Berlin Wall going up and seeing the news when people trying to flee were machine gunned by their own soldiers. I also remember Reagan’s calling them the evil empire and challenging them to “tear down that wall”, and the jubilation when the wall fell. Eastern Europe will take many more generations to recover from this nightmare of an atheist tyranny.
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distracted
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i have to admit i don’t know much of the history of the country… which is one reason i started this discussion… I want to learn more… I had lousy histoyr throughout high school… had a good college history teacher but even he didn’t “go there” much…
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distracted
Guest
What a bunch of hypocrites, those anti-war demonstrators… They supposedly hated violence, yet were violent against their own people…
Why do you say the N. Vietnamese werr ready to collapse?? I didn’t know that…
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distracted
Guest
i myself would be (albeit reluctantly) willing to fight a war against this kind of thing… and i am female…
I believe war is called for when people are being murdered… Yes, war is more killing… but certain “philosophies”
are so destructive… something has to be done to stop … well, those like Stalin, Hitler… etc…which reminds me, most of us probably don’t think much about the war that is going on here in the US… against the unborn… We don’t much act like that is a war anymore… been legal too long…
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JMBNH
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Then again the USA gives $3billion a year to the Israeli military and they have a history of starting wars. You can hardly blame other middle eastern countries wanting weapons with the amount Israel have
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Ed_Rand
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I disagree. Any religion that teaches that the best response to aggresive war, occupation, and overwhelming brutal force, is to show all involved how little consequence we should have in the flesh has got enough of the Truth for me. Not the whole Truth, but enough.
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