Why don't you talk about some of the rotten things the Viet Cong did? Like deliberately killing hospital corpsmen, and using women and children as sheilds? Those slimeballs used our own decency as a weapeon AGAINST us!
See, this is the part that I have a tough time coping with: that someone who (apparently) was in Vietnam can use words like "decency" when describing the way that Americans conducted themselves in that conflict.
I'll agree with you 100% if you care to claim that the VC/NVA did things like murdered civilians, tortured people, etc. These things were flat-out wrong and no amount of posturing and justification will change that.
The problem lies in that the American military did a lot of these very same things in order to try to win the war. And somehow, the fact that these types of actions were carried out by
Americans is supposed to legitimize them (at least in the minds of some people).
But that, my friend, is merely wishful thinking of the Very Worst Kind.
The way to disinguish the Good Guys from the so-called Bad Guys is by their actions. And when the Good Guys decide that they are going to start doing things like killing civilians and torture people, well, that's when they also stop being the Good Guys.
But the thing you don't seem to be willing to understand about guerilla warfare is that a lot of the "sneaky and underhanded" (or dastardly and inhumane, whichever you prefer) tactics that guerilla fighters use are used because they are the only effective means they have of fighting a force that is larger and better-equipped than they are. And no, this doesn't make what they do "right," I'm just pointing out that these tactics are necessary if they want to win the conflict. IOW: they're not left with any choice but to do these things.
And, unfortunately, in order to win such conflicts, the Good Guys willingly put themselves in the position of having to adopt the very same tactics. And while this may very well mean that they might win the war, (I'm being optimistic here) let's be honest with each other and admit that it also means that they are also ceding any claims to the Moral High Ground.
I'm reminded of a line from the charcter of "Col. Mathieu" in the film
The Battle of Algiers "Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer "yes," then you must accept all the necessary consequences."
And I invite you, as an American, to ask yourself just what the "necessary consequences" are when we involve ourselves in conflicts like Vietnam (or Iraq).
As an American, MY conscience is clear!
Well, there's little doubt of that.
I have said it before, and I'll say it again: the U.S. forces would have to stoop a HELL of a long way before they would become even HALF as bad as the SCUM they were fighting against in Vietnam AND IRAQ!!!
But that's just my point: the Americans
did stoop that far, in both of the conflicts you name. Did you really think that those pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib were reflective of the actions of just a few "bad apples?"
Because if that's what you're thinking, I have to tell you that those pictures merely reflected the Official Policy of the US Government in Iraq. No more, no less. If you think that those beatings, torture, and humiliations went on in a closed environment like a prison without
everyone there being aware of what was going on, then you, my friend, are so naïve I hardly know where to start.
And, sadly, it seems that the US is doomed to learn the exact same lessons in Iraq that the French did in Algeria: if you decide to adopt "winning tactics," it might well mean a military victory and a political defeat.
(Of course, I'm being optimistic here, as the US is currently being defeated both militarily
and politically in the Iraq War. But I'm giving us the benefit of the doubt, okay?)
Put THAT in your pipe and SMOKE IT!
I've absolutely no doubt this phrase sums up your entire political discourse.
And, sadly, it also neatly demonstrates America's unrelenting passion for never bothering to take that extra step to figure sh*t out.
I mean, why bother studying pesky things like cause-and-effect when you can simply declare yourself the Good Guy in the whatever conflict you've just dove into, right? "We'll figure out what [insert conflict here] was all about (and just how we got there) later: let's just
win this thing .
Wow: don't we ever learn?
(Incidentally, if we'd allowed the Vietnamese to hold national elections in 1956 [as stipulated by the Geneva Conference of 1954] the entire Vietnam conflict could have been avoided. Of course, the US, alone among the great powers, outright refused to sign the Geneva agreement. Why? Eisenhower himself said that were elections allowed, "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh." So instead, we waited until the the Paris Peace Accords in '73 to give the Vietnamese what we could have given them in 1954: the ability to elect a government of their
own choosing, rather than one that the US preferred.)
you are here with me
you are here with me
you have been here
and you are everything
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18 years ago
[deleted]
AnonQWERT
17 years ago
burrell_dale,
Here is some proof that the U.S is the new Nazi Germany,parts from a book called 'The Deserter's Tale:The Story of an Ordinary American Soldier' by Joshua Key as told to Lawernce Hill:
"I must say I loved boot camp.I was good with guns,didn't mind the exercise and felt myself swell with patriotism when our commanders told us that Americans were the only decent people on Earth and that Muslims and terrorists deserved to die."
"One day all 300 of us lined up on the bayonet range,each facing a life-sized dummy that we were told to imagine as a Muslim man.
As we stabbed th dummies with our bayonets,one of our commanders stood on the podium and shouted into a microphone,'Kill!Kill!Kill the sand *beep*
"While we shouted and stabbed drill sergeants walked among us to make sure that we were all shouting.It seemed that full effect of the lesson would be lost on us unless we shouted out the words of hate as we mutilated our enemies."
This is a part when he was in Iraq:
"Soon after,while my squad mates and I patrolled the streets in our APC,we passed under a thick groove of palm trees.'If you guys were fighting against me right
now',I said to Sargent Fadinetz,'you would all be dead at this very moment.I would have strung a mine up in those trees and I would have been hiding behind that big rock over there and the moment you people rolled under those trees I would have hit the switch.'To my surprise the sergeant did not lecture me for speaking my mind.Softly,he told me,"I'd do the same thing if people invaded America""
This is only the tip of the iceberg,the book contains much more revealing things
including how the soldier refused to return to Iraq in 2003 and escaped to Canada as a criminal ,with his wife and kids ,for not acting like a criminal in Iraq.
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