As promised, I will answer the question posed by Rutherford in the last thread.
Yes, I think that leaving Vietnam when we did was a betrayal.
I think it was a betrayal to the Vietnamese people we made promises to…the same ones who showed up at the Embassy and begged to be taken when we left. I think it was a betrayal of an entire nation of people who will never know anything other than service to the state, and a life subsisting on what the state will allow them to keep. And most of all, I think it was a betrayal of every American, draftee or volunteer, who died there. I think that leaving before anything that resembled a victory was achieved there pissed all over their sacrifice and placed a price on their lives that in truth was no greater than the political philosophy we were there to defeat. Lives given in the service of freedom are wasted when we do not even hold that which we fight at bay, let alone defeat it.
And this message was only reinforced when those who survived returned to be spit on and vilified by those brave enough to follow their conscience and dodge the draft, rather than following the law and showing up when they were summoned, or maybe even enlisting. It was one thing to oppose the policies that put us in Vietnam, and sent thousands of 19 year olds there, but to vilify and scorn those who actually went? That was inexcusable. If you believed that the war was wrong, if you believed that the young men (and women) who went were victimized and taken advantage of by our own government, how did treating them that way on their return make sense? The disconnect of being against the war for “compassionate” reasons, yet being so uncompassionate against our soldiers, many of whom were not voluntary, does not portray a consistent or coherent message.
Was the war winnable? What would victory look like? I don’t know. I was 4 years old when those desperate people climbed to the roof of our Embassy in Saigon in the fervent hope that they would be lucky enough to be airlifted out, and even as I watched those images as teenager who had an almost geeky interest in history, those images actually brought tears to my eyes. Betrayal is the only word that can adequately describe how that conflict ended.
I do know that the military itself maintains that the Tet Offensive was a failure for the Vietnamese communists. Yet if you watch old television coverage, you would believe it was the beginning of the end. Being a theatre in the Cold War, and knowing the involvement of other communist states in the North’s war effort, it might have been the best that could have been hoped for was a divided country, like Korea. But unlike the so-called “Peace with honor” (and whoever coined that phrase should have been beaten to within an inch of his life), even that would have allowed people in the South to live their lives out of the shadow of the thumb of a repressive and brutal regime, and it would have meant that the lives of all the Americans there would not have been in vain. This is why I consider this conflict to be second only to the Civil War in terms of being such a sorrowful, wrenching moment in our nation’s history.
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The questions were also raised in the last thread about DADT, and Volunteer forces vs. Draftees.
Time and some unresearched questions I have won’t really allow me to comment on these things at this moment, although I will not that the Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court not to rule on the stay on the District Court order repealing DADT, essentially asking for time to allow for an orderly rather than abrupt change in policy by lifting the stay right now. If you accept the premise that this is a civil rights issue, than this might make some sense, as President Truman also set up a means for transition when he signed Executive Order 9931 which is credited with desegregation of the Armed Forces.
Many thanks BiW for the thoughtful post. I fully understand everything you have to say and in particular I find it unconscionable that Vietnam vets were mistreated upon their return.
Is it then safe to say, that the standard you apply to Vietnam should now be applied to Afghanistan? Putting aside any terrorist threat, we also have a people there oppressed by their local leaders (the Taliban) and abandoning them, as Time Magazine famously illustrated with its grizzly cover, would result in great human cost.
I think this is a very hard nut to crack. Is it our job to protect the oppressed all over the world? How do we do triage since so many are oppressed? How do we afford it financially?
Your answer raises many additional questions. It doesn’t make your answer bad. It just illustrates the complexity of the issue.
You asked a question.
He answered you.
You stated: “I fully understand everything you have to say …”
You then go on to say: “Your answer raises many additional questions”. Either you are a liar or really are an ass. You asked a question, he answered it, you said you understood. Your bullshit “raises many additional questions” is just a smokescreen for “Now, let’s talk about something else because I can’t/won’t argue with what you just said.”
Oh, and Rutherford? Here’s a few extra letter “u”s, since you seemed short of one when talking to me a comment ago.
uuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Or are you just not man enough to actually say “Fuck you” when you mean it? Jackhole.
Hey Pussyklutz, I find it interesting that BiW has no problem engaging. Are you his Daddy or his Mommy? Do YOU have any opinion on Vietnam vs Afghanistan or do you just like throwing flames?
I think you’re so addicted to arguing that it really irks you when someone tries to have a civil discussion.
Take your cue from the blog moderator. I’m not his enemy. I have no reason to be yours beside the fact you act like a jerk.
Rutherford,
I wish to point out that you are the one who said “Fuck you” to me, and then tried some lame name calling. And yet you claim you want to have a “civil discussion”? Ha – that’s rich!
And if you read my comment, I wasn’t attempting to defend or support BiW’s statements – I was directly criticizing yours. So how am I trying to be his Mommy or Daddy?
And to reply to this: “I’m not his enemy. I have no reason to be yours…” – think what you will, but I think you ARE my enemy. You are a liberal/progressive – you are a danger to me, my family and friends, and my country.
Ahhh I see, I lowered the standard of debate. Told you to f*ck off without the least bit provocation. Thanks for correcting me.
You know, I think one problem is you hang out in various echo chambers. On my blog, the conservative commenters outrank the liberal ones by at least 2:1. If I were to assume that every conservative was my enemy because I don’t agree with their politics, I’d have to shut the blog down. But guess what? Because I don’t moderate an echo chamber, I’ve learned about the actual lives of my readers. I know what they care about. I know what they fear. And I’ve gained a modicum of respect not only for them but for their views.
Heck, I may have even become a bit more conservative myself over the years. It’s easy to hate liberals in your echo chamber Dog.
It’s a shame you didn’t hang out a bit at Jim Dougan’s blog before he died. He was a liberal who was very hard to hate. One of the kindest men I’ve encountered on the net. It might have done you some good to spend some time there.
You don’t get it, do you? I’m not interested in debate with you – try one of the others. Why would I want to have a discussion with you? You are wrong, rude, pompus and foolish. While it appears BiW enjoys playing with you like a cat bats a mouse around, I would be perfectly happy if you never uttered another word here. Until and unless BiW asks otherwise, I will try to mock you whenever I get a chance.
I’m kind to my mother, my sister, my wife, children, little old ladies and animals. The rest of you get whatever scorn I think you deserve. And I am fine with that, too. If you aren’t, deal with it.
How do you know I’m not really a little old lady? This is the anonymous internet after all, sonny.
BiW, where is that war memorial?
Is it then safe to say, that the standard you apply to Vietnam should now be applied to Afghanistan? Putting aside any terrorist threat, we also have a people there oppressed by their local leaders (the Taliban) and abandoning them, as Time Magazine famously illustrated with its grizzly cover, would result in great human cost.
The easy answer would be “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Being a lawyer, I can’t help but look at it through the same lens as a rescue attempt. You don’t have a duty to rescue someone (with one curious exception), but if you start to do so, and screw it up, then you might have some liability.
Now its been a few years, but I thought were in Afghanistan because thats where the terrorists were. If we were there to fight oppression, than given the fact that the Taliban has put politics’ chocolate in religion’s peanut butter, it makes it a bald-faced lie when our own leaders proclaim that we aren’t at war with Islam.
I don’t think we can or should fight every oppressive regime on the planet. I do think that sometimes, it might be in our interest to do so.
Of course fighting a war to win would eliminate a lot of the argument. But the thug in charge tied our hands and allowed the enemy to have free reign in killing our troops.
Thank God that President George W. Bush had the good sense and bravery to finish what we started in Iraq.
If we had left it to men like Rutherford and Obama, there would have been one of two inevitable conclusions:
(1) Saddam Hussein and his two thugs sons would still be in power, still oppressing and brutalizing 25MM Iraqis, still be paying terrorists to commit terror, still harboring known terrorists, and most importantly still thumbing his nose at 16 U.N. resolutions that he consistently and mockingly broke.
And since I am absolutely sure Rutherford’s argument will be “we should have never been there in the first place”, then the only way he can justify his logic is to determine that the first war Desert Storm was also wrong, or that the U.N. is unnecessary, since the U.N. brokered the pact ending the Gulf War. What good are peace resolutions if they are not to be enforced?
And the U.S. military enforced the resolutions, thereby sending a message to future generations of thugs and despots in the Middle East that America is not simply (as Saddam was mistakenly quoted) a “Paper Tiger.”
(2) Had Bush followed the popular media and liberal opinion Iraq an unwinnable war and we should abandon Iraq by pulling the troops, it is almost certain a second Khmer Rouge would have followed in Iraq.
And though the conclusion of the Vietnam War and the treatment of our Veterans was inexcusably, if you were to ask my opinion of the biggest tragedy and darkest stain of Vietnam, it’s that 2.5MM Cambodians out of a population of 7.1MM were brutally slaughtered upon our departure.
How many Iraqis would have been killed had George W. Bush not had the guts to see Iraq to victory?
Concerning Afghanistan, I feel somewhat differently. We were attacked by radicals housed by Afghanistan. I become more convinced by the day that ordinary Afghanis are not stepping up, nor am I convinced our military is fighting under the correct terms of engagement. I do not hold the sympathy for Afghanis that I did for Iraqis, and frankly feel not only are the Afghani leaders are corrupt, but a majority of its citizenry.
The Afghan War has lost sense of its original purpose – to kill the enemy. Either let the military run the operation without restraint and quit the nation building, or pull them with threat next time we come, we come to destroy and nothing more.
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I do not find a draft immoral. I would go without complaint if drafted and my country called and needed me, though I am getting a little long in the tooth to be of much help. But I say this assuredly. An all volunteer military makes for the best military.
You get a higher quality soldier IMHO.
Tex, I still think you have your wars backwards. Anything Saddam and his sons might have done falls in the realm of hypothetical. Why fight a war over a hypothetical when the clear and present danger was in Afghanistan?
We lost Bin Laden (a far better catch than Saddam any day) and Afghanistan went to hell in a hand-basket while we liberated a country that never asked to be liberated.
Now that we’re finally applying strength to Afghanistan, it is no longer the war to fight.
As I heard one analyst say, the best that can be said about Iraq is that it might end up a happy accident. In other words, we picked the wrong war but the consequences of our intervention may prove worth it all.
I agree with you about soldier quality resulting from a volunteer army. I think it just makes good common sense … you get a better soldier when you’re not forcing him to fight.
While I’m on a fence about the “morality” of the draft, I do have a theory that our generation and younger never grew up because we never were forced to face the hardship of service. When I look at the men and women of my Dad’s generation I see grown-ups. When I look at us, I see overgrown kids.
Who said anything about what they might have done? It was what they were already doing. Sixteen broken U.N. resolutions numerous times agreed to from a Gulf War they instigated is not hypothetical – it is fact.
For a very innocent country, we sure did kill an awful lot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Rutherford, you’re a pretty bright guy but I have always found your thinking superficial and myopic. You have intellect, but no insight – style without substance.
The truth is they’re not anti-war, they’re just on the other side.
M
Thanks for the thoughtful post BiC, and for the thoughtful commentary that followed.
What happened, and BTW, still is happening in that part of the world is nothing less than horrible. Then, what do we do when someone actually tries to help? Why, we jail them of course. General Vang (Hmong) being just one example.
As far as the current wars? The pitty pottie ROE’s are getting our people killed, period.
Here’s the aspect of ROE that drives me up the wall- Mosques.
Can’t touch them and going into one is a major pain in the ass. To hit one with ordinance, takes an act of God to get approval, even if you have incontroverted proof of it being used to target our troops.
To add insult to injury, Mosques have been used in Islamic warfare for centuries…
“To add insult to injury, Mosques have been used in Islamic warfare for centuries…”
Just for you Gorilla
“The Mosques Are Our Barracks”
“Rutherford, you’re a pretty bright guy”
Trying your hand at comedy?
Tex, I’m pretty sure Al-Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until AFTER we invaded.
History will bear out the wisdom of Bush’s decisions. As of now, the jury is still out.
Care to opine on the effect of the draft on the different generations? Did it make the older generations more responsible in general? I think all things being equal, it did.
I think you’re wrong, as we know for fact Saddam was housing terrorists that killed many Americans throughout the 80s and 90s. But let us say you’re right for a minute. There wasn’t one Al-Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded.
So why is it not brilliant military strategy that while we are deposing of Saddam, that we were able to bait Al-Qaeda into Iraq and our outstanding military killed them by the thousands?
Is there some larger reward in killing Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan than Iraq?
No matter how you twist this Rutherford, I can justify being in Iraq and removing Saddam. Like so many things, you guys were barking up the wrong tree.
Well Tex, I must say this …. SayWhat posted a link on my blog that if you watch the videos in the linked article, you will indeed conclude that Saddam needed to be taken out by any means necessary.
Whether that means he was a threat to the United States is another story. How do we choose which despots to overthrow (to the tune of a billion or so dollars a week)?
Wont cost much to overthrow the despot running our country.
Cost us $3.4Trillion in two years to slow President Megalo.
Tex,
I didnt say Saddam was less a threat than al-Thuggy.
BiW, betrayal is a practiced, refined, valued art and accepted as such by nearly all members of the worldwide political class. Nevertheless, I would like to have a little “quality time” with the politicians who were in office during the Vietnam War. We would have matters to discuss.
As someone who had some real-time experience outside of Saigon during that war, my personal opinion was that it had actually been won and the North Vietnamese were well aware of the fact – until U.S. leadership caved in to the imprecations of the Left and their puppets in the press and academia and gave the Communists hope. Out troops had overall kicked butt in every major engagement (decimating the Viet Cong infrastructure in the South during the Tet offensive).
I am relieved and happy that today’s military is more respected and honored for their efforts. They are a truly fine group of men and women and deserve the accolades.
The draft is somewhat of a moot point. I was an Army recruiter when it ended in the early 1970′s and also observed some of the problems that the volunteer military program experienced in its early days with poor quality enlistees. That particular issue is no longer relevant. Should the need for a draft ever arise in these times, it will be too late for an effective program to be implemented. Our country will have been attacked and severely damaged and the need will be for processing volunteers and command and control to be established to firm up our defensive forces.
In the meantime, we need to pick our battles carefully, given the manpower and equipment restrictions that our military is laboring under.
Thanks for your support for us (retired folks are still part of the military family, just as there is no such thing as an “ex-Marine”).
“I am relieved and happy that today’s military is more respected and honored for their efforts.”
Not by the politicians. Those hippies in the 60′s are embedded in the Government today. Respect? Look at the insane suicidal ROE our troops in Afghanistan are subjected too.
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LOL …. BiW your SPAM filter is on the fritz. Bet365 is clearly a blog whore.