Replacement Unit
I was watching a program on PBS about events that shaped the sixties. People in the streets, the war, etc. We have a similar war now but very few people in the streets even considering the latest protest
in D.C. Where is everyone? Will it take more years of war to piss people off? Does an all volunteer Army and no threat of the draft erase the war from most minds? It’s hard to believe anyone wants to be over there.
Well, I know what happened to me. I got old. I was at the W.T.O. in Seattle but since then my feet crapped out. I wont be marching anymore. Where is my replacement unit?
October 3rd, 2005 at 1:26 am
I believe it is because our government controls the media. We are only allowed to see what they want us to see. The Patriot Act(s) was designed to bascially rewrite our constitution, clamping down on our personal rights & free speech, press, etc.
October 3rd, 2005 at 10:58 am
“We have a similar war now…” As to the wars themselves, i.e. the military actions, there are practically no similarities whatsoever. The scale of deployment and the number of casualties in Indochina dwarfs what has happened in Iraq. The evolution of the conflict is very different, too. For the US, Vietnam started out as a counter-insurgency effort, which then morphed into a more conventional conflict after the majority of the insurgents were neutralized during the Tet Offensive; on the other hand, the conventional forces in Iraq were defeated quickly, and since then we’ve seen mostly insurgency. Our enemies in Vietnam enjoyed the active support of two powerful states — the USSR and China — and sophisticated weapons (specifically SAM and AAA systems); the insurgency in Iraq has no support of that scale and are basically using AKs, RPG-7s, and IEDs. Finally, the Vietnamese were unified, disciplined, and accostomed to fighting an industrialized army (the French), none of which applies to the Iraqis.
Even in the political sense, there are significant differences. In Iraq, we’re trying to coalesce some kind of representative government from first principles, whereas in Vietnam we were trying to preserve the (admittedly corrupt) South Vietnamese government from the insurgency (early on) and from the NVA. The two are vastly different objectives.
As to “government controls the media,” I wouldn’t even care to guess at how our current media would cover the Ardennes in Dec. 1944 or the battle for Tarawa in 1943. “Germany’s demise greatly exaggerated — Quagmire in Europe” or “Leathernecks take horrible losses in landing; Let’s go home and let the Japanese have the Pacific.” I think of Walter Cronkite’s utter misrepresentation of the Tet Offensive is a good example.
October 3rd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Walter Conkrite kept his job. Dan Rather wasn’t that lucky after the last election.
October 3rd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Similarities:
A war started and justified by lies.
Illeagl and imoral tactics.
Disturction of people and their country.
An endless conflict. (suggested reading; “The March of Folly)
A War essentialy about economics and dominance. (‘What we are seeing is a rush for the worlds remaining resources’)
Continuing restatement of motives and objectives. Inflated rosey predictions.
Loss of U.S. Military lives.
War debt and profiteering.
Dimineshed standing of the U.S. in the eyes of the world.
( feel fee to add to this list)
October 4th, 2005 at 8:12 am
Well, Cronkite wasn’t so foolish as to stake his reputation on “vintage” memos so obviously typeset in MS Word!
Anon, I think one could employ over half of your 9 “similarities” to a conventional view of the US Civil War and maybe WW I; heck, some of them apply to the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, and WWII! I’m not going to defend our objectives in Iraq (or Vietnam for that matter), but we seem to have this 30+ year tradition of trying to pound square pegs in a round Vietnam War hole. People try really hard to make the comparison stick so as to bootstrap some kind of anti-war movement. But really, Iraq is not Vietnam was not Korea was not WWII was not WWI…. and on back. We try to learn from them all, from the parallels as well as the differences, but moveon-style talking points aren’t persuasive from my point of view. [Thanks for the “The March of Folly” ref.; I’m familiar with her “Guns of August” book on WWI.]
October 4th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Excellent analogy, Sooner. Was it Peter, Paul & Mary who had a song with the line
“When will they ever learn, When will they ever………..learn.”
October 4th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Of Course all wars are not the same. How could they be? And half my similarities could fit any war. War is war after all. But to analyze any war isnt the starting point motivation and objective? To determine if a war is justified dont you first look to motivation?
My favorite war: Granada
(or was it a “ploice action”)
Still pounding pegs.