BC
PO3
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 288
Location: Oklahoma City
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 Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 6:57 am Post subject: Why I feel the way I do about Kerry |
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I was asked on my blog to give my comments on another bloggers post so I did. I think it shows a lot about why I feel the way I do about Kerry. So I thought I would share with you guys.
The Bitter Fruit of Denial
| Quote: | | “Now, it seems, we're getting to the nub of it. It's not John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam, not that he was or wasn't in Cambodia, not whether there was a firefight going on when he rescued Jim Rassman. It's what he said and did afterward, the testimony before the Senate, calling atrocities atrocities, telling truth to power.” |
I have to disagree, It is about John Kerry’s action in Vietnam, it is about whether he was in Cambodia or not, it is about whether there was a firefight or not, and it is about what he did afterwards with his testimony, and his action outside of his testimony. It is the whole package that is and was John Kerry.
| Quote: | | “That is what they cannot forget and cannot forgive.” |
Absolutely right I cannot and will not forget or forgive.
| Quote: | | “The wound of Vietnam still bleeds, in part because some among us have spent 30 years denying what we learned there: that war is a very dirty business” |
No war is not a very dirty business, War is a *****, plane and simple. People die, soldiers, regular every day people, men women and children are killed, plane and simple. In any war you look at, people on both sides commit atrocities but NOT ALL.
| Quote: | “A few bad apples”
“We describe the My Lai massacre as an aberration, just as we do the torture at Abu Ghraib.” |
I think this gets more to the flux of the matter. A few bad apples. The My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib matter in Iraq. Was the My Lai massacre the only bad thing to happen in Vietnam? Certainly not. Was it just a few bad apples, I doubt it, probably more of a whole barrel of apples. But to take that and to spin it to say that the whole Military establishment is guilty of war crimes is as wrong as saying it was just a few bad apples. Which the same can be said about Abu Ghraib.
You see when John Kerry says “the full awareness of officers at all levels of command” that is exactly what he is saying, that the whole Military establishment is guilty. That means every man or woman that was in the Military is guilty. That’s the man sitting behind a desk somewhere in Vietnam that never saw combat, that’s the nurse that was in the states helping wounded soldiers, that’s the guy somewhere on a ship out in the ocean that never stepped foot in Vietnam. That’s the guy who humps his butt in the field carrying a rifle that fought with honor. When you start lumping the whole Military together as John Kerry did in his testimony and his action before and after his testimony it’s the good apples that are put into the same barrel as the bad.
| Quote: | “The first is that we've never experienced combat on our own shores. With the exception of Oklahoma City and 9/11, we have not been hit in our own land with the kind of massive destruction of life and property that characterizes modern wars. We have not had to tolerate foreign soldiers, enemy or ally, on our soil. And most of us have never seen real blood spilt. Therefore it is easy enough to turn the reality of warfare into an abstraction, and believe that it is far more pristine than in actuality it is.
Old-fashioned artillery can level whole towns. Jet airliners need not crash into buildings to make them fall. In the narrative of the American myth we are always heroic, always fighting in the name of liberty — and this allows us to deny complicity in the ugly consequences of war itself, any war.” |
This is the kind of statements that really piss me off.
What is wrong with being heroic? What is wrong with fighting in the name of liberty? Was it wrong to fight this way when our country was founded? Was it wrong to fight this way in the Civil War? Was it wrong to fight this way in WWI and WWII? What about the Korean War was that wrong? A HELL of A LOT people where given liberty in those wars.
It is BECAUSE of the men and women in the Military that fight for liberty that “”We have not had to tolerate foreign soldiers, enemy or ally, on our soil.””
| Quote: | | “Which leads me to the second source: the movies.” |
Well at least we agree on this, I would say that 90% of the movies and television don’t have a clue about what war or being heroic is all about.
| Quote: | | “Not till Vietnam did we see real war a little more up close and personal,” |
This might be true for Hollywood, but I don’t think that is the case for real life, I think a few Million men and women where shown exactly what war was in WWI and WWII.
| Quote: | | “That cuts too deeply against the grain of the myth, and the messenger must once again be killed.” |
It wasn’t just the messenger, it was the way he gave the message, it was the way he embellished the message, it was some of the out right lies in the message, it was the way he used the message to further his own political carrier. It was the way he took all the good apples and trashed them in his message. It was that he took his message to the enemy and brought their message before the American people. It is this same message that was used against our POW’s in Vietnam.
| Quote: | | “Gandhi asked, "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" |
I would ask Gandhi if he thinks that the people who lived through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and all the other wars that have been fought under the holy name of liberty and democracy, ask them if it was worth it.
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Remember United Flight 93, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
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