SwiftVets.com

[adamyoshida]

http://www.adamyoshida.com/2004/08/why-vietnam-still-matters.html

Why Vietnam Still Matters

This is the fundamental and still unanswered question of the Vietnam War: is it acceptable, in a democratic society at war, for a group of people to advocate the defeat of their own nation and the victory of its enemies? Should a group that holds such opinions be treated like any other group in any other debate? Is being for or against victory in a war being fought by one’s own nation the same as being for or against Tort reform?

Here’s the problem with having a normal, democratic, debate once a war is underway: In any such debate some faction will take a position on one side of an issue, the other will take the opposite and most of the time the majority will opt for something in the middle. If it is acceptable for one group in a democratic debate to wish defeat (or something indistinguishable from it) upon their own side while the individuals on the other side call for total victory, it is exceedingly likely that a majority of the people will be persuaded to accept some middle course. Not victory and not defeat. Call it half-victory. Or, more aptly, half-defeat.

To translate it into personal terms, in a one-on-one fight, the results of a debate in which one side advocated killing an opponent and the other advocated the freeing of said individual would be the wounding of that opponent. Of course, a wounded opponent can still kill you either right then and there or later, after you’ve gone to sleep.

Democracy and warfare are fundamentally incompatible. This does not mean that a democracy must cease to be a democracy in a war, but it does mean that it must show restraint. While war can be conducted in the framework of such a government, it cannot be conducted in a democratic manner.

Someone should ask John Kerry the following question: does he consider an individual who, at this very moment, is advocating the victory of the Iraqi “resistance” over the forces of the coalition to hold a legitimate political opinion? Would it be illegitimate to question the patriotism of an individual who held such views?

Let’s make something clear: I’m not talking about those with different ideas about tactics and strategy: we need debates of that sort to win the War on Terrorism. We need plenty of them. However, we cannot conduct such debates so long as the ill-disguised intention of one side in those debates is simply to discredit the whole enterprise in the guise of offering helpful advice.

For the record, I tend to agree with General Douglas MacArthur when it comes to the conflict in Vietnam: it was utterly stupid to commit half a million American soldiers to a land war in Asia over a scrap of dirt without any particular strategic value. If I were in LBJ’s position I would have held the American troop commitment to the minimum level possible and used the saved resources to follow the same strategy that Ronald Reagan eventually did in the 1980’s: expanding American military strength at home and subverting Communist regimes abroad. And, of course, without the Vietnam experience in the back of everyone’s mind, it would have been much easier to support various anti-Communist groups without anyone kicking up a fuss back at home.

However, once the war was entered into it had to be won: once the first shot is fired American credibility and honor is on the line. Once war has begun, the time for debate about whether or not the war should have been fought is over and that war must be carried on to a victorious conclusion.

Now, I’m quite sure that some person is going to say that “no one ever advocated victory by the enemy blah, blah, blah.” To which I say: nonsense. I’ll tell you exactly who advocated victory by the enemy: that great paragon of the left, the man who was invited to sit next to a former President at the Democratic National Convention, the man whose movie just made more than $100 million, the man whose ugly face I’m forced to endure every time I enter a bookstore, the man who has been hailed a hero and a patriot by literally thousands of prominent liberals: Michael Moore.

Let me be very clear here: I’m not simply saying that because Michael Moore opposed George W. Bush he favours the victory of our enemies in this war. I’m saying that he supports the victory of our enemies because he has said exactly that. This April, on his web site, he declared, “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win.” His words, friends. His exact words.

There’s only one word for a statement like that: treason. Any reasonable group of Americans at any point prior to the Vietnam War would have agreed as much. Someone writing something like that in the middle of the Second World War would probably have ended up in jail and, I think, rightly so. Not because we can’t debate the likes of Michael Moore, but because we can’t debate him and win the war at the same time. If everyone in support of the war, from the President on down, has to divert their time to deal with idiocy of Michael Moore and his slavish, drooling, and semi-coherent band of followers along with a hundred thousand or so other people just like them, then we’re not going to have time to do very much else.

And I’ll tell you who else supported the victory of our enemies in war: John Kerry. Not this war (I, frankly, have no idea what he really thinks about Iraq), but in the case of Vietnam. That isn’t hyperbole either. When he was the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Mr. Kerry advocated the wholesale adoption by the United States of a “peace plan” put forward by the Vietnamese Communists. Certainly, I’d say, that must qualify as support for the victory of our enemies.

We need to make it so that favouring something other than total American victory in an American war is a political position viewed by the average person with warmth akin to that with which a tribute to the SS would be received in a Synagogue. Those opposed to the victory of the United States in any war should be shunned like a bitter and loud transsexual rights’ activist at a Southern Baptist Convention. They should be refused entry into places where decent people eat and work and they should be harassed and heckled on the streets. In short they should be treated as un-persons and generally and genuinely denounced as the worthless sub-human garbage that they are.
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Adam Teiichi Yoshida
http://www.adamyoshida.com

[Integrity]

And you could take that position further. The anti-war left has been allowed through their polticial posturing and blatant lies, to hamstring the President from taking real action against Iran. At least until after the election. And these guys are crazier than Saddam.

Kerry leads the forces of political correctness, of weakness, of appeasement, of treason. He is their poster boy and has been for 33 years. He must not just be defeated. He must be crushed. And the ideology he represents must also be crushed, which means crushing a part of the leftist media that enables the lies and propganda. My word, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN the NY Times, et all would warm Goebbels heart with the crap they put out in support of Kerry.
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"What our enemies have begun, we will finish,"
- President George W. Bush

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

I read that essay on your blog - outstanding - thank you!
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~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother