SwiftVets.com

[Guest]

The Vietnamization of the War in Iraq
Excerpts reprinted with permission from Layla Gonzalez
Thursday, February 17, 2005
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=13099

Anti-war rhetoric comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms. Today it is disguised as poor homeless veterans. It is true; there are a number of homeless vets, just as there are homeless civilians. This is a sad fact of life. How do we help? I have no ready answers. I know, however, that we should not use the disadvantaged to further our agendas. It is definitely wrong to use someone else’s misfortune to make a political point—especially when the connection between that misfortune and a political agenda is dubious at best. And this seems to be the case in recent arguments that there is a relationship between the homeless and the anti war, anti-Iraq, anti-Bush agenda espoused by the left.

“You can have all of the yellow ribbons on cars that say 'Support Our Troops' that you want, but it's when they take off the uniform and transition back to civilian life that they need support the most," says Linda Boone, executive director of The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.”

Ms. Boone is right: when our troops return home they need our help to transition back to civilian life. Yet she does not state just how we are to help them. Furthermore, Ms. Boone fails to reflect upon what the effects of anti-war sentiments may be on our troops in Iraq or upon their return home.

“A recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 15 to 17 percent of Iraq vets meet "the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD." Of those, only 23 to 40 percent are seeking help - in part because so many others fear the stigma of having a mental disorder.”

Again, Ms. Boone does not lay out the criteria used in this study, nor how many vets that returned from Iraq participated in this study. In addition, I would like to ask “who” are the so many “others” fearing the stigma of having a mental disorder? Is she blindly referring to our troops, or to society in general? Lets us be clear here. If you cannot provide a basis for the criteria being studied, let alone substantial evidence to prove that the study taken is actually valid, no matter who conducted it, then how are we to seriously consider its validity? Ms. Boone continues:

“Many veterans' service providers say they're surprised to see so many Iraq veterans needing help so soon.”

This is the most ignorant statement I have read to date. Veteran service providers say that they are surprised to see Iraq vets needing help so soon. Yet in her previous comment Boone states that not enough Iraq vets are seeking help out of fear of stigmatization. It cannot be both ways. Either they are not seeking help or they are. Which is it, Ms. Boone?

“After the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of veterans came home to a hostile culture that offered little gratitude and inadequate services, particularly to deal with the stresses of war. As a result, tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans still struggle with homelessness and drug addiction.

"Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are coming home to a very different America. While the Iraq war remains controversial, there is almost unanimous support for the soldiers overseas. And in the years since Vietnam, more than 250 nonprofit veterans' service organizations have sprouted up, many of them created by people like Peter Cameron, a Vietnam veteran who is determined that what happened to his fellow soldiers will not happen again.”

You cannot be in support of our troops and in the same breath say you are against the war. How do you support troops in a war you are against? Ms. Boone may flower it over to have us believe that you can support troops and not the war, but this is just not how it works.

How do you explain to troops that you support them, yet not the war they are fighting? You cannot. This is a mixed message, a crossed signal, and likely leads to disillusionment in our troops. For our troops to know that at best only forty seven percent of the US population supports the war must be discouraging—especially when statistics show a substantially higher number of active military and their families support the War on Terror. To hint that a lack of support for the War at home has no effect on our troops because we treat them well is at best insulting.

Further exacerbating the situation inn my opinion, are the continued references to Vietnam. This is a different time, a different war fought for different reasons. To make inferences that Iraq and Vietnam are similar, or that the public may be as insensitive as they were during and after the Vietnam War, is ludicrous. The case with Iraq is quite different and the successful Iraqi elections illustrate that difference. Whatever mistakes the Vietnam Conflict represents in the history of US military intervention, Iraq simply cannot be twisted into a similar “failure.” And to do so is to insult not only the military men and women currently fighting the War on Terror, but Vietnam Veterans themselves.


"Both the Veterans Administration and private veterans service organizations are already stretched, providing services for veterans of previous conflicts. For instance, while an estimated 500,000 veterans were homeless at some time during 2004, the VA had the resources to tend to only 100,000 of them.”

500,000? Where does such a statistic come from? And who is counted as a veteran and homeless? Is this inclusive of all veterans? Does it distinguish between those who saw military conflict and those who did not? What proportion of these vets is homeless for other reasons than military service? Is it really Ms. Boone’s contention that military service itself leads disproportionately to homelessness? I do not believe that for one minute. If homelessness were all they had to look forward to after a tour of duty, we would certainly have no young people going into the military and serving our country. And if there were a scientifically verifiable link between homelessness, mental instability, and other conditions that precipitate the need for government services, would we not have heard about it long ago?


We will be hearing a lot more rhetoric as long as George Bush is our President. So let’s get our seat belts on and brace ourselves for a rocky ride these next four years. These morons will never stop.


But just because they won’t stop does not mean we have to buy what they are selling.


About the Writer: Layla Gonzalez is a political freelance writer and the founder of A Point of View Political Forum. She has lived in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but now resides in the D.C. area. Layla receives e-mail at doll1956@earthlink.net

[coldwarvet]

Way to go Doll (snip)