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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (432596)	7/24/2003 12:18:48 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

JDN, re: >>"Yes, it is bringing back memories of Nam to me and that tends to make me very angry. If our weak kneed congresspeople and lilly livered media screw this one up I hope they roast in hell."<< You infer that the lesson of Vietnam was that "weak kneed congressmen" and a "lilly livered media" somehow cost us the war, or at least cost our troops. I think a better view is that the war there started out with the same optimism and resolve that was shown at the beginning of this war. The internal criticism of the war started only after the reality of the war overcame the self-serving hype of those that promoted the war. In my opinion, that self evaluation and criticism started far too late. I suppose your view of the Vietnam war would vary depending on what year you served, what capacity you served, if you saw combat and, if so, what kind, of fighting you did. I believe that it would truly be revisionist history to suggest that we could have killed the idea of resistance in Vietnam and, thereby, "won" the war. From my perspective it was a totally UNWINNABLE war given the reasonable means available to fight it. By that I mean unwinnable short of the cold blooded of killing millions of civilian people that supported the guerrillas and N Vietnamese soldiers, taking the ground war into N. Vietnam, attacking all the nations that provided men and materials to our enemy there, including Russia and China, and sacrificing countless more Americans. When we were through we'd have still had a "war" where every man with a rifle and some triple canopy jungle or a sympathetic village to shelter him could pick a time and place to attack. I guess what I'm saying is that if you take up residence in a nation whose people are determined to fight and die until you leave, it's never a "won" war, it's only a continuing guerrilla war where you suffer the "death of a thousand cuts." As with the U.S. in Vietnam and Russia in Afghanistan, the only question is whether it's worth it. I guess each of our answers to that question depend on who's getting cut, who's reaping the benefits and how great the benefits are. I think debate on the issue is not only appropriate, I think it's critical and I think that more and more of our men and women in the field understand that. Depending on the number of casualties we'd recently suffered, there were anywhere from 15-35 men in my platoon when we were in the jungle. The year was 69-70 and a majority of us were GLAD that the demonstrations against the war were going on back home. A few of us were "believers" in the war but most of us weren't. One thing was crystal clear to almost all of us; we were never going to end that war as long as the ideas that motivated the Vietnamese fighters lived on. Those fighters were brave men willing to fight and die for what they thought was a worthy cause, and they did. While many of us didn't believe in the war, we did what our country asked of us and we fought very well and did our own share of dying. Vietnam's bitter taste lives on. NOT because we lost the war, but simply because we fought it. It was a senseless, wasteful loss of many lives and it took the health of many of us. I've never been there, but for those that don't understand I imagine that going to the wall and seeing the faces of the wives, sons, daughters and fellow soldiers that pay there respects there will give some insight into the huge wall of sorrow that radiates from that misguided misadventure. That's why I think it's important that we continue to debate the merits and potential for success of actions like the one Bush has rushed us into in Iraq. And that's why I deeply distrust the pronouncements of the republican congressman in the article you responded to as he once again tries to cut off debate by saying that "the criticism is hurting our troops." If we are to send men and women to die and suffer injuries, the least we can do is constantly reevaluate our goals, the costs and the likelihood of success. Any other approach creates too great of a risk of straying into a senseless and stubborn path where the ultimate sacrifices we ask of our soldiers, their families and their loved ones, is unjustified.