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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (141964)	7/29/2004 5:26:52 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi uw, long time no argue .... not sure your point here, are you intending to make up for lost decades? - 'I have never expressed animosity at anyone's US military service.' ... then - 'Kerry used the rules to his perceived advantage. ... In the Army men like Kerry are called ghosts. ... When the going got tough, Kerry got gone.' But maybe i understand - it's about K not supporting the political party you do, right -g- Some posts back you were exchanging views in re Viet Nam atrocities with cnyndwllr, one point not brought out was the different experiences of the special forces, who were involved in the strategic hamlet sorts of programmes, and had direct contact with vietnamese allies [you speak at times of knowing montagnards, so this applies to you?] .... cd's time there sounds quite different, being sent out on search-and-destroy sweeps There were atrocities in '44-'45 Europe committed by canadian troops, prisoners shot, guys going nuts and just killing everything in sight, including, in at least one case, their own fellows .... this was fairly common knowledge to those of us who listened to men who'd been there, and has since been partly confirmed by, among other info, a book called 'Other Losses' .... some of the prisoners shot were in retaliation for Kurt Meyer's division of Hitlerjugend killing canuck prisoners in Normandy, fwiw .... odds of surviving around canadians in an SS uniform went down significantly after that The nature of combat rules out complete elimination of brutish atrocity, imho .... when you get the adrenalin up, it's pretty hard to turn it off, the rules go out the window to some degree in any fight, no doubt .... thorough training can probably cut down on incidents, but good luck enforcing marquis de Queensbury rules, you'll never succeed imho .... in any case, a sizable portion, if not most or all, of Viet Nam atrocities occurred in zones declared 'free-fire', as in Operation Phoenix, Operation Speedy Express, and a couple of others [one mentioned recently as the area in which 'Tiger Force' was deployed] ..... anyway, it's probably not worth your while to attempt to paint any war, and especially Viet Nam, as played squeaky clean .... most soldiers of democracies operate with a standard of honour remarkably admirable considering the circumstances, is my general impression, fwiw, and the mistakes are made largely by politicians, in the Viet Nam example it all starts with Truman ignoring Patti's recommendation, and handing over Indochina to De Gaulle Hey, i see you post on Lindy's Wing-Nutz Only thread .... maybe you could mention for me, that he's distinguished himself - of all SIers [to my knowledge], only two have found common cause in banning me from their threads - he and Emile Vidrine -g- .... ah well old chap, take care, remember the wogs begin at Calais [and spread out both ways now] .... ¡Semper Fiat!