So far these dire predictions have not panned out, just as the handwringers worries about the actual conduct of the war did not pan out. Isn't it interesting Gen. Wesley Clark, the Clintons' favorite general and probably one of the few military men either of them actually know, was all in favor of sending in American troops to Kosovo, an area with zero significance for us. Of course, it was his command, not that his ego would come into play. The only groups clamoring for our troops to get into kosovo were CNN, which pretty much ran the State Department through Mr. Christianne Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and the Europeans, who couldn't be bothered to do this job themselves. Now we are involved in securing freedom and democracy at the crossroads of economic and national security. So the Wesley Clarks of the Left are suddenly VERY concerned about the implications. Please. His concerns are centered on the Vice Presidential slot of the Democrat ticket. He is smart enough to know the voters rightly don't trust the Dem's on national security, but ina typical Clintonesque ruse, he thinks he can conduct some sort of laying on of hands to immunize them by virtue of his military background. No doubt some of the existing governments in the middle east would like us gone and would prefer we not install a democratic government in Iraq. Considering the horrifying nature of htese regimes, that is a good reason for us to stay and see this through.
Bung, Like it or not, oil is central to the world's economy. You may not remember what can happen to our economy when the flow is disrupted, but I do and it is not pretty. There is nothing immoral about seeing that the oil wealth of Iraq goes to the citizens of that country and not to support the ambitions and lifestyle of a tyrant. I think there is a lot to be said for transitioning to more efficient vehicles, but at the same time there is something to be said for letting people drive what they want. It's interesting that many of the same people who are deadset against any government meddling in what theyconsider their private affairs, are eager to dictate lifestyle choices to their fellow citizens in the name of environmentalism.
Kymarfye, maybe I don't know much about Vietnam but I know that if the US had not kept sending more advisers then troops, then more troops when the going got tough (Tet offensive) maybe there would not have been 60, 000 or so US soldiers dead(and all the Vietnamese casualties and agent orange whose effects are still damaging today) just for fighting Communism and the North Vietnamese people's desire for autonomy. In those days the US felt they had to stop the spread of Communism in SE Asia. Today it all looks stupid. The war in Iraq did not even have a justification to start with.
If they think the war was fought "over big oil money," then they do desperately need to educate themselves, though I'm not completely confident this country's colleges are the right place. On the other hand, if they didn't kind of get the idea that those guns and tanks and things weren't just for show, then they're probably too stupid to do well at school anyway. As for the soldiers being interviewed, maybe your local TV stations select interviewees differently than mine do. Most of the soldiers I saw griping last week about Rumsfeld were dorky looking white guys. FYI, the number of Latinos in the armed forces are well below their percentage in the general population. Latinos generally don't seem to have adopted the armed forces in the way that African-Americans, especially African-American women, have.
"A recruiter says Latinos are flocking to the military out of patriotism. A sociologist says new recruiting techniques are the key. A Chicano studies professor says aggressive recruiting takes advantage of poor youths. A Salinas dad says the Marines offered him, and his son, escape from street life." "Anyone who's watched a TV commercial for the armed forces can tick off the service's benefits. Money for college. Career training." "As the First Marine Division moves toward Baghdad, some Salinas Latinos worry about their sons in the corps. More than 13 percent of Marines are Latino, the highest proportion of any branch of the armed services." http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/5518339.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Please do read for yourself......
As of the year 2000, approximately 12% of the US population was classified as Hispanic by the Census. According to your article, total Hispanic representation in the military is 9%. You can do the math yourself. Last I heard, African Americans were represented in the military at around double their percentage of the US population as a whole.
Front line player, Front line.... According to the article it states 13% of marines are latinos. By my understading Marines are the front line bite the bullet muscle of the the entire war machine we have...so to say that latinos dont represent is wrong. and yes most of the enlisted sign up for tuition funds....peace p.s. but i do agree that the soldiers you did see bitching were white boys....
"The North Vietnamese people's desire for autonomy"? I guess WW II was a big mistake too. We were opposing the German people's desire for autonomy. Over France, Poland, Belgium and Great Britain. "It all looks stupid"? Only if you ignore the millions killed, thrown into concentration camps or forced to flee as refugees by the communists. Why does the media and the Left never focus on the millions killed by communists, but regard anti-communists like Pinochet to be monsters? There were big problems regarding Vietnam. Perhaps our getting involved in the first place was a mistake, as we were trying to support a corrupt South that lacked the will todefend itself. Once in, we made the tragic mistake of gradual escalation and allowing our enemy to have sanctuaries, even as theyused them to kill our troops. Our war effort was undermined by politicians at home who did their best to see that we lost ignobly and by celebrities like the despicable Jane Fonda who openly supported our enemy. The post-mortems of Vietnam clearly showed that we were very close to decisive victory on several occasions, only to have our enemy rescued by politicians and activists here at home. That whole era's history of backstabbing and dishonor left a very bad taste in many of our mouths and accounts in good measure for our harsh assessment of the current crop of Jane Fonda wannabes.
Many of your statements are presumptuous, especially the last one. I'm not going to try to re-fight the whole Vietnam War for you here, but I can give you a quick summary of military differences: In Vietnam, the N. Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the S. Vietnamese Viet Cong guerillas (VC) received plentiful direct military and financial support from external powers. Such Iraqi resistance as there is may receive some external support, but it's not remotely comparable. In Vietnam, the US was unwilling to risk escalating the conflict to the point that external powers intervened directly. Not only did the US refrain from invading the North, it even refrained from attacking certain strategic targets for fear of harming Soviet advisers. There is no comparable situation in Iraq. In Vietnam, the VC and NVA could depend on continuous external supply and reinforcements, and could retreat to sanctuaries in the North and adjoining countries. The resources that Iraqi insurgents can call on are not remotely comparable. In Vietnam, the VC benefited from a perfect terrain for the practice of guerilla warfare. Most of Iraq, by contrast, is very poorly suited for guerilla warfare. During Vietnam through the end of the Johnson Administration, the political leadership lost all belief in the possibility of victory, and micro-managed military strategy and tactics in such a way as to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of defeat. There is no evidence of anything comparable in the Iraq conflict at this point (though if a Kerry or Dean replaced Bush, that could change) The VC and NVA were able to muster large units of disciplined troops under experienced leadership, and were at times able to inflict heavy casualties on US forces. The Iraqis have never managed to inflict heavy casualties on US forces, and no longer have any regular army at all. The insurgents are currently thought to number in the low thousands, at the most. Vietnam was located at the periphery of US geostrategic interests. Iraq is at the center. The major similarity between Vietnam and Iraq is that each "war" can also be seen as a battle in a much larger conflict. Though Vietnam was a miserable defeat on its own terms, the war against Communism is now generally viewed as an overwhelming success, such a success that today people like yourself can offhandedly dismiss its concerns as "stupid" - that is, can afford to be ignorant about a struggle that once literally involved the whole world. The battle of Iraq is not yet over, but, despite what we hear from the media or read on message boards, there's little reason to think we aren't winning it - or that there was or is any good alternative to fighting it. The outcome of the war against Islamic fascism is still in doubt, but in my opinion we're doing a lot better in it than we were on, say, 9/10/2001.
You're tripping on CNN and the State. You took a dose of Rush Limbaugh orange sunshine. As for Vietnam, you're talking out of your ass. Support for Vietnam policy remained majority well into the Nixon term. Johnson in private conversations in 1964 stated that he saw no way to win in Vietnam and no way to get out. Sen Richard Russell, longtime chairman of the armed services committee told him on May 27th, 1964, that Vietnam was "just one of those places where you can't win" See Michael Beschloss, "Reaching For Glory". Your post mortem reference is revisionist garbage on the level of the Holocaust was a hoax. 500,000 troops in Vietnam at the peak, the largest bombing campaign in history up until Iraq, and Jane Fonda handed victory to the North. She must be one tough broad. You give no credence to the anitwar movement in the 60s in thier desire to stop the senseless killing back then but you are outraged by what you term getting shot buying a CD. If an American soldier gets killed killing others I suppose that warms your heart. What a hypocrite.