…I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.
This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:
“Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.”
[…] The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.
In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.
(Hat tip to The General.)
This man’s moral stature was immense.
Yes I know his short comings as well, but his staure was such as to make the world today seem inhabited by midgets.
He shared the vision and power of Mohandas (MaHatma) Ghandi. Like Ghandi he could inspire ordinary people to brave assaults and violence like those endured on the beach during the Salt Protest, or the loosing of dogs on the bridge at Selma. . . .
We weren’t fighting against the Vietnamese people. We were fighting against communists who wanted to enslave them. Millions died after the war. Dr. King I hope, would have spoken out then, as well.
Somewhere in the dusty archives of the government is an erroneous report from Standard Oil of America (you know, the folks who brought you Exxon), stating that there existed the sorts of geological formations in the Gulf of Tonkin that bespoke untold oil reserves.
The French were there for rubber, tin, bauxite, and le Gloire Fancaise.
We were there for oil. Please, don’t drink the cool-aid!
That’s “Kool-Aid”. And what about all those deaths after the war?
Actually, Jonestown consumed some sort of tropical fruit punch.
I won’t attempt to hijack what Martin Luther King,Jr., would or wouldn’t have done after all the criminality and madness of Nixon and ‘Peace with Honor’.
His comments were directed at the moral horror of our of our position in Viet Nam at that time.
I am sure that a man of King’s moral vision would find ample topics to comment on in our present time.
MLKjr Said: “…Before long they (U.S. troops) must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor….”
That is actually a very insightul comment for someone to make as early as April of 1967. Most of us realized the futility of the war by the early 1970-71, but we still weren’t thinking in terms of it being essentially a civil war until there was a convenient period of time passed so we could look at it rationally.
We allied with the Catholic elite and merchant class, wheras the Viet Cong took their ranks from the Buddist peasants. The Buddists peasants were tired of being pissed upon by the same ass-kissers who used to work for the French, and were now trying to take the place of the French. The Montagnards allied with U.S. advisors because even the Catholics and the Buddists looked down on them and treated them like dirt, only the Green Berets treated them decently.
Bill Cruchon at 2 says: “We weren’t fighting against the Vietnamese people. We were fighting against communists who wanted to enslave them.”
That was indeed the goals of the U.S. and its people at the time. Unfortunatly, it reflected a complete mis-understanding of Vietnam and its internal politics.
The horrific killings that transpired after the Vietnam war make the left very uncomfortable. It is no surprise to see the subject avoided.
Always the troll,at #7. Martin Luther King, Jr. had no love for Ho Chih Minh. Nor would he have had any use for the murderous frenzy of Pol Pot. Nor would he have had, I feel, had much sympathy with your attempt to employ his memory to your political aims.
“Nor would he have had, I feel, had much sympathy with your attempt to employ his memory to your political aims.”
That’s right, only the left has the right to employ the memory of Dr. King for their political aims. Sorry, I forgot.
American Revolution, 1875~1883: The British relied for intelligence from their Royal Governors, their administrators, and Tory allies. After all, they were closest to the situation, were they not? Those advisors, particularly the Royal Governors, reported rather uniformly that (a) the rebel colonials were only a small minority, and a large majority of the colonists supported the British Crown, (b) the loyal colonists were being cowed and prevented from rallying to the aid of the Crown by rebel terrorists, and (c) if Britain would only send more troops to “stabilize” the situation and provide security, then the loyal colonists would be free to show their overwhelming support for continued British rule. (Source: Rebels and Redcoats, by a British author who’s name I don’t recall right now).
Vietnam, 1963~1975: Americans rely upon Catholic government officials, consisting of the economic and social elite of the country (inherited from their former French masters), for their intelligence of the situation in their country. After all, few Americans spoke Vietnamese, and they were unfamiliar with the country. These Catholic elite reported that the Viet Cong were a small minority, terrorists supplied by outside sources (China and the Soviet Union), and if only the U.S. would send in a few thousand more troops, the situation would stabilize and the increased security would allow the majority of S. Vietnamese to show their support for the Saigon regime. In the meantime, S. Vietnamese politicos used U.S. troops as a shield, both to protect them in the civil war against the Buddist peasants, but also to protect them from their own internal rivals. It is suprisingly easy, they only have to gain the trust of U.S. military officers, then finger their opponants as “communist sympathisers” or “Viet Cong”, and let the Americans do the rest. In the meantime, the best ARVN troops are kept back from fighting the Viet Cong or NVA, but instead are kept closly around the capital to protect against coups from rival S. Vietnamese politicians/warlords. Despite all this, most of the U.S. continued to see the Vietnam War as a fight against international communism. Source: A Bright and Shining Lie, by another author whose name escapes me right now.
Iraq, 2003~2007: Generally, a repeat of the above. Shiite and Sunni strongmen and militias jocky for position, using the American forces alternatively as swords against their opponants, shields from behind which to launch attacks against each other, or as targets to gain support and funding from Muslims around the world. In this game, the Iraqis are experts at intrigue, having survived decades of internal politics in the brutal world of Saddam’s Iraq. American politicians and military leaders, however, are completely out of their league, babes in the woods when it comes to understanding such sophisticated civil warfare. But American policy seems to believe in only one possible outcome: Paris of August 1944, relocated to Iraq. Yet if anyone had bothered to study the history of Iraq, particularly the British difficulty in controlling it and the Iraqi people’s hatred of foreign occupiers, they would have seen the more predictable outcome.
You would think that we would learn a thing or two from history, wouldn’t you? I guess not.
Note to Tree Farmer at 3: I forget the name of the islands, but there is a tiny group which is outside the Gulf of Tonkin which has a high potential for offshore petroleum deposits. I believe the islands are uninhabited. The Philipines, China, and Vietnam all claim them. A few years ago the Chinese tried to enforce their claim by landing a few troops on one of the islands, but ultimately there was a U.N.-sponsored agreement to have them withdraw and maintain the status quo while the competing territorial claims worked their way through the U.N. I haven’t heard about it for quite some time, I wonder what the status is now?
The Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, and lying wingnuts are still finger-pointing and trying to pin blame on liberals and/or anti-war protesters. Two years ago, they even claimed John Kerry single-handedly brought about the U.S. defeat. And they manufactured all kinds of lies to peddle their bullshit. They made up quotes that General Giap never said; they made up whole books that he never wrote; they created photographs of events that never occurred. People who lie this much to score political points obviously don’t have valid arguments, and never could persuade anyone with the merits of their position.
The U.S. lost in Vietnam because of flawed military strategy. Westmoreland’s idea was that if we killed enough of them, they would give up, and we would win. He was wrong; and should have known he was wrong, as anyone who knows any military history knows that no one has ever won a war by attriting an enemy force that has access to unlimited reinforcement and resupply. Despite the millions we killed, North Vietnam ended the war with more population than it started with; they made babies faster than we killed their teenagers and young adults.
It’s easy to understand why U.S. leaders, both Democrat and Republican, saw Ho Chi Minh as a threat. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened only a couple years before; the Berlin Wall had just gone up; communism seemed on the march everywhere. No one knew then of the rift between the U.S.S.R. and China, or the internal weaknesses that would bring down the Soviet regime 25 years later. Most Americans perceived communism as a monotholic, powerful, and dangerous threat to our very existence — and it was on the march in Southeast Asia, a strategic area from which communists could threaten India, Japan, Indonesia, and Australia.
Communists, wherever they are, are bad guys. They don’t believe in freedom or democracy; they believe in taking power with a gun, and never giving it back. Once a communist takes over a country, there will never be another real election — unless the communist is overthrown. Commies are history’s worst murderers, bloodier even than Hitler, and shed oceans of blood wherever they were took power.
The American people, and their leaders, can be forgiven for reading something more menacing than a civil war in a faraway land into the events unfolding in Southeast Asia.
But Eisenhower warned us against getting entangled in a land war in Asia. He, unlike most of his successors, understood realities and limits of infantry combat — unlike LBJ, Nixon, or Bush43. And any grunt with six weeks of experience on the ground in ‘Nam under his belt could have told the president and the generals their strategy was unworkable, and would not work: The grunts were sent out to find the enemy by walking around until they got shot at, a tactic that always allowed the enemy to engage and disengage at will, choose the time and place of battle, prepare the battlefield, dictate the terms of battle — and which always gave the enemy the high ground or favorable terrain, and often the advantage of prepared fortifications. It’s a hell of a way to fight a war — and a hell to send troops into.
It’s clear the current crop of civilian leaders is no smarter. They won’t even entertain the most important fact of the Iraq war: That fighting an urban guerrilla war, against an indigenous foe, on his ground and terms of battle, is unworkable. No one has ever won a war that way, and this one can’t be won that way either. We may have smarter generals this time around, but that means nothing, because they are summarily dismissed if they try to explain what they know to our stupid civilian leadership — and replaced with compliant “yes men” of inferior ability.
And what are they wingnuts doing? Playing their same, tired, old, discredited, dishonested game — trying to blame the liberal “defeatists” and anti-war protesters for the debacle they themselves created.
I have a message for you, wingnuts. It’s this. YOU lost this war. YOU sacrificed our brave troops for nothing. You guys OWN this pig — lock, stock, and barrel. Don’t blame us for your stupidity.
I know whereof you speak,rhp, but there area is in the South China Sea. Which the PRC is always too glad to place emphasis on the China portion thereof.
Somebody help me out here.
Perhaps I’m confused, or I’ve been missled, but I was given to uderstand that America’s clandestine intervention in Cambodia empowered Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge – which led directly to the rise of the Khmer and the subsequent mass murders.
Would the Cambodian monarchy have collapsed anyway, even if Nixon hadn’t pushed into Cambodia?
News Item, Jan.15, 2006:
“WASHINGTON — Timothy Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired U.S. ambassador wasn’t fazed by chaos.
He’d been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge, and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia’s civil war. He disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, “was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them.”
He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), had placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. His boss, Paul Bremer, refused to pay for repairs needed to reopen many looted state-owned factories, even though they had employed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Carney spent his days screening workers for ties to the Baath party.
“Planning was bad,” he wrote in his diary May 8, “but implementation is worse.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....icy15.html
Now the Bush administration is attempting to bring people like Carney back to work in Iraq, desperate to have them help rescue a situation that is increasing appearing hopeless. But lie the “surge” of troops, it appears to be too little, too late. In the spring of 2003 more troops to prevent looting, secure weapons caches, and control the border might have helped. Certainly keeping the Iraq army and factories working would have helped, as an unemployed Iraqi is a ready-made insurent recruit.
But now the security situation is so difficult, I doubt that rebulding contracts can be effectively decentralized and people put out of the Green zone to interact with Iraqi people. Just because something could have worked before, doesn’t mean that the same thing will work now.
@9 When it walks like a troll, talks like a troll, stinks like a troll…
And uses his own name. Oh my!
7 Bill, ANY mass killings make this particular member of the “left” quite uncomfortabe, thank you very much. Mass killings done in my name make me madder than hell.
By the way…for a long time I didn’t consider myself a “leftist”, but in the last couple decades the right-wing propaganda machine has so altered the conversation that I fully agree with John Dean’s assertion that were he alive today, Barry Goldwater would be labeled a “leftist”.
@10 Spratly and Paracel reefs and islets. They stick about three feet above the water, and a dozen countries (including China) are squabbling over territorial claims. China, particularly, has asserted the existence of huge hydrocarbon deposits (the bulk of which are natural gas), but European and U.S. petroleum experts believe the Chinese claims are inflated, and the South China Sea is nowhere near “another Middle East.” The islands are strategically important because they sit astride one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, through which passes (among other things) nearly all of Japan’s imported oil.
@13 I don’t think that’s accurate. The U.S. was accused of aiding the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese invaded, but even that is questionable, and any such aid was indirect and through third parties.
@17 What makes me even madder is the lame attempts by wingnut liars to equate American liberals/Democrats with communists, Pol Pot, etc. America’s xenophobic, ultra-nationalistic, militaristic, rightwingers have more in common with Pol Pot than we liberals do.
Art, you are employing the memory of Barry Goldwater to your political aims!
Sorry, just making fun of Tree Frog’s comment at #8
It works both ways.
Whooooo tortured people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and a dozen or more secret CIA prisons scattered across the globe? Whoooo impugned the patriotism of anyone who exposed, or objected to, this illegal and immoral torturing of mostly innocent people by the U.S. Army, CIA, private contractors, and hireling foreign governments? You rightwing bastards have the blood of innocents on your hands, and — I hate to say this, but it’s true — you’re behaving a whole lot like the Pol Pots of the world. Way too much like them for comfort.
ConservativeFirst Quiz:
How many GOP Senators need to vote for impeachment, so that President Bush can be successfully impeached?
[ ] 0
[ ] between 16-20 (Roger Rabbit’s answer)
That’s your fantasy world Roger. And the name calling…oh so predictable.
22 Touche’!!! I’ll have to hand it to you on that one.
I have been to the mountaintop.
And it’s lonely up there.
The neocons have a cheerleader mentality. If they are bungling in Iraq, they blame the American public for not cheering them on heartily enough.
That, in their eyes, is the problem — the American Publics’ lack of teen spirit — not their own stupidity and incompetence.
History will ask how such a band of nincompoops rose to such heights of power. The answer is that they are the sock puppets of the military/industrial complex. As long as the money is flowing into defense industries thaey couldn’t care less how or why — until it starts impacting their own families.
Just like Nancy Reagan and stem cell research. She could see no reason for it until it was made clear to her that it could help “Ronnie”.
That’s why I’m pleased when the relatives of prominent people suffer adversities that their wealth doesn’t shield them from. It seems that the money and “caring” for humanity are soon forthcoming.
@25 Let’s talk about name-calling, winger. You guys started it, oh, about 60 years ago when you began labeling anyone who did not share your extreme rightwing views a “socialist” or a “communist.” Over time, winger name-calling escalated to include “unpatriotic” and “traitors.” Now we’re dishing some of your own medicine back. How’s that castor oil feel going down, boy? A winger complaining about name-calling is like Ted Bundy complaining about crime.
Gee, I wonder what those “extreme rightwing views” might be?
My point here, Roger is that a lot of folks on the left seem incapable of discussion without labeling, and name calling.
“Just like Nancy Reagan and stem cell research. She could see no reason for it until it was made clear to her that it could help “Ronnie”.
That’s why I’m pleased when the relatives of prominent people suffer adversities that their wealth doesn’t shield them from.”
I’m not, Lucy…I lost my Mom to Alzheimer’s a few years ago, and believe me, I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else.
It might be said that we can all learn from adversity, and the wealthy are not excepted from that. On the other hand, as our present administration so sadly demonstrates, the wealthy and powerful can at times avoid learning from their own mistakes.
@25 What “fantasy world” are you referring to, Bill? That it would take 16-20 GOP senators to remove Bush from office? Let’s change the math — real math, not wingnut math.
The Constitution requires 2/3rds of the senators present to vote for removal. So, theoretically, Democratic senators could remove Bush from office without a single Republican vote IF a bunch of GOP senators didn’t show up for the vote — but this is merely academic, as a Senate vote on articles of impeachment against the president certainly would be attended by every Senator not in a coma.
So let’s look at the numbers. The composition of the Senate until the end of Bush’s presidency is: 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 independents who caucus with (but do not necessarily vote with) the Democrats.
If all senators are present and voting, 67 votes are needed for removal. If Sen. Tim Johnson was still incapacitated and did not attend, 66 votes would do it.
Even if we assume every Democratic senator and both independents voted for removal, that’s only 51 votes and 16 more are needed. These would have to come from the Republicans. If any Democrat or independent voted against removal, an additional Republican vote would be needed. So it can readily be seen that my numbers of 16-20 anticipates that between 0 and 4 Democrats/independents would vote against removal.
This estimate is predicated on Bush doing something egregious enough to get an impeachment resolution through the House and to the Senate in the first place. Speaker Pelosi is not merely speaking for herself but is expressing the sense, consensus, or at least majority, of the House Democratic caucus when she says “impeachment is off the table.” That is the current situation, and something would have to happen for the House to pass an impeachment resolution. Whatever it was, it probably would have to be sufficient to assure most or all Democratic senators would vote in favor of removal; and, in addition, the Democratic House leadership probably would not impeach Bush unless they also knew it had the support of some Republican senators; they are not so stupid as to immolate themselves and their party on a futile gesture. Any realistic impeachment scenario probably involves Republicans coming to Democrats and saying, “he’s gone too far; we’ve got to do something for the good of the country.” Unless Bush does something to provoke such a response from his fellow Republicans, an impeachment resolution simply will not reach the Senate.
My estimate assumes that “something” has happened to cause the Democratic House and Senate leadership to believe that enough Republican senators will vote for removal to give the impeachment resolution at least a chance of passage. In any scenario where you’d have a dozen or more Republican senators willing to remove to president of their own party, you’re probably going to have near-unanimity for removal among the Democrats, but I’m assuming there’ll be a couple of Democratic/independent holdouts. I think that’s a safe bet. So, I think the Democrats would need about 18 or 20 Republicans to make impeachment fly. Put it this way, I wouldn’t go into the process without that many, if I were them.
correction
“check the math” not “change the math”
You ought to calm down, Roger. I was referring to your comments at #23.
Sheesh!
CF @ 24:
Well, it depends on how you parse it.
Impeachment is done by the House, on a majority vote, and thus requires no Senate votes, GOP or otherwise.
For Bush to be convicted of high crimes and treason, thus forcing him from office requires a supermajority in the Senate. Thus Rog’s calculation is probably about right.
As we’ve been over just 9 short years ago, an impeachment without conviction has no weight on who actually sits in the White House or anything else. A non-binding House resolution calling Bush a dorkwad carries as much political weight, and could be wrapped up by the end of next week, saving everyone a lot of time and money.
As for whether impeaching Bush is a fantasy, yes and no. If all he does is send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq before losing his war there, he won’t be impeached. But this president has already overreached enough, broken enough laws, and displayed enough contempt for the Constitution that I think he’s perfectly capable of doing something that would get him impeached and removed. I think it’s safe to assume there’s shit out there we haven’t heard about yet. It’s not hard to visualize a scenario in which 16 to 20 Republican senators might remove Bush from office. They would do it if he superseded Congress. All Bush would have to do is say, I don’t care what powers the Constitution gives Congress, or what Congress has decided; I don’t have to obey Congress. That would do it. I think you would have over 80 votes for removal, maybe over 90 votes, in such a case.
@28 “The neocons have a cheerleader mentality. If they are bungling in Iraq, they blame the American public for not cheering them on heartily enough.”
Yeah, that’s it — if the quarterback throws a game-losing interception, it’s the fans’ fault because they didn’t yell loud enough. That’s winger “logic” for you.
I love that word,”neocons”. They’re planning world domination, aren’t they? Uh, except Bush won’t be President after January 2009. How silly can you be?
38 Well, just to start with, which Bush are we talking about?
After what his brother has gone through do you honestly think Jeb wants the job? (conspiracy theory ignored).
King was cool ! A hero .. I remember after he was shot , I was in High School . That year was intense for racial relations . We hada big fight at school , it was a planned rumble based on race . I was out of that kind of stuff so can not say who started it .. But I recall a black kid I had played baseball with coming up to me in the boys room and told me to stay of the bathrooms the rest of the day , he liked me and did not want me hurt .
Even back then people were taking what King said and did , and used it for their own personel reasons . Politcs now , people use as though he was one political parties hero , nope can’t have him lefties , he may have been a liberal in his time , but he first was an American , and that makes him all of ours to honor !!
He was a head of his time , and taught us to change things look at ourselves first , including me and including you .
jsa on commercial drive says:
I’d disagree with that. The Constitution is pretty clear. No parsing necessary.
(my emphasis)
http://www.horsesass.org/?p=2412
Of course Roger isn’t “rabbit” enough to admit he’s wrong, so he just claims I’m nitpicking and goes off on tangents. Interesting behavior from someone who berates “rethugs” for not knowing how to spell.
An interesting discussion about “successful” impeachment. The scummy Right would have a clear view of “unsuccessful” impeachment. . . .since this rather arcane term is merely a stand-in for “indictment”. “Impeaching”, or “Indicting” Bill Clinton had little or no effect or force without a successful trial and conviction in the Senate.
I, personally have little use for an Impeachment of George W. Bush without a successfull prosecution and conviction in the Senate, resulting in his removal from office. From my lips to God’s Ears.
The reason you have nightmares is because you are an alcoholic.