Monday, November 21, 2005

Sentiment From One Who's Been There

I've recently spent some time with a guy who came home from Vietnam after having served three tours, received the Bronze and Silver Stars, a Medal of Commendation and sundry military mentions, who told me for the first time, "I couldn't tell anybody where I was. I had to hide it."

The War
I've known this person all my life, so I was very interested because he never had spoken of these degrading details. This guy was in the middle of the Tet Offensive, along with other grunt bodies. He's one of the people who was spit on when he came home to America.

Can you imagine spitting on a stranger simply because he wears a uniform? Imagine the kind of mind behind that utterly indefensible behavior. Imagine their absolute cowardice. They can say they're heroic till the cows come home simply because they "spoke out." Uh huh.

Don't believe what antiwar people say about their activities not affecting our people overseas. It's likely a troublesome irritant at first--part of the irony of democracy that you can vocalize hate speech against the very people (volunteers!) who are serving in your name.

Even the most professional soldier must tire of the nearly endless questions regarding the war's legitimacy, direction and progress. It has to be among the most frustrating aspects of adapting to an inhospitable and innately dangerous theater of war. Suddenly everyone's been to war college and knows everything there is to know about warfare. Everyone's a critic.

Who Are These People?
The people who want America to fail in the war on terror are the individuals who sold us down the river in the 60s and 70s in Vietnam. You know their names. They are the same, immature, narcissistic individuals who insisted their protests didn't contribute to placing our soldiers in harm's way. The only difference now is they're old and grey, like me.

The younger ones? Who cares? What possible addition can they give to this erroneous argument about the legitimacy of the war on terror? They're within that circle of self-centered folks having learned at their elders' knees that "...war is bad, the U.S. is bad, Republicans are bad. Now, where did I put that latte?"

Never Again
After talking with this Vietnam veteran I realize I must--no--I will stand up to the antiwar rhetoric. Never again should we allow the antiwar's shallow and craven voices to kill our spirit and cause Americans to lose hope and courage. Their calls for withdrawal only is amplified by the persistence of a mass media that has shown its collective irresponsible behavior for decades. If Americans give in, I fear the worst for all of us.

There is great power in reminding one another of the terrible consequences if we do not succeed in winning in Iraq. Iraq is simply a piece of the war on terror. We need to remember that. Since 9/11 the question has always been thus: if not now, when; if not there, where? Those are our choices given the enemy's ability to kamakazi their way across our borders.

Something tells me Iraq is a cakewalk compared to what's next if we allow ourselves to fail there.

Thanks for the read.

Open Call to Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard:
If any of you have a story to tell, please write me. I'll try to include as many as I can.

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Italics indicate quotes from your post above.

There is great power in reminding one another of the terrible consequences if we do not succeed in winning in Iraq.

QUESTION: On what basis would you (presumably) deny that the terrible consequences you mention are a result of the invasion itself, rather than withdrawal?

Every rationale stated by the administration for the invasion itself has been shown to be "factually impaired". Yet the only people who were trying to point that out before the war started were members of the antiwar movement.

QUESTION: On what basis would you (presumably) deny that those consequences become more and more terrible the longer withdrawal is delayed?

Iraq is simply a piece of the war on terror. We need to remember that.

QUESTION: Since Iraq only became part of the War on Terror after the chaos of the US invasion allowed Al Qaeda to establish a foothold there, which side are you even cheering for?

After all, the invasion has basically strengthened Al Qaeda's hand -- yet here you are agitating for continuation of the jihadis best recruiting tool, US the occupation.

Andrea Margot Hall said...

Brad, deconstruction of our policy on Iraq is now, and always has been, irrelevant. The war in Iraq is about terrorists, more than Saddam or the welfare of Iraq.

Indeed, democratization in Iraq is in our strategic plan, but the invasion provided the perfect opportunity to engage the terrorists.

I asked before the Iraqi invasion the same question I ask today.

If not there (Middle East proper), then where (Europe, America, Far East)?

If not now (today, till it's done), when (right after the next horrible incident here at home)?

I believe it was in our national self-interest, which is, by the way, legitimate, to remove the malevolent Saddam Hussein. His pan-Arabism was dangerous. His failure to comply with the Gulf War Resolutions was an opportunity to localize the war on terror. By the way, I have a hard time believing that we would have invaded if September 11th had not occurred.

The fallacy that the western world can simply continue to "contain" the Islamafaschists has been demonstrated as such more than we should forget--the USS Cole, the Embassy in Kenya, 9/11, et al.

Your own blogsite states you're from a libertarian left POV. One of the tenets of libertarianism is the importance of operating from one's self interest.

Why, then, do you not applaud our proactive policy? Why can't there be a democracy there? Why can't the Iranians who cry out for their own freedom not be inspired by a democratic Iraq?

Why would we leave bad actors, who have not only the propensity, but also the capability to act on their respective malevolence to retain/maintain their power at the expense of their people and the rest of the civilized world?

Irrespective of the WMD question, or the "factually impaired" rationale, I am comfortable with stating I am in agreement with the Administration's methods of dealing with terrorists.

The policy is straightforward and simple:

We get the terrorists there, where they live, and we do it now, this minute, before it's too late.

It seems to be working.

Andrea Margot Hall said...

Where's the spell check when I need it?

FACIST.

Andrea Margot Hall said...

I mean, facist. Yeah, that's it.

Anonymous said...

I don't typically criticize the spelling of others, as I make my fair share of typos myself. You may find it an interesting bit of trivia, though, to note that the term "fascism" is derived from the "fasces" -- an ancient Roman ceremonial symbol of political power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

It's not really clear to me that you directly addressed my questions, but you did take the time to give a detailed summary of your views, so I'll try to compose a thoughtful reply. As before, italics indicate quotes from yourself.

Brad, deconstruction of our policy on Iraq is now, and always has been, irrelevant. The war in Iraq is about terrorists, more than Saddam or the welfare of Iraq.

Policy towards another country is irrelevant to matters like going to war with that country???

I'll set aside the matter of how warfare is itself a policy and just say that your statement has some truly surreal implications. By that reasoning, any other country -- Poland, Nigeria, Singapore, any of them -- would do just as well as Iraq. Just bomb them back into the Stone Age so Al Qaeda can move in.

Now, I'll grant that you probably don't mean that to apply to countries outside the Middle East -- but if that's a part of what you're saying, then it ought to be explicitly stated, because it would have other, very troubling imlications. You may want to think that one through a little bit more carefully.

I believe it was in our national self-interest, which is, by the way, legitimate, to remove the malevolent Saddam Hussein.

First, only an individual can have a "self-interest". If you want to try to define a "national interest" then I'd be willing to at least listen.

Since Hussein DID get removed, then in order for your statement above to make sense, you would have to offer a definition of "national interest" that somehow shows that the people of the United States (as a grou) are beter off today than before the invasion of Iraq.

That would be a *very* challenging task to set yourself, one that I would not at all envy you, because of:

* In excess of 2,000 US troops dead, under what are widely perceived as false pretenses.

* Several thousand more US troops permanently maimed.

* Untold thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians slaughtered. That's far more people than died in 9/11, so let's make a special note that your definition of national interest must include having the US government forces commit larger scale versions of the very crimes it's supposed to be protecting us from.

* In excess of $222.9 BILLION in tax money spent.

* US military mostly unavailable if any actual threats materialize.

* US prestige internationally sunk lowest in modern times.

And so on.

His pan-Arabism was dangerous.

Actually, his pan-Arabism was a joke, if you're implying that he had the potential to unite the entire Middle East against the US. The Iraqi Ba'ath party couldn't even get along with the only other Ba'ath party in the whole world -- Syria's.

Really. They hated each others guts, in sort of a "Keystone Kops in the desert" version of the old split between Communist Russia and Communist China.

If you're indirectly talking about Hussein's aid to Hamas:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2846365.stm

...then you're going to have to explain why Hamas was a threat to the United States prior to the invasion of Iraq. Most independent global intelligence analysts that publish publicly didn't share that view then. To the extent that has changed *after* the invasion of Iraq, it has been a *result* of the invasion -- as Bush's war crimes lend credence to Al Qaeda propaganda in the Arab world, creating NEW threats to the US where no significant ones previously existed.

By the way, I have a hard time believing that we would have invaded if September 11th had not occurred.

While members of the Bush administration did work very hard to exploit 9/11 in building public support for war by falsely insinuating the Iraqis were to blame, and it worked, that very intentionality on their part refutes your statement. Here's why...

Prominent members of this administration, including VP Dick Cheney, conspired to agitate for war with Iraq long before 9/11 -- largely so that permanent military bases could be built to ensure strategic dominance of the regions oild fields.

The following is from "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, And Resources For A New Century", published by the Project for a New American Century [PNAC].

"while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for US military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein"

http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Regarding PNAC itself:

"Present and former members include several prominent members of the Republican Party and Bush Administration, including Richard Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Ellen Bork (the wife of Robert Bork), Dick Cheney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

The fallacy that the western world can simply continue to "contain" the Islamafaschists has been demonstrated...

I never said anything about "containment" myself. That would be impractical and doesn't address the issue.

My position is basically the sequel to the old saying about "never get in a land war in Asia".

I say "never get in a war against a decentralized and amorphous ideological movement".

While 9/11 was clearly evil and barbaric, it was the injustices committed by the US government which persuaded others to follow the madman bin Laden.

It's a complete falsehood to say that "they hate us for our freedom". Al Qaeda has made it known that they have three bones to pick with the US:

1) US government troops in Saudi Arabia.

2) Deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians due to the actions of the US government.

3) US government aid to Israel

You might not have noticed that nobody bombs Swiss embassies. That's because the Swiss government largely minds it's own business -- Switzerland.

The better approach for the US government to take would be:

1) Don't make matters worse by committing atrocities -- such as an unprovoked invasion, which will only increase the size of the Al Qaeda threat.

2) Maintain a foreign policy of strict neutrality and non-intervention -- thus keeping foreign grievances against the US to a minimum.

Your own blogsite states you're from a libertarian left POV. One of the tenets of libertarianism is the importance of operating from one's self interest.

That's absolutely correct. It's most certainly NOT in my self interest to allow the US government to artificially create new enemies for me that I would never have made on my own.

Why, then, do you not applaud our proactive policy?

I would applaud an actual pro-active policy. As a matter of fact, I even outlined the only conceivable one, above.

Why can't there be a democracy there?

Why don't you ask that of some retired spooks? Saddam Hussein got his start as a CIA stooge while in law school back in the 1950's. The US government created him. Not in a laboratory, of course. I mean they made him who he became. Heck, the only chemical weapons he ever had were the ones the Reagan administration sold him. Then, just like now, the real problem was the urge of politicians in suits to treat the rest of the world like their own little Tinker Toy.

Why can't the Iranians who cry out for their own freedom not be inspired by a democratic Iraq?

As a matter of fact, the Iranian moderates were slowly making some inroads until the US invasion of Iraq (right next door to Iran) shifted the Iranian political climate, strengthening the hand of the hard-line mullahs. Were you not paying attention during that whole "Axis of Evil" phase? Threatening another nation has one effect on it's internal politics -- the paranoid and authoritarian gain more clout.

I am in agreement with the Administration's methods of dealing with terrorists.

Terrorists? Sure.

I have an issue with the slaughter of civilians. The US government does a lot more of that than killing of terrorists, though.

I also have an issue with the term "terrorist" being applied to guerrilla fighters resisting a foreign invasion/occupation. There are multiple factions in Iraq. Some are terrorists, and some are just plain resistance fighters. The fact is, since the invasion was unprovoked, then if you're an Iraqi the perceived patriotic thing to do is fight the US. Calling them terrorists, then, is dishonest -- and if the Bush admin feels they have to lie on even such a basic level, then even they must know in their hearts that it was an evil thing for them to manufacture this war.

I don't want to see US troops getting killed for no good reason. That's what Bush has done, though. I genuinely believe it to be unconscionable to allow it to continue.

Andrea Margot Hall said...

Hi, Brad.

I loved your post. However, I will take some time to answer, if you don't mind.

There are a few points I'd like to use to display a difference in OPINION, not facts. But it will take some time.

I've made a decision to begin a script that has a dropdeadline of January 5th. I've yet to begin the outline because I have to do the research! Dang. Nothing like setting myself up.

So...if I don't get to this quickly, that is the reason.

Thanks again, and Merry Christmas, or whatever you'd like to accept.

Andrea Hall

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the script and Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Andrea,

You repeat the lie that once soldiers come back from war, they are 'spit on'. This is an urban myth, among other ridiculous things that you state, Andrea.

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