War Zero: Nothing Honorable About the Vietnam War

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15938

War Zero: Nothing Honorable About the Vietnam War
by Ted Rall | July 18, 2008


NEW YORK--Every presidential candidacy relies on a myth. Reagan was a great communicator; Clinton felt your pain. Both storylines were ridiculous. But rarely are the constructs used to market a party nominee as transparent or as fictional as those we're being asked to swallow in 2008.

Still more laughable than the notion of Obama as the second coming of JFK is the founding myth of the McCain campaign: (a) he is a war hero, and (b) said heroism increases his credibility on national security issues. "A Vietnam hero and national security pro," The New York Times calls him in a typical media blandishment.

John McCain fought in Vietnam. There was nothing noble, much less heroic, about fighting in that war.

Some Americans may be suffering another of the periodic attacks of national amnesia that prevent us from honestly assessing our place in the world and its history, but others recall the truth about Vietnam: it was a disastrous, unjustifiable mess that anyone with an ounce of sense was against at the time.

snip//

At a time when more than a fourth of all combat troops in Vietnam were forcibly drafted (the actual victims), McCain volunteered to drop napalm on "gooks" (his term, not mine). He could have waited to see if his number came up in the draft lottery. Like Bush, he could have used family connections to weasel out of it. Finally, he could have joined the 100,000 draft-eligible males--true heroes, to a man--who went to Canada rather than kill people in a war that was plainly wrong.

When McCain was shot down during his 23rd bombing sortie, he was happily shooting up a civilian neighborhood in the middle of a major city. Vietnamese locals beat him when they pulled him out of a local lake; yeah, that must have sucked. But I can't help think of what would have happened to Mohammed Atta had he somehow wound up alive on a lower Manhattan street on 9/11. How long would he have lasted?

Maybe he would have made it. I don't know. But I do know this: no one would ever have considered him a war hero.
_______

[DavidDvorkin]

1. I wish this could be published much more widely

[watrwefitinfor]

2. Yes, I am CERTAIN I want to recommend that.

And about time someone said it out loud, too.

Wat

[TwilightGardener]

3. I disagree--there IS nobility in being willing to serve when your

country asks, and being willing to die in the service of your country--just because history views a certain war or mission or battle as unnecessary or pointless or irrelevant does not diminish the value of those who were willing to serve, or the sacrifices of those who did the fighting. To praise draft-dodgers as "heroes" is just fucking warped, by the way.

[ngant17]

5. "I was just following orders"

is what the Nazi troops on trial said in their defense at Nuremburg.

I would not consider any German soldier-constript during the Nazi years, as some kind of noble and morally-superior person for blindly obeying the government.

If a government asks or demands that citizens become cannon-fodder for an invasion and an unjust war, the greater heros are the ones who refuse to serve. Indeed I would hold in high regard the ones who chose to desert and fight on the side of the Vietnamese against the invading armies. The Vietnamese people were the noble ones, their defense was the "noble cause".

The Vietnam War was built on lies and fabrications. It should never have happened. It was totally unnecessary. Have we all suddenly forgotten this one important truth?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. It doesn't take "history" to know whether a war is immoral or not

and it is sad and infuriating beyond measure that ignorant young people are willing to sacrifice their lives, which have barely begun, and that these sacrifices are almost never for self-defence or noble causes. Look beneath the "patriotic" bullshit that is used to advertise most wars, and you'll see naked greed and ambition on the part of the country's leadership, whether it's a king with territorial ambitions or a multinational corporation that wants cheap raw materials.

If people had any sense, any aggressive war would be met with massive refusals on the part of youth.

And by the way, I view the draft dodgers and deserters of the Vietnam era (my own youth) as heroes, because they took responsibility for their own actions and didn't hide behind the lame excuse of "following orders."

Some people need to grow up and shed their grade school "patriotic" indoctrination.

[TwilightGardener]

8. By "some people", do you mean me?

Save your crap. I will always believe in the value of serving and defending the nation, and will always defend those who do it, so that the rest of us can sit here and bitch and moan on the internet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. The U.S. military hasn't actually "defended my freedoms" in my lifetime

and I'm in my fifties. They've exclusively done the bidding of the multinational corporations, and as for "some people," if the shoe fits, wear it. Korea? Nope. Lebanon? Nope. The Dominican Republic? Nope. Vietnam? Nope. The Mayaguez incident? Nope. The invasion of Grenada? Nope. The "covert" interventions in Central America? Nope. The Gulf War? Nope. The invasion of Panama? Nope. The invasion of Afghanistan? Nope. The invasion of Iraq? Definitely nope.

I'm totally unable to come up with a post World War II military operation that actually "protected my freedom to bitch and moan on the Internet."

I think that most military personnel join the military in the naive belief that they're serving their country, but that doesn't change the underlying truth, that they're serving power-hungry political and business leaders.

That's the truth, and if you don't like it, too bad.

[TwilightGardener]

10. You don't know what the truth is, ingrate.

You're beyond reason.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Then enlighten me

Why should I take the word of an anonymous poster on the Internet that I'm an "ingrate" and "beyond reason"?

[TwilightGardener]

12. No. Anyone who denigrates the service and sacrifice of others is not worth my time.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. So in other words, you can't answer my assertion

OK

:shrug:

If I actually believed that the military today was "serving the country," I wouldn't denigrate it, but I see things clearly now.

[Captain Hilts]

15. People - even WWII hero Audie Murphy - often join the military for economic reasons.

And there is honor in many things they do to stay safe, help the locals, etc.

NO ONE here is saying they support the Vietnam War or the Iraq War. We don't. But the troops do honorable things every day.

Jessica Lynch came from the city in the US with the HIGHEST adult unemployment rate in the country. She joined the army to get money for college. It's that simple.

This country has an economic draft.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Yes, but they should be clear-eyed about what they're doing:

serving the Machine, not their country.

[Captain Hilts]

4. DISAGREE - troops' honor has nothing to do with the morality of the war in which they fight...

Troops do honorable things every day in dishonorable wars.

Another thing that too many folks don't 'get' about the military is that you are a dedicated part of a larger whole - your unit. The collective is more important than the individual.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. But the individual still has responsibility

Basic training is designed to break down individuality and maintain a group identity--but except in strictly defensive wars, they are being molded for immoral purposes.

[bemildred]

14. They discarded the "I was only following orders" argument after WWII.

Basically, if a soldier conducts himself honorably, then he is an honorable man, but he gets no honor for serving in a dishonorable war, and honor MIGHT require him to refuse orders, and thereby get a "dishonorable" discharge, or even get himself shot for mutiny etc.