Commenter Terry Hastings emails me this WaPo piece by Geoffrey Lambert, a retired major general who commanded the Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) from 2001 to 2003, who under the headline “Don’t Politicize Our Soldiers,” does just that:
I was a soldier in 1969, and I witnessed misguided students and adults attacking individual soldiers because of their disgust with national policy. In the ‘60s the purveyors of hate on the left were mostly resident on campus and could not differentiate between those responsible for policy and deception regarding the war in Vietnam and the young, honorable men and women who served in the military.
The vandals who struck the Petithory family [a trailside memorial to Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory, adjacent to the Ashuwillticook Trail in Cheshire, Mass., was defaced with the words “Oil,” “Bush,” “Christian Crusade” and other phrases] were confused. Oil, Christian crusades and Bush were not issues during the fight in Afghanistan. We had consensus. Both sides of the aisle in Congress and the entire nation agreed that al-Qaeda had to be kept from continuing its attacks.
Sadly, the vandals’ actions are illustrative of how we have squandered our opportunity to face terrorism with unified and coherent action. The right’s neocons orchestrated a war with Iraq that has destroyed national consensus and they are culpable for politicizing the individual soldier by repeatedly sending the message that to criticize policy equates attacking the soldier—an allegation that is simply not true. Meanwhile, some on the left are returning to mindless violence.
So here I stand, waiting for my daughter to return from her voluntary tour in the Middle East with the U.S. Coast Guard, wondering if some cretin will spit on her. I pray that soon our leaders on the left, right and center will find a way forward, build a new consensus and reverse our growing polarization.
[My emphasis]
As Terry notes in his email:
Count the talking points. It’s those darn neocon stooges of the evil empire of ChimpyHalliburton who have politicized our troops. With respect to national consensus, are we expected to believe that the legacy media coverage of the war in Iraq and the broader global war on terror has no effect on the public’s perception which leads to (or away from) consensus?
If I were to find fault with the neocon’s, it would be from a public relations perspective. Christopher Hitchens has made a better case for the war in Iraq than the Whitehouse has. I still remain puzzled as to why the Whitehouse has not invested more time and energy into pushing back against the narrations of the global left media enterprise.
When I appeared recently on Tammy Bruce’s radio show, she asked me to grade the Bush administration on its prosecution of the war in Iraq. The question caught me offguard, but after thinking for a moment, I gave them a C—largely because they have done a poor job at getting their message out and fighting back against the war’s more disingenuous critics.
And it is on that point where I take issue with major general Lambert’s characterizations: first of all, the “right’s neocons” didn’t “orchestrate” a war; a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq was passed by a huge bipartisan consensus, and the President went to war after addressing the UN, and providing Hussein with a number of outs. And secondly, Lambert blames neocons for politicizing individual soldiers by “repeatedly sending the message that to criticize policy equates attacking the soldier”—which is simply not the case: criticizing the policy is perfectly fine (and is, in fact, to be encouraged in a democracy); but the way one goes about criticizing the policy matters, and it is disingenuous to suggest that while it is always okay to criticize the administration’s policies (somehow, this has no effect on the soldiers or public perception), it is NOT okay to criticize the way in which those policies are being criticized, particularly if you do so while being a “neocon.” To do so breaks down “consensus” [read: it makes the anti-war crowd likely to vandalize and spit and yell “Bush Lied!”], and it is better just to avoid all that by not pushing back against them at all.
That major general Lambert doesn’t see the irony of his position is not surprising, as he seems to have quite strong political beliefs himself, the editorial’s title notwithstanding. But were I to address him personally on the matter, I’d ask him where he thinks the vandals got the idea that “oil” and a “Christian crusade” are the reasons we are in Iraq. And I’d further ask him if he feels that the 3-year long campaign to paint the war as “illegal” and based on “lies” has any bearing, in his mind, on how the soldiers might be treated upon their return.
Because I can guarantee him one thing: it won’t be the “neocons” who will be vandalizing memorials to fallen soldiers, or spitting on his daughter when she returns from her service.
****
related: “Anti-war protesters to target BBC” (h/t Allah).
Up is down. Black is white. Ebony is Ivory…
Old man waxes curmudgeonly. Happens to the best of us.
And this is news?
Let me tell you the tales of your life
of your love and the cut of the knife
the tireless oppression, the wisdom instilled
the desire to kill or be killed.
Let me sing of the losers who lie
in the street as the last bus goes by.
The pavements ar empty: the gutters run red
while the fool toasts his god in the sky.
— Ian Anderson
Interesting how now the Afghan invasion has suddenly become something everyone supported. As I recall, the left was screaming about what a mistake it would be. (Brutal Afghan winter, millions of starving children, inflaming the “arab street”, etc.)
Make no mistake, if we hadn’t gone into Iraq, the left and the media would be screaming just the same.
I though consensus went out the window the minute the SCOTUS selected Bu$hco for Chimperor.
Between Clarke, Zinni and now Lambert, there seems to be something wrong with the way we pick our generals…
So long as Shields remains Shields and Yarnell remains Yarnell, all else is transient and of no consequence.
ummmm, there really couldn’t have been consensus during the afghanistan invasion because the left wasn’t joining the military in droves. After all, accodrding to them you can only be in favor of military action if you are in the military. There failure to swell the ranks of enlisted men and women should emphasize that the liberation of afghanistan was clearly a one sided action. One that they were clearly against from the getgo. Unless that is, any lefty chicken hawks dare raise their hands to acknowledge that they gave tacit support to the evil neocon cabal.
The “spat-upon soldiers” meme is accepted rather uncritically in Right Blogistan, and if you care to go searching for details online you will find little credible evidence that this was a common response to returning veterans of the Vietnam misadventure. Speaking as one who, unlike you, was of draft-age during that conflict (I lost my student deferment when I dropped out of college in 1971, and freely admit that I would have been over the border into Canada like a shot* had I not ended up at the remotest extreme of that year’s lottery), I will tell you that most of us war-protesting America-hating commies regarded the largely-conscripted fighting force in SE Asia as unwilling actors in that farce, and in my personal experience treated them with enormous sympathy and circumspection upon their return–and while I make no claims as to the breadth of my sample, I *never* met a returning soldier during that period who didn’t regard the entire undertaking as a cross between a fiasco, a clusterfuck and a Chinese fire drill.
cordially,
Rand  I’ve personally had the pleasure of watching peace-lovers tell the mother of a serving Marine that they hoped he died, and Code Pink is still harassing the troops outside Walter Reed, so spare us your candy-assed historical revisionism. It happened, it’s happening now and it will happen again whenever those candy-asses think they can do without getting bitchslapped as they deserve…
Missing asterisk in the last post: I meant to add that my old man, then 51 and a USMC Purple Heart veteran of the South Pacific campaigns from Guadalcanal to Guam, where he was taken out of action by a Japanese pillbox, surprised me by telling me that if I wanted to elude the draft he would pay my bus fare to Vancouver (this from a man who ceased financial support when I left for college six weeks after my 18th birthday). I expressed some surprise, given that his politics had always been somewhat to the right of Louis XIV, and he replied that anyone with a brain in his head could see that the undertaking was doomed, and that while he’d be willing to send his sons off in legitimate defense of the country (say what, Dad? Do I get a say in this?) he was unwilling to sacrifice us for Dick Nixon.
Just a little context here.
Context to what, exactly?
Today’s armed forces are strictly voluntary. All the more reason to give them our highest respect, praise, and admiration. Plus, today’s re-enlistment rate is the highest since 9/11 and the desertion rate is the lowest since 9/11 (USA Today, March 9, 2006). Someone forgot to tell them they’re a bunch of snookered boobs, I guess.
Translator: I do not say that conduct of the sort you allege has never occurred. I suggest that, much as you indulge the human tendency to ascribe the worst possible motives to your adversaries, it is not in fact typical of those Americans who disagree with you. There is a tendency at both ends of Blogistan to caricature the opposition. It is in fact possible for decent people to support the war and to regard the sitting president as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and for equally decent people to regard the war as a moral miasma and the commander-in-chief as the fulfillment of Franklin’s prophecy that the republic would devolve after a couple of centuries into depotism (“I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other”).
As an Eisenhower Republican who feels that the GWB junta is extraordinarily bad news (and who remains baffled at the lust of those pubbies who formerly warned against the encroachments of big government for newer and more expansive federal intrusions), I’d still like to find common ground without name-calling. Whether that’s possible remains to be seen.
cordially,
I guess I’m Rand’s opposite, because I dropped out of college and joined the Marines in 1971. In my experience, “enormous sympathy and circumspection” were lacking from most civilians.
From where I lived, I could have walked across the bridge to Canada and I had no illusions about the risks involved in joining.
I will never need to wonder if I could have made a difference. I don’t have to convince myself that cowardice was actually principle. Too harsh? Look at the turnout at the last round of “anti-war” demonstrations and tell me I’m wrong.
Guess I was imagining all that talk about the legendary Unocal pipeline through Afghanistan.
“Well if I’m angry it’s your fault!” –Bilbo Baggins
Strange. Nearly every Vietnam vet I have spoken to in my Church, and there are many, has told me that one reason they are not so willing to reveal that they are a Vietnam vet is because when they came home, they were treated atrociously. They still harbor a bit of bitterness at how they have been treated.
I was scandalized. But then I was more naive.
The Left continues to spit (I would not be surprised if this is even literal) upon our soldiers. This is not to say it is universal, but it is common enough among the Left and the Left is not doing nearly enough to shut these cohorts of theirs up.
One incident: I was in an Arabic class where the professor was Palestinian. We had one guy who returned from Iraq when he was seriously wounded. (One of scars was butterfly-shaped, which I thought was a tattoo.) This jerk of a professor would routine launch into anti-American and anti-Bush tirades, with highly emotional and faux-academic tones and rhetoric, at the soldier. Ever so often, the soldier would try to explain the situation from his perspective, but to no avail.
I refuse to let this continue. If people have criticisms, they may be raised. But I will not tolerate anyone berating any soldier or a loved one of a soldier for any reason whatsoever. In my mind, this is absolute.
MarkD: We appear to be near-contemporaries. Our experiences differ. Who is to say which set of perceptions better represents the actual state of affairs 35 yearts ago?
As to “cowardice”… I came of draft age in 1970. It was obvious by that time (and by years before) that we were not going to “win” in Vietnam. Hell, we were never going to “win” in Vietnam, notwithstanding the “Dolchstosslegende” meme that took root here in the early seventies. This just in: you pick a fight with people on their home ground. The fight is prolonged. Both sides are tired. Both sides yearn to go home. Which side packs it in first: the side whose home is across the sea, or the side fighting on its home ground.
Get back to me again five years from now with your latest Dolchstosslegende legend.
cordially,
So if you’d been drafted you would have left another man to face death in your place and lacked the tiny sliver of courage needed to report in and face the consequences of refusing to fight the way decent men like Muhammad Ali did.
I wasn’t anywhere near draft age at the time, but I’ve worked with a pretty fair number of vets from that era. Literally, you may be right, but figuratively, returning soldiers were spat upon a hell of a lot more commonly than you’re letting on.
But that’s a nuance I wouldn’t expect your generation of anti-war protestors to be able to wrap your minds around. I mean, it’s been 30 years and anti-war ‘Boomers still can’t see the irony of people who condone draft-dodging lecturing anyone on the morality of war.
Thomas Barnett, I think, has pegged the issue fairly well in his books on force transformation for the 21st century. The issue is not a problem they (the “old guard” in a sense) have with the military action in Iraq, but it is a problem they have with the way the Bush administration and Rumsfeld have worked to redefine the direction and focus of the US Military over the next few decades- in particular, shifting the focus of military planning, training, and spending from a “big nation” showdown in the Straights of Taiwan to operations that mostly focus on “peacemaking” or “peacekeeping” or (that evil neocon word) “nationbuilding”.
The irony being that the Bush administration cannot fight a political battle over this because, in effect, they would be admiting the military is, in part, a political entity.
Of course, our more militarily active commentors may be able to lend some thoughts to that narrative…or not.
Maybe dubya should get back on the bottle.
Rand: “…and that while he’d be willing to send his sons off in legitimate defense of the country (say what, Dad? Do I get a say in this?) he was unwilling to sacrifice us for Dick Nixon. “
Uh… did your father happen to notice that Vietnam was a Kennedy-Johnson war… one Johnson utterly sabotaged by trying to micro-manage it from DC… and that Nixon was the one who got us OUT of there? Or has that teensy, weensy but ever so significant little detail been erased from your mind by time and by the political opportunism deployed by the left?
Rand,
I’m guessing that as an Eisenhower republican (whatever that means) that you supported all the clandestine activity that went on in Laos during the Eisenhower administration. And wouldn’t it be more accurate to sharacterize the Vietnam war as Johnson’s? So much for context…
ah, why bother?
Well Rand, it seems you thought it worth the bother til others tried to engage you.
Turing: Won’t you give a brother a hand
Elected with a secret plan!
The “spat-upon soldiers†meme is accepted rather uncritically in Right Blogistan, and if you care to go searching for details online you will find little credible evidence that this was a common response to returning veterans of the Vietnam misadventure.
Rand, you may think it was uncommon, but I can tell you that it happened to me in my JROTC uniform in the middle of Colorado.
Sorry, poopsie, but it was quite common enough.
Dearest Rand,
Me?
In your zeal to impress us all with your extensive vocabulary and meme-crushing anecdotes, you failed to notice the person who initially brought the charge of mistreating servicemen was the antiwar general Jeff quoted, not one of us jingoistic neocons.
Which sucked then, and still sucked when Kerry wanted to use the same secret plan in 2004.
It is, none the less, wrong and either ignorant or mendacious to call it Nixon’s war.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
We bother because truth matters.
We bother because the US Congress shut off the supplies to South Viet Nam when it was being attacked by the North.
And we bother because literally millions died because of the beliefs of people like you.
But they were all brown skinned, so never mind.
Rand,
I was in VietNam in ‘68-’69 (Same time as Kerry). USMC (Semper Fi to your dad). I came home in March ‘69 and was discharged. Let me tell you my personal experience from that time. I happened to be separated from the sevice at Travis AFB, near SF. You couldn’t leave the base without the tie-dyed, high on pot protesters taunting you with chants of “Baby Killer” and spitting on you.
I decided to pay full fare instead of wearing my uniform to qualify for Military Standby when I came home. I did that so I would not have to endure what I endured at the gates of Travis. I enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after I received a letter from my Selective Service Board.
I don’t know if you have traveled much, but I have, all over the world with the exception of the former SSR’s. This place I call home, the USA, is the finest place on earth to live..no other place like it for equal opportunity and individual freedoms. I looked at the six year military service obligation as the price one pays for the privelage to live in such a place. Others didn’t and made a choice that Canada was a better place. I don’t have a problem with that…individual choice you know.
I do have a problem with them that did make that decision getting a “do over” with no consequence. That is one (of the many) reasons that I detest Jimmy Carter. For everyone that went to Canada (or elsewhere) to evade the draft someone else who was not slated to go, took his place…think about that.
As far as VietNam being unwinnable, that is a joke, or popular myth that the Left keeps trotting out. Were the military allowed to prosecute the war without political interference, we could have marched directly to Hanoi.
Now THIS is a music video…
Rand  Actually, I don’t go out of my way to ascribe the worst possible motives to anybody, which is something of an accomplishment when you live in Los Angeles.
But the fact is, it chafes to be told that the activity I’ve witnessed happening, and that it is a matter of public record that is still going on, and that I had to described to me by senior NCO’s when I was in, is some kind of self-pitying “Right Blogistan” fantasm. It’s seems to me either offensive to us if you think you can tell us this, or an insult to yourself if you are insufficiently informed to honestly hold that position.
And you make several assumptions in your subsequent post with which a reasonable person might well take issue. Of course, I have no way of knowing what your father may or may not have said to you, but the “Nixon’s War” thing? That’s a revisionist conceit in and of itself. Sure, the leftie loved to chant it right after Nixon took office and didn’t immediately stage a Dunkirk with rice out of Nam. But the fact is that the US involvement in Vietnam arose out of US support for a UN-mandated partition of the country, escalated by a guy named Lyndon Baines Johnson. The other fact is that after Nixon DID start the pullout, the corrupt and cowardly South Vietnamese who weren’t worth the blood of one inconvenienced American draftee inexplicably managed to fight a major ground war on their own for two more years until our next attack of principle cut off their ammunition.
And, like many antiwar activists (for all I know you are an Eisenhower Republican, so I refrain from lefty), you are unable to get past the fixation on every subsequent use of American military action being another Vietnam. I have heard that about El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama (Panama!) and most definitely about Afghanistan, and it hasn’t been right yet. Whereas the people making that claim have been more than willing to leave millions of people in the hands of despots who behaved like the North Vietnames at best (giving Noriega a GREAT benefit of the doubt) or the Khmer Rouge at worst (Hey, Mr. Taliban, blow me up that Buddha! Infidels come and me wan’ go home!) It’s an old trope, an obsolete trope and a lot more people have DIED because of our high and mighty moralistic inaction that because of anything we did.
And please, oh, please, enough with the “Bush junta” stuff. Frankly, I share Franklin’s belief that any republic risks a slide into despotism, and I think we are perilously close to that slide in this country, but I think it is less likely to come from Bush than it is from, oh, a Tennesee Democrat who believes you can’t ignore the will of the people… without a court order, or a husband-and-wife team thinking of swapping off the office in the family.
But a Bush junta? From. Where? Do you think Bush is going to refuse to give up office at the end of his term? Is Cheney going to suddenly dial up his pacemaker and assume the office? I actually did hear talk from several journalists, some of them national, that they honestly thought Bush wouldn’t hold the 2004 election. It was nonsense then and it’s nonsense now. What possible justification can you have for that position?
Didn’t you see? He speaks german.
Isn’t that enough to prove his intellectual superiority?
what was that line from the Simpsons, where Silent Bob got paroled?
“Nobody who speaks German could possibly be evil”?
TomB  Well, if my crude and coarse REFORGER Deutsch is any guide, he’s just repeating the old saw, “Against stupidity (foolishness), the gods themselves contend in vain.”
Because, ya know, nobody every went wrong listening to a German philosopher…
Specially when he helped to scuttle Johnson’s peace moves, after that it was totally johnson’s war, not Nixon’s. Secret plan!
Did you get spit on? Or see soldiers get spit on? wow.
rls,
There will come a time, in the not-so-distant future, when we will be told that the Code Pink protestors mocking the wounded at Walter Reed never happened either.
Thank you for your service, by the way.
Rand is just another in a long series of leftist trolls who pretend to be something they never were.
Actus meanwhile remains a despicable namecaller and slanderer.
Can we condition that enough? And what is common, incidents only in the thousands upon thousands? I agree, in a military force of millions, in a war over a decade, maybe a 100,000 incidents would probably be ‘uncommon’, no?
Translation: “Even though several people here may know people or be those who have been pissed upon, I mean only to disregard all evidence as being far less typical than the more general lovely hippies showering our men at arms in flowers, kisses, and extravagant parades”
Some absolutely BAD ASS goal posts you got there, bud! 0 to 360 in under two posts!
Oh, oh so reasonable: the passive voice, the appeal to the middle. You do it, we do it, can’t we all just get along??? LOL
First things first….
Rand,
You rewrite history so as to justify your lack of any moral qualms with regard to shirking your duty. You even rule out the moral course of action, facing the consequences of refusing to be drafted. When this is clearly pointed out to you, you simply revert to form and walk away saying, “ah, why bother?” As if you are being shouted down. You ran then, you run now.
I have more respect for those who stood and took their lumps than the cowards who ran. My lottery number in ‘73 was #55 and I would have been drafted for certain had they not ended the draft that year. Going to Canada never entered my mind.
For the record, not all soldiers were literally spit upon, but a large percentage were treated horribly upon their return. that is a fact you can’t change. I wonder how you would characterize the Winter Soldier hearings? Or the persistent myth of the ‘damaged’ Vietnam vets, years after the war ended?
Second…
Nobody really cares about your little psycho-drama to justify your lack of conviction or any moral/ethical sense.
Your little confessional is apropos to what in this thread?
Third….
General Lambert is incorrect about the country being united when we went into Afghanistan. The predominant thread in the MSM was how Afghanistan was the graveyard of empires. How the only reason we were going in, was to build a central Asian oil pipeline. I distincly remember the word, quagmire being used in more than a few articles.
General Lambert is again incorrect in his thinking that it was a neo-con cabal that somehow got us into Iraq, but this has been explained in comments above.
Where general Lambert is most incorrect is in his misguided assumption that this administration and by extention those nasty neocons
From the earliest days after 9/11, there were those who said that we somehow deserved it because it was a legitimate response to our middle east policies. As if the murder of civilian non-combatants has anything to do with our policy.
From the earliest days after 9/11, there was a not insubstantial segment of our society that has been actively rooting against their own country in this war against political-islamofascism.
The main stream media has been relentless in its mischaracterizations and outright lies. The democrats have set new lows for exploiting a war for partisan political purposes.
General Lambert’s comments could have come straight from al-jezeera, International Answer, MoveOn.Org, the NYT or WaPo editorial pages, or the democrat party talking points. Take your pick because they’re all talking off of the same page. This talk is in direct contradiction to those pesky ‘facts.’
Facts like Afghanistan has begun its long and probably bumpy road to stability, as has Iraq. The evident fact that we are winning on the ground and Iraqis & Afghanis are seeing a brighter future for themselves. Facts like as much as the left in this country wishes for a civil war in Iraq, it probably won’t happen.
Let’s not confuse the issue here about honest disagreement with this administration’s actions. Many are not just disagreeing with the present foreign policy of the United States, thay are actually wishing for the United States to be defeated. In any other age, these people would have been arrested for sedition and treason.
General Lambeert is certainly entitled to his opinions and I for one give him the respect that he’s earned, unlike our buddy Rand. However, I disagree totally with his opinions and I have to wonder about his motivations.
Could Actus be Canadian? I mean, he’s got the passive/aggressive spiel down to an art, and that seems to be a defining ingredient of national character up in the Great White North.
There was something like 90% support for that invasion.
Beyond contempt.
So how did his little Tet truce/negotiations go?
Perhaps Kerry’s ’negotiations ‘ would have helped. If only it was for his secret plan!!!!!
TW: Malheuresement, because no one person could combine poor grammar, complete ahistoricity, and question-begging sophistry so unfortunately as actus.
Kerry? We’re reliving an old war my friend, not talking about today.
Iraq? Yes, we know.
But how does that assist your ‘argument’ [snicker]?
That was the biggie I remember. I was a little too young for the war, but as we grew up you needed to be a little careful around Viet Nam vets, ‘cause they could go all psycho at any moment. I am ashamed to admit I often felt that way too, and looking back and realizing how pivotal Winter Soldier was in creating that myth is the main reason I despise Kerry.
I think that was like 70-80. Not so high right now. It said afghanistan in the quote, so I don’t know why the ambiguity.
Does the right and left blogosphere split on the uses of these ‘snicker’ things?
Well, I heard, once, that Kerry went to Vietnam.
Also he chatted up the ‘good’ Vietnamese, the North, because he was so concerned about our POWs—whom he loves and adores.
So, yes, JFnK did negotiate with the Vietnamese.
Sure. But he wasn’t even a presidential candidate at the time. And I don’t think he claimed to have a secret plan.
To clarify a point. I (personaly) was only spin on once. The particular person doing that spitting had a hard time spitting for an extended period after that incident. I was spit at many times, sneered at many times and endured the “Baby killer” taunts almost endlessly.
Most of this occurred in the San Francisco area, during the month or so I awaited discharge. That does not negate the many incidents I saw afterwards of men in uniform being denigrated, verbally and (sometimes) physically abused. Regardless of what anyone else says, rercognized military personnel during the late 60’s & early 70’s endured a tremendous amount of abuse and slander.
….spin=spit….PIMF
But Gee-wilikers, rls, that’s just anecdotal evidence!
Totally uncredible, as it hasn’t gone through eleventy-nine layers of double-bind surveys!!!
[Pisssshhhh.]
Yeah…I know..but, hey man, it’s all I got.
Actus said…
In reference to Afghanistan.
That’s pure bullshit. The Afghanistan campaign happened so quickly that there wasn’t time for an opposition to coalesce.
But then consider the source of the comment.
Not that the media and left wingnuts didn’t try. I repeated the scare headlines previously. Many years of hearing those and I guarantee that the poll rating for invading Afghanistan would be very low right now.
I don’t know about that, Tim. But I do dispute the 90% figure. It’s well-established that on either side there are 30% who will always oppose whatever the other party wants to do, and there are probably 10% who can be swayed on either side. The other 20% are I-don’t-knows.
The MSM can be reliably counted on to reflect the sentiments of the left, so there had to be a significant portion of the left that was in the “It’ll be a quagmire, brutal Afghani winter, we’ll kill innocent Afghanis, blah, blah, blah” camp.
Oh, and Jeff, thanks a lot for putting “Ebony and Ivory” in my head. What was it last time, “Muskrat Love,” or something?
I’m not following, you think Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan is not as popular as I say?
TimP said:
Mine was 105 that year (I think, if not that somewhere between 100 and 110) and previous drafts had gone way beyond that number in call ups, so I was sure I was going too. Ducking out never entered my mind either, which is not to say I wasn’t glad they ended the draft that year.
“he replied that anyone with a brain in his head could see that the undertaking was doomed, and that while he’d be willing to send his sons off in legitimate defense of the country (say what, Dad? Do I get a say in this?) he was unwilling to sacrifice us for Dick Nixon.”
Guess I missed the part of the constitution that stipulates that Rand’s dad gets to be CinC. How many electoral votes did he get, again? Ah, to live in a Rand’sdadocracy!
Of the army and navy? or of the country?
Wait, actus is a law student? I still can’t get over it. I mean that holier than tho, sanctimonious smart-ass atttitude? In a law student? Who would of thunk it.
You’ll go far in the profession.
You’re not keeping up, Actus. Yes, I did, even though I was in high school ROTC at the time.
Its a wide world after all.
Apparently its because I’m Canadian.
Not quite the PTSD vietnam vet story I get from the media. I’m so sorry high school was traumatic for you.
My mouth actually dropped open like someone wedged a crowbar into a rusty trap, popping it open with a snap.
At least he’s not bitching about society oppresses him by not recognizing his man-boy-lurve. Poor baby, sorry ‘bout that high-school experience.
No, sir. Those who oppose strenuous efforts to remove dictators and establish democracy are, by definition, not decent people.
TW: enough
[rerturning after a dinner out]
Where to begin? Should one bother? “Tim P” suggests that I “shirked [my] duty,” presumably lumping me in with our current veep, who had “other priorities” (translation: I believed in the Holy Struggle Against the Bolshies, just not enough to, you know, put my own ass on the line). I myself didn’t believe in the Holy Struggle Against the Bolshies; still don’t (we’d be a *lot* better off if the USSR was still in business, still had tight control over its now loosely-overseen stockpiles of fissionable materials, and still the focus of the Islamic fundies’ inchoate resentments–for that matter, our domestic politics might be a little less poisonous if we weren’t now obliged to consume domestically the levels of rhetorical toxins we grew accustomed to producing for export during the Cold War years), and accordingly can evade, unlike our kindly, avuncular, nakedly sinister Vice President, the charge of hypocrisy along with the draft. For the rest, I note that dissent in this forum, as elsewhere in RB, draws the charge of trollhood, however moderate the tone, however courteous the terms. I am slightly mollified, however, that I have not been banned as I was following a single, quite cautiously framed post at “Free Republic,” making me wonder about the lines along which a “free” republic might be run should that lot ever have its way.
cordially,
I am still hung up on trying to establish the moral standing of thunderstorms and tornadoes, I haven’t gotten to the w’s yet.
What the hell are you talking about? “at least?”
“we’d be a *lot* better off if the USSR was still in business”
Rand, you make me physically nauseous, and I’m the pansy-ass be-nice-to-lefties guy around here. Perhaps we’d also be better off if John Wayne Gacy were still around to entertain at parties? Do you at long last have no decency, sir?
actus- I believe you once mentioned English is your second language. Where did you grow up?
Noah D says, anent my “It is in fact possible for…decent people to regard the war as a moral miasma”:
–which kind of reminds me of how dissenting “conservatives” are expelled from the congregation these latter years: W.F. Buckley, for example, about whom it is now grumbled variously that he is apostate or Alzheimer-afflicted. The Noah Ds of the world, defining dissent from their own positions as “indecent,” worry me whether they are positioned to my left or to my right.
As to Bezuhov: you prefer Putin’s revanchist Russia, which extended intelligence data to Iraq in 2003, to Gorbachev’s chastened USSR, which stood largely on the sidelines in 1991? I repeat that we’d be better off with a reformed USSR, shorn of its imperial pretensions and let down gently from the Cold War, than we are with a resentful Russia unable to secure its weapons stockpiles. You can regard that hjowever you like, but keep in mind that red-baiting was pretty much discredited as a rhetorical technique a couple of generations ago.
cordially,
South america.
De-lurking after a couple of years – I’m brought out of the shadows by the outrageous comments of Jeff’s new antagonist (can’t call him a troll, now; that might hurt his feelings).
Boyfriend wrote:
“For the rest, I note that dissent in this forum, as elsewhere in RB, draws the charge of trollhood, however moderate the tone, however courteous the terms.” I take it that RB is “Right Blogistan”. Oh, I bow to your clever naming skills, sir!
As for your “however moderate, however courteous” characterization, all I can say is that it doesn’t matter how much you dress up a “Fuck you, idiot,” it’s still a “Fuck you, idiot.”
Even when you try to impress the peons with quotes from Schiller’s Maid of Orleans.
If you find it so hostile here inRB, go back to LB, or Center-B, or wherever you feel most comfortable. Don’t walk into someone’s house and spit on him and his other guests, and expect them not to react.
Hmmmm.
@ Rand Careaga
Are you out of your liberal asshat mind?
WTF! Are you completely ignorant or have you forgotten the many Soviet-backed terrorist groups that harrassed the West for decades? And what is the color of the sky in your world? When did the Soviets ever really have tight control over fissionables other than those specifically implanted into nuclear warheads?
Are you so ignorant that you didn’t know that the Soviets tried putting very simple highly radioactive grain irradiating devices out in the fucking fields all over the Soviet Union? That they produced hundreds of nuclear powered radio navigation beacons all along the northern coastline? Crap so incredibly radioactive that a heavily protected man has a maximum exposure of 5 minutes near one of those fucking things FOR LIFE!?
Jesus Christ you fucking liberals are ignorant bastards. I swear this and other blogs is like a liberal educational course.
There was an illusion of tight control because we didn’t know the details. But the fact is that there were never any tight controls because the Soviet soldier would sell, literally sell, anything to get alcohol or money for alcohol.
sw: you have most definitely lost your mind. Again the spamword is highly appropriate.
Oh, just a wisecrack on your sexual predilections, my friend.
Where?
Very wise. So much for high school.
The big one. Brazil.
South america.
Then what’s with all the snideness about the vets’ experiences when they returned from Vietnam?
And Rand- I don’t mean to tell you how to post, but you’ve said a lot without acknowledging what any of these guys have told you. You complain about how your dissent has been met in an unfriendly fashion, while completely ignoring those that have a different opinion than you. Did you come here to engage or play the victim?
One of these things is not like the other:
Unfortunately a country of that size and diversity cannot be let down gently it seems, so are you going to continue to waffle about fantasies, or would you truly wish for the return to the old USSR so you could sleep better at night?
Bez:
“Do you at long last have no decency, sir?”
Rand:
“You can regard that hjowever you like, but keep in mind that red-baiting was pretty much discredited as a rhetorical technique a couple of generations ago.”
Pearls cast before swine…
Whats that got to do with where I was born?
I didn’t ask where you were born, I asked where you grew up.
I thought perhaps someone not in the US at the time of the Vietnam war might find it interesting to hear the direct experience of the Vietnam vets. I’m having a hard time understanding why you were so derisive.
Kind of the point, wasn’t it?
Ah, Brazil, the country of the future, and always will be. Seems that Actus’ legendary expertise extends across the continents.
TW: Humility, though I don’t expect to see any of it from our resident expert.
I wasn’t even born at the time. So where I grew up doesn’t matter either. But it was interesting to hear the direct experience of a high school student.
Your identity politics is really weird. I was born there man.
No, not that Brazil, this Brazil.
actuse is a law-yer?
The pw community looks on in amazement as the once great American Republic is trashed.
Your identity politics is really weird. I was born there man.
May I politely suggest that you go back.
BTW, are you here legally?
Since when is law legal, marianna?
Maybe I’ll take Rand seriously once he gets off his high horse and stops with the masturbatory “Oh, but those mean, eeevil Righties always ban honest dissenters!” tripe.
Then again, the bits about how conservatives expel folks like Buckley represent that this fellow is continually lodged in his own little world, content to caricature his opponents however he feels, and then claim that such represents civil discourse.
Go on Rand. Keep speaking the truth. You’re the only person around who can see it. You’re clearly the intellectual better of those around you.
I wasn’t even born at the time.
Ah, yes. That explains why you can’t listen to those around at the time. I mean, what is a high school ROTC student compared to the moral authority of the not yet conceived?
Are you in the US just for college, or have you lived there for quite some time? I’m just curious.
If you lived in Brazil until you were a young adult, I would advise you show some respect, and let’s face it, some wit about you.
Like being born AFTER the seventies, like me, you don’t know dick about the Vietnam era. Having shallow roots is merely another strike against you there.
Humility.
If that’s wierd identity politics for you…its not. Its common sense.
Humility.
Was just there for x-mas. It will be awhile before I get another chance.
I did jaywalk on my way home from the coffeeshop. So no: I broke the law to get here.
Since when is law legal, marianna?
Is Actus a lawyer? I must confess—I tend to avoid reading his comments, so I’m not as up on his personal life as I might be.
I did read what he said. What ‘moral authority’ do you need to read today? What ‘moral authority’ needs to be contemporanous to other people’s high school experiences? This is really odd.
I came here as a child.
Why does where I lived matter?
What was weird is I said I was born some place and you started crakcing about it and me. As if you attribute some group affiliation to me. Weird to see this sort of identity politics get bandied about here.
Excuse! Break from fun-with-Actusout for a minute, but Rand might have had at least backed into a valid point.
Despite the anti-war movement back then, by the time Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon had finished fumbling at Vietnam strategy, many were pessimistic about a positive outcome being managed.
In JG’s opening remarks, he gave Bush a “C” for managing Iraq.
IMO, the Iraq war was just. The war on terrorism is also. But, the Iraq democracy? What’s it supposed to look like? Doh.
If you can’t answer that question, put Colin Powell back in the game and Donald Rumsfeld is out!
That is really odd.
I mean, it’s odd to watch you twist this into a discussion about high school experiences.
As if being spit on during vietnam because you’re in a military uniform is the eqivalent of being laughed at because you came out of the bathroom with your cheerleading skirt tucked in your panties (it happened to me, so I can sooo relate to Charlie).
There was an assertion made that the “spat upon soldier” was a meme, uncritically accepted by the right. We hear from those that were on the receiving end and what? Scoffing from you, and silence from Rand. That is odd.
But MayBee, don’t you remember? Whatever it is, it’s always, ultimately, about Actus.
The guy said it happened to him in high school ROTC. Here we were, talking about vietnam vets, and high school ROTC cavalry came in to save the day. And I mentioned how sorry I was that high school was traumatic.
Here we were, talking about vietnam vets
Yes, I read how you had said ‘wow.’ when rls said he was spit on. You were really deep into that conversation.
It’s a darn shame some vietnam-era spitters couldn’t tell the difference between an active duty soldier’s uniform and an ROTC uniform, eh actus? They do look a lot alike, but it seems a waste of lugie to hock one at a high school kid. I mean, he hadn’t even killed any babies yet!