If there are ANY Vietnam Era Folks left on DU....Please Check In!

[KoKo]

I've listened to the MSCorporate Media all afernoon and into the evening surfing from MSNBC to CNBC and Pat Buchanan, David Gergen, Tim Russert, Think Tank Spokespersons, and Military Generals Retired (some of whom seem on the "take" to the Saudi's).

I've concluded that what we are seeing now is EXACTLY what we who grew up under Vietnam saw on our TeeVee way back then as to how Vietnam would FALL and the WORLD WOULD END...and yet Congress passed a bill for TRADE with Vietnam just before they adjourned in December!

So the "World Didn't End" when helicopters rescued our Embassy from Vietnam under Gerald Ford..

Instead we had unprecidented GROWTH in focusing on AMERICA FIRST!

THESE ARGUMENTS about DISASTER from ENDING IRAQ WAR are only the NEO-CONS SAVING FACE (NIXON LEFTOVERS) who thought we LOST in Vietnam and they wanted the CHANCE to DO IT OVER AGAIN! On the BACKS OF AMERICANS....ON THE BACK OF OUR ECONOMY!

Is anyone out there who remembers the SAME ARGUMENTS for VIETNAM ESCALATION as are NOW about Iraq Invasion and Occupation? :shrug:

[PCIntern]

1. Verbatim.

in fact, I think they went back and Xeroxed the transcipts.

[papau]

14. LOL - Xeroxed the transcipts is also how it sounds to me - dominoes anyone? n/t

n/t

[WiseButAngrySara]

33. Xeroxed the carbon copies of the transcripts! Now we only use

CC: (carbon copy) electronically it seems.

[bluescribbler]

2. Vietnam Vet here

Your analysis sounds about right to me.

[annabanana]

3. Lyndon Johnson told the Nation

"Have no fear of escalation,
I am trying everyone to please.

And though it isn't really war
I'm sending 50 thousand more
To help save Vietnam from th' Vietnamese...."

[wakeme2008]

4. heard this all before..

:hi:

[mmonk]

5. Yep.

First comes the last ditch escalation, then the peace with honor part.

[WCGreen]

6. We only had perceived national interests at stake then....

We have real national interests, our loyalty to Israel, our need for oil, at stake now...

If we could would have taken the time after the first oil shock in the 70's to start developing alternative energy then all of this would not be happening...

[mmonk]

47. They are still perceptions. The conquest of Iraq

or a world domination scheme through war isn't necessary for us to be a secure nation.

[BlackVelvet04]

7. De ja vu all over again......

it was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.

[Webster Green]

8. Hell yeah!

Same shit, different assholes...(as the saying goes)

Time to take our country back!:patriot:

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Oh sure I remember

This is very much the same. Sickening, isn't it?

[Monkeyman]

10. Vietnam Vet here

[HockeyMom]

11. Husband's a Nam Vet

Yes, I remember it all too well. Escalation has even LESS of a chance of working in Iraq than it did in Vietnam.

[mentalsolstice]

38. My husband too.

Enlisted, USAF, fourteen months in country. He came back wondering WTF, and he has been against the war since the beginning. I might add that my father-in-law is a WWII vet...boy, were things a lot different back then. FiL still has a romantic view of war, that my husband doesn't share.

on edit: I have to add that I was a "Wonder Years" kid at the time. I grew up with it...I was an adolescent when we got out.

[Junkdrawer]

12. If it causes us to get off of our asses and develop alternate energy...

sources, then leaving Iraq is the best thing we could ever do.

Otherwise, our economy is f**ked whether we stay or leave. Then, it's just a matter of WHO reaps the obscene profits.

[Robson]

13. YES!

58K KIA and 200K casualties, all for nothing. That's what Vietnam is about, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

The world goes on, and very well, for those that sent all those young Americans to their deaths. It should never ever happen again. Bush should be tried as a war criminal at some point to prevent this from ever happening again.

[Alamom]

15. Does anyone remember "NEVER AGAIN"........

I guess they (politicians) forgot.

[Another Bill C.]

16. Yup. Same story.

I remember the propaganda movies they showed us back in '62. The movies said that if we don't support the South Vietnamese, as many as 50,000 civilians would be killed in the takeover. They were looking for volunteers. If I hadn't been so close to discharge, I could have been a Swiftboater.

[Hardrada]

Vietnam Era Conscientious Objector here

Served two years alternate service. I think we are not yet at the stage where we turned over Quang Tri province to the ARVN. 1969ish maybe?

[Old Vet]

Been There.

Done It! Scary

[demnan]

17. Sister of a Vietnam Vet

and protester from Middle School.

This shit just is so freaking "Deja vu" I almost cut my hair . . .


Well folks, its time to hit the streets. Nancy Polosi is trying her best but we don't have an honest media so its up to us. If you live close to DC, maybe I'll run into you tomorrow in front of the White House.

I'll be the big gal with the "IRAQ - 50,000 Body bags from Vietnam just weren't enough" t-shirt.

I wanted to edit because I just saw the Olberman video and started to cry. When I see these young soldiers I see a picture of my brother at 18 years old going off to fight. That is why I am out protesting in my community in Woodbridge, VA and also tomorrow I'm going to Layfayette Park in DC. I also see these young Iraqi children who are innocents and the women weeping and wailing and the husbands and fathers weeping and wailing.

My brother is very bitter now - it all comes back. Is that the way it is with you other vets? My brother had gotten over a lot of that in his life and now here it is again.

God Damn Bush!

[WiseButAngrySara]

34. Damn. What a post. ...n/t

[dogman]

18. Yes and no.

From the administration side, yes. Remember that once again the paranoid President is relying on Kissinger for advice. Again there is a bogeyman, terrorism instead of communism. A regional war did follow but with the oil factor this regional war could more easily escalate into a world war. We did negotiate with our "enemies" then.

[MichiganVote]

19. All the same BS we heard back then. No change.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

20. those were CIA choppers and they were evacuating

their people on top of an apartment building, not the embassy.



http://77fa.org/facts.html

Myth: The US military was running for their lives during the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
The picture of a Huey helicopter evacuating people from the top of what was billed as being the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the last week of April 1975 during the fall of Saigon helped to establish this myth.

This famous picture is the property of Corbus-Bettman Archives. It was originally a UPI photograph that was taken by an Englishman, Mr. Hugh Van Ess.

Here are some facts to clear up that poor job of reporting by the news media.

Facts about the fall of Saigon

It was a "civilian" (Air America) Huey not Army or Marines.
It was NOT the U.S. Embassy. The building is the Pittman Apartments. The U.S. Embassy and its helipad were much larger.
The evacuees were Vietnamese not American military.
The person that can be seen aiding the refugees is Mr. O.B. Harnage. He was a CIA case officer and now retired in Arizona.

[spanone]

21. I NEVER thought I'd see this again in my lifetime. Humans are dumber than I thought.

And I already thought they were pretty dumb.

[mcscajun]

22. Yeah, I was very much around in the Vietnam Era. It's all the same old

same old...CRAP!

It's been particularly horrifying to all of us, Vets and protestors alike, to have to go through all of this again, knowing what we all know. :(

Nixon was a peach compared to this heartless, brainless, excuse for a leader!

[rebel with a cause]

30. This crappy SOB who is leading us into hell is worse than

Johnson and Nixon lumped together. It makes me mad that I am in too bad of health to get out and do what I want to. PROTEST IN WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA, AND EVERYWHERE ELSE.

[DUgosh]

23. Sit Ins - in high school

My husband was a draftee

[Pastiche423]

24. Same shit. Different era

Even the frustration of not being able to stop it is the same. My loathing of cops began after watching too many of them club peaceful protesters in the Viet Nam era.

[Bjornsdotter]

25. Hi

I'm still here and it sounds like the same bullshit to me.

Cheers :hi:

[sarge43]

26. Same song, different verse ....

just a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

[Wiley50]

27. Same Shit, Different Decade

Peace with honor comes next
if it isn't morphed into the speech tonight

[madokie]

28. june '69 thru oct '70

and up until the little blivet came along I was pretty much past it, now its as if it was only yesterday. man I despise that guy

[Monkeyman]

29. 68-69 101

[sinkingfeeling]

31. I was thinking today that Bush is just re-running Viet Nam... his do over.

Only differences I can see are soldiers aren't dying from 'booby traps' in a humid jungle, but from car bombs in a desert. And we don't have that handy little draft to escalate this one from 16,000 (1964) to 429,000 (1966).

[blues90]

32. 18 in 1968 and here I am now

It is much the same story now . However things were not quite so obvious in our face . Sure there were talks about nukes back then however we did not have such a madman at the wheel now it looks like we may very well enter the world of nuclear blasts and it will no longer be duck and cover but instead vaporize .

Same story of communists/ terrorists coming here but now this is not easily avoidable .

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. There have always been bogeymen for the politicians to scare us with.

Hell, I remember "duck & cover" in grade school. The Russians were gonna' get us. My half-brother was in Korea fending off the Chinese Reds. When I (stupidly) joined the marines in '61 it was Fidel and his commie beard. Just before I got out LBJ & Company were asking us to extend our enlistments to save 'Murka from Vietnamese peasants who were tipping over dominoes.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[kohodog]

36. I was a "duck and cover" kid

Get under your desk, hold your ankles and kiss your ass good-bye.

Had a high lottery number and wasn't drafted in '71 when my time for the draft came up. I was living in Canada when Nixon went down, but will be here when Bush goes down.

Withdrawal is the only answer. Iraq will have tremendous problems but will come together sooner without an occupying force intent of robbing them of their only source of income. Escalation was a disaster then and will be now.

[Cleita]

37. I remember the same BS about Korea from what was a

small group of chickenhawks back then. Fortunately, Eisenhower had no use for them. Will we never learn.

[Jackpine Radical]

39. 67-68 1st Cav.

This escalation so far is nominally smaller than what Lyndon did between '65 & '68. But what Lyndon did was stupid, reckless, criminal and pointless. This one is worse. It's cynical and psychopathic. It maybe wasn't so obvious we would "lose" in '65. It's obvious to anyone with a brain now. We're getting people killed for no reason other than corporate profits. I'm soul-sick watching it happen.

[Atman]

40. In defense of the argument (sorry!), the ME ain't Viet Nam

Viet Nam had NOTHING to offer anyone. It was a third-world country filled with palm trees, rice paddies and noodle soup, but not much else. Oh, except a strategic foothold. But otherwise, really, what were we fighting for?

While I disagree with 100% of what is going on in Iraq, at least there is a justification to what we're there for, (please, don't flame yet!) even if Mr. Bush refuses to be honest with the American people about it. Even though they refuse to admit it to us, and refuse to be honest about why we're still sending our soldiers to their deaths, we all know why he's doing this. OIL.

There actually IS a strategic goal. Trouble is, the leader of the strategery is a bumbling dickwad who never even held a passport before his presidency and has been totally unable to articulate to America and the world what the bloody fuck it is they're doing. Why?

Because, while the ultimate goal is ostensibly "energy independence," we all know it really isn't. If the BFEE's family business had been wool, they'd just be sitting back at the ranch fuckin' their ewes between shearings. But it isn't. The family biz is OIL. And there is no "consumer" market for oil. In order to expand their markets and MAKE MORE MONEY, countries would have to fall and people would have to die. When you're a totally self-obsessed oligarch with no contact with real humanity, sending your peons in to die for your profit margin just isn't a big consideration. That's why they don't understand why we're all so upset.

It's only business.

And after all, Bush PROMISED to "run America like a business."


Get ready for some killer clearance sales.

.

[sinkingfeeling]

44. Yep, but that's why there are international laws and why this dick should have to

swing from the end of a rope for his crimes against humanity. If anybody thinks is 'AOK' to attack another country to take their resources is 'just business' they should be striped of their US citizenship and sent to forever live in the place they invaded. This so-called man has tarnished the reputation of the country and thereby, the safety and freedom of the American people. I want him gone and, at the very least, in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

[bdamomma]

41. There is one difference though we have a insane man who

thinks he's ruler of the world sacrificing human life. Who ran away from the Vietnam War, and did not serve, while thousands and thousands were killed for another worthless cause. I hate Bush for what he is doing to us and the world, and I hope someday he will pay the price for all this death and destruction he has unleashed on all of us.

[Jacobin]

42. I remember exactly the same thing

Xerox machines are running full force with the talking heads.

It will be wonderful when all the folks who participated in the decision to keep Vietnam going and want to do a do-over are all dead....even though that means I'll be in the grave too

[madrchsod]

43. i was going through google today and started reading

entries from the last years about how things were getting better in iraq each year that i came across....i thought gee this is the same shit they said during nam...it`s pretty fucking sad that someone from my generation started another senseless war.a person who did`t have the balls to refuse to go like i did but a coward who used his daddy to bail him out.

[KoKo]

46. Glad to see folks here on this thread who REMEMBER...and what you and

others are saying is that you have my same dread of repeating the same scenario...and hoping that it will work once again. THEY KNOW that with "Media Control" there aren't going to be riots and killings over what they are doing in the Middle East. They only have crowds they don't feel obligated to report on who go to "Anti-Iraq Invasion Protests" and they Label them as "Anti-War Pacifists" (not worth reporting on.)

They know that WINNING not LOSING will appeal to the Christian Fundie Base of NASCAR AND FOOTBALL and whatever FUNDIE PREACHER turns them on.

So...those of us who remember who aren't "Abby Hoffman" are left out there to "twist in the wind" as NOT CREDIBLE! Not WORTH REPORTING ON. We just aren't HIPPY/DRUGGIE or VIOLENT ENOUGH...to get Nightly News Coverage...:-(

WAKE UP AMERICA! THERE'S A NEW "Silent Majority" that isn't WHAT YOU THOUGHT THAT IS TOTALLY ANTI-BUSH AND IRAQ INVASION! Deal WITH IT!!!

[Homer Wells]

45. Oh Yeah

The old joke that the Vietnamese government was willing to fight that war to the last American is repeated almost verbatim in the Iraqi leadership.

I spent eight weeks in Basic Training in the Army and was considered Vietnam ready. This horse hockey about it taking years to train the Iraqi's is bullshit. The day we leave there, the Army will quietly disappear into the various waring tribes from which they sprang, and their thousand year war will continue without us having to be the targets.:mad: :grr: :nuke:

[rwinkler]

48. I remember

Its amazing the same people in charge can screw up in exactly the same way as in Vietnam.

[KoKo]

49. Lying for Empire/ With a Straight Face! / Nixon, Kissinger & Bombing of Cambodia!/Memory Hole!

(ON TO IRAN...According to the Neo-Cons...because our Security is at RISK and IRAQ will EXPAND OUT OF THE BOUNDARIES AND THREATEN OUR INTERESTS!)

-------------------
Lying for Empire/President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the Bombing of Cambodia
excerpted from the book
How to Commit War Crimes With A Straight Face
by David Model


The United States, apprehensive about Southeast Asia becoming part of the Soviet sphere of influence, were willing to commit whatever resources were needed to incorporate it into the American Empire. American military leaders believed that Cambodian territory was providing a transportation route from North to South Vietnam and a haven where North Vietnam established its headquarters. Despite the fact that in the 1960s and early 1970s, Cambodia was safely in the American camp, its use by North Vietnam was becoming a problem.
Not only did Nixon and Kissinger not seek the necessary approval from Congress to bomb Cambodia, they tried to conceal the bombing not only from the American public but Congress as well. Nixon and Kissinger believed that these hideous lies were imperative to hold on to South Vietnam as part of the American Empire..
Following the bombing, many peasants were so outraged at the United States and their puppet leader in Cambodia that they chose to join the Khmer Rouge, a marginal revolutionary communist group whose ranks swelled to a major force. After taking power, the Khmer Rouge unleashed a reign of terror killing over one million people.

More at..........

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:z8LByxqyx_4J:www.t...