Generation Chickenhawk

I don't know why you addressed this horseshit to me, i've called no one anything in this thread, and don't appreciate being the target of someone else's misdirected invective. If you have a beef, take it up with the author of the article.

ebrown, I don't think Vietnam was an unnecessary war, but I do think it tragic that American public opinion was manipulated to demonize the war, and I think it even more tragic what happened following the US pullout, what happened not just in Vietnam, but elsewhere in SE Asia. And I think the message that sent to those who oppose freedom, liberty, and self-determination plays a large part in the current conflict. Finally, Iraq is but a Front in the War on Terror, IMO - a vital Front, key to overall strategic aims and critical to success. Time will tell, of course. I sincerely hope The American Left will not again meanly, shortsightedly, foolishly visit on this nation a hideous embarrassment and consign millions of innocents - innocents trusting and depending on American resolve - to tyranny, oppression, and even death, as the American Left managed to do a generation ago.

A complete exercise in reactionary fantasy.

Good grief.

what a lot of cobblers.

Hey you Ozzians, i just wanted you to know, in the gospel according to Big Bird, Gough Whitlam was deep-sixed in the name of the Holy Cause of spreading democracy across the globe.

Not at all, Set - Whitlam, one of Oz's most prolific social reformers, succumbed to the economic shocks of the '73 energy crisis, growing domestic unemployment and inflation, decline of exports, and public outrage over bungling within his cabinet. The first he had no part in, but the unemployment, inflation, and export decline, as well as the pecadilloes of his cabinet, were his own doing. In some ways, Whitlam's fate echoed Nixon's - external events set up the mechanism for his downfall, which was ensured and hastened by his own actions and those of his underlings. Ol' Rupert Murdoch played quite a role in the affair, too - another Nixon parallel - Murdoch was to Whitlam what The Washington Post was to Nixon.

You Big Bird, here you are touting the historical and holy crusade of American conservatism to bring enlightenment and democracy to the world, and it just turns my stomach. I wasn't going to even grace your nonsense with a reply, but i think that would be a disservice to those who read here.

You contend that we were in Vietnam defending democracy, and that the American left torpedoed that? Really? You got a lot of nerve. We were in Vietnam because of the policy of "containment" of communism. That policy called for the immediately military opposition of any situation deemed to be a case of spreading communist influence. In aid of that effort, we support Syngman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, Ngo Dinh Diem (who refused to hold the elections called for in the 1956 accord), Nguyen Cao Ky, Nguyen Van Thieu, Ferdinand Marcos . . . the list of "democratic" rulers supported by the United States and looting their respective nations while crushing dissent is very long indeed. The CIA were complicit in the overthrown of the Korean Republics and the Army coup lead by Park Chung Hee, in the assassination of Diem, in the installation of Marcos, in the overthrow of Whitlam's government, in the overthrow and murder of Salvador Allende in Chile . . . once again, the list of American "dirty tricks" to subvert other governments is very long indeed.

And you have the unmitigated gall to claim that we are now once again engaged in a noble fight for freedom and democracy--that is simply amazing. What is more disgusting is your partisan attack on the American left, claiming their interference in the aforementioned noble causes.

This is one of the greatest flights of historical and political fancy in which i have ever seen you indulge.

As for the case with Whitlam, his opposition in 1973 was funded by the Nugen Hand Bank. This bank was founded in 1970 by an Australian, Frank Nugan, and an American, Michael Hand--the latter had served in Vietnam as a member of Special Forces, and had been an employee of the CIA's front organization, Air America. THe Nugan Hand Bank never conducted a single banking transaction with the general public. Their assets of one million dollars exploded to one billion dollars in 1973. William Colby, who became Director of Central Intelligence in March, 1973, was one of the Directors of the Bank. The ABC network in Australia has conducted interviews with former bank employees and employees of holding companies owned by the bank alleging that $24 million dollars was transferred to the Austrailian Liberal Party (Whitlam's opposition) in early 1973. Employees of the bank's Chang Mai branch admitted on an ABC broadcast that they had handled $2.6 million dollars from what they believed at the time to be drug sales sources. The bank's branch in Saudia Arabia was sued for bilking Aramco employees of ten million dollars. These were the people who funded the "get Whitlam" movement.

Eward Gough Whitlam was withdrawing Australian troops from Vietnam. He ended conscription. He publicly condemned the bombing of North Vietnam. He ended the cooperation of Australian intelligence and security services with ASA, ONI and Central Intelligence. As far as Nixon and the CIA were concerned, he had to go, and quickly. Nixon did not survive to see it, but first Colby, and then the toady George "Pappy" Bush continued to oversee the operation. In 1975, the Governor General, Sir John Kerr--a close personal friend of William Colby, and of most if not all of the CIA station chiefs in southeast Asia--dismissed Whitlam after the opposition controlled Senate blocked the funding bill for government. The move was unprecedented, and Australians remember and resent Kerr's action to this day.

I would appreciate it if conservatives at this site did not pee on my leg and tell me its raining.

We see things differently Set - I respect you, and I certainly respect - and vigorously defend and champion - your right to have and espouse your point of view in this matter, despite the fact I think it of somewhat less value than a pile of rotting fish heads, and a general danger to the advancement of civilization. Being wrong doesn't make you bad - you're just wrong.

Yeah, Big Bird, the American right and the CIA have never been dedicated to anything other than the advancement of civilization.

Tell me another one . . .

Never said that, Set. I just happen to think - firmly - that the tree you're barking under right now has no squirrel in it.

Yeah, well i think your dog won't hunt . . . the propostion that American foreign policy and militarism by either party was driven in the post-World War Two period by a dedication to advancing civilization through the spread of democracy is about the most ludicrous description of that period i can imagine.

Never said it was, Set. I said that in the instance of Southeast Asia, The American Left performed a grave disservice to this nation, to the thereby abandoned unfortunates of Southeast Asia, and, though through the implication of lack of American resolve, to the world of today. As were the American Leftof a generation and more past allies of the North Vietnamese, and enablers of the likes of Pol Pot, so is the American Left today allied with the Islamofacists and enablers of tyrants and murdering despots.

Yeah, Right!

It is the American Right-Wing who are allied with the Islamofascists. OBL wants nothing more than a showdown between societies, in order to break up the secular governments there and give him the impetus he needs to form Dar Al-Islaam; and you Righties are giving him exactly what he needs.

Not to mention knowing where he is (according to Porter Goss) but not going after or getting him. I mean, we'll invade whole countries purportedly to stop a few AQ agents, but can't do a snatch-and-grab in another country for 'political reasons'....

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn

Those are thoroughly scurrilous charges to make, and they ring awfully damned hollow in the mouths of those who only embraced the spread of democracy when they found they could not make their charges about WoMD stick in Iraq.

Precisely what was it that you contend the Americans were resolved to accomplish in Vietnam? What noble cause was being served? How are the American left any more responsible for murder, torture and oppression in southeast Asian than were those who supported Diem, Ky and Thieu? How is the left more reprehensible for failing to support the war in Vietnam than was the Nixon administration and the CIA for supporting Pinochet and the overthrow and murder of Allende. Tell me what noble end was served by supporting Noriega, only to be subsequently obliged to kill hundreds of Panamanians in the military action taken to oust him? What great noble purpose was the Eisenhower admininstration called to in the overthrow of Mossadegh's democratically elected government in Iran in 1953?

Enablers of murderous tyrants? Like Marcos, Rhee, Park, Pinochet, Hussein, d'Aubusson--the roll of murders and tyrants in every corner of the globe supported by Republicans is very long. What hypocricy to level such a condemnation at the left. By your thesis, failure to support your particular favorite murderous tyrant constitutes alliance with murderous communists once, and murderous "islamo-facists" (a ludicrous term which admits of no sensible definition of fascism) now.

You'll pardon me if i see no difference between a Pinochet and a Khomeini . . . i'm sure you will.

Again, Set - I never claimed sainthood for any American administration or policy. Mistakes were made, means and motives of questionable, if not downright improper, nature abounded. Vietnam was a proxy war, to be sure, one poorly fought, and a clear US failure - tragic proof that it is folly to allow politicians to micro-manage a war.

None the less, its aim was to prevent the spread of Communism throughout SE Asia and, by extension, the Pacific Rim. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos suffered greatly for America's having cut and run, with literally milliuons dead. Communism did not blossom, other than for its success in dominating South Vietnam. Some say that disproves the Domino theory, others are of the opinion that neither of Communism's big players, the Soviet Union and China, were willing enough to press the issue to take the risk of once again drawing the US into the region.

The Soviet Union did assay to usurp Afghanistan (setting the stage for the current Iraq conflict and their own Chechnya debacle), and bloodied its own nose, due largely to ineptitude of command and training, hidebound, inappropriate, ineffective tactics, and insurmountable logistic challenges. To a very real extent, today's Islamofacist threat stems from the perception of American lack of resolve displayed in Southeast Asia and to the flawed Islamofacist perception that their efforts whipped the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets whipped themselves, and America abandoned and betrayed Southeast Asia.

Regardless why the US was in Vietnam, once the war was under way, the US had a responsibility to the region, a responsibility it did not honor. Will we treat the Iraqis and the Middle East as shabbily? I sincerely hope not. The US has plenty already of which to be ashamed, we don't need to allow our domestic partisan wrangling to once again add to our burden in that account.

Timberlandko

Your rhetoric is absolutely insane.

The United States lost 58,000 soldiers in Vietnam. There were over a million Vietnamese causualties deaths resultint from the war.

Eighteen years of war, 58,000 US deaths, millions of Vietnamese deaths and destruction of lives, hundreds of millions of dollars and you have the gall to say he US abandoned its responsibility?

Is this what you want from the current crusade?

You are absolutely out of your mind.

No, ebrown, what I want from the "current crusade" is success, not failure. As I said, I think the Vietnam war was inexcuseably poorly managed by the back-home politicos, and the debacle played out to the discredit of America. I don't want to see that happen again. I happen to think the leftist rhetoric is absolutely insane - dangerously so. If we fail our commitment to Irag, Afghanistan, and the region itself, Pol Pot's Killing Fields will pale by comparison, and the entire world will pay the consequences.

Well, it seems that not much has changed from the early days of the Vietnam conflict.

As is my responsibility in a democracy I will continue to oppose the war until it ends. This is the unique part of democracy. There are people like you in every country, who with great nationalistic pride support the "justice" of military action.

Democracy is unique in that concerned citizens, based on their values, can restrain the government and the military. We do this by pointing out the governments wrongs and speaking about the true costs of war. We speak out about the truth and pressure the government to justify its actions. This is true democracy.

In the middle, between you and I, is the American public. We both know that there is a limit to the cost the American public is willing to pay. The question is when will the Iraq war surpass that cost.

But don't blame "the left". It is the left that defines democracy. Restraining the government and military in their ability to wage war is our responsibility.

I know you believe in Democracy in the Middle East.

Do you believe in Democracy here?

The left didn't lose the Vietnam War. It was the idiots running it. The left merely, wisely, informed them they had no business doing all that craziness.