What Putin is doing is just as depraved as what the USA did in Vietnam

Humans believe they're so evolved even though their critical thinking skills take a backseat to high school-like team spirit and the mindless waving of pom poms whether they're in the right or in the right.

The fact that your post has a negative rating speaks volumes, despite its making volumes of sense. Glenn. The human mind is still tethered to loyalties, like from the cave man days (daze?). We think that we think, but we root only for our particular cause. With many Americans, the support for the Vietnam War was tethered solely towards rooting for one's team, "Right or Wrong" as the saying went. This "rooting" had no sustaining value garnered from any derivative of ethics.

The obsession with supporting one's (sports) team is a stellar example of how a group of men playing ball "speaks for all of us". (Theoretically, that is an impossibility.) And these same "patriots" continue to say how happy they are to be "free". (What really IS "freedom"?) And then, we have the nerve to say that we think about things in a profound way. - David Lyga

High schoolers will overlook their star player's belligerent fouls and cheer him on despite his being in the wrong. In fact, if you know what's good for you, you'll applaud his belligerence, too, and call it a win. That's how it works in high school, and that's how it works in the real world. Loyalties are now determined by geographical location, and not by truth.

No one seems to care. That is why I tie the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Vietnam War.

In both instances, the majority within the attacking country was (is) supportive of the invasion. In the USA the "silent majority" was staunchly behind Richard Nixon until the bitter end. (The fact that we killed three million matters not, as "they" were evil and deserved to be murdered.) In the Russian Federation both the Russian Orthodox Church and almost everyone over 50 is fully supportive of Putin. However, thankfully, most of planet Earth is delivering rational sanctions, making it much harder for Russia to win further approval and ongoing implementation of this war. But ... again ... there are few people in the USA who do NOT think that the Vietnam Veteran should be thanked for his service ... for making us safe from Vietnam ... for preserving "freedom". Certainly, the Vietnam Vet is not singularly evil or even intentionally misguided. But (and this is a BIG BUT): I find NO REASON to "THANK" the Vietnam Veteran for his service. NONE. Why? Because that "service" helped to make us even closer to marrying evil and a well-defined hatred of ethics.

Much of the reason I post these threads is to see how uncaring most people are toward listening to plain fact. MOST here do not wish to acknowledge the sense I happen to make, and care more about the well-being of their pets rather than force themselves to see this uncomfortable comparison which I make. Most SAY that they care about "human rights" but the fact is that they care only when it is in their interest to care. I am simply illuminating this poignant reality. Glennn also helps a lot. - David Lyga

You can draw some similarities but there are some big differences as well. Not that these differences invalidate the moral point you are trying to make but suggesting too much similarity might be seen as overly facile.


A lot of people cared at the time. Not only did many protest the war – I marched at the Pentagon in '67, plus at many other demonstrations until I was drafted in May '68 – but the percentage of people opposed to the war grew steadily. Most of the growing opposition was practical rather than moral, however, as it became obvious that the war could not be won.


As a Vietnam veteran, I have no problem with that sentiment. When I returned, people welcomed me home, and my friends were glad that I made it back, but no one "thanked" me for anything at the time. That whole "thank you for your service" cliche hadn't been coined yet. But, in a way, the returning veterans may actually deserve thanks for a different reason. Uncooperative, rebellious, increasingly drug-addicted, racially divided, mutinous troops scared the hell out of the military brass. Our combat army was on the verge of becoming dysfunctional. And at home, anti-war vets were among the most effective and influential members of the anti-war movement, supported congressional investigations of the war, and were directly responsible for the formation of the all-volunteer army. It's documented in this book: