Let's hope I'm wrong, but the outlook seems bleaker than it did during the Vietnam era. For one thing, due to 9/11 Americans feel personally threatened now in a way they never did during the Vietnam war and are obviously more willing to countenance any amount of aggression in the name of "defense." For another, the US government now bestrides the globe as the sole hyperpower; there are no constraints on the USG that characterized the time of US/USSR duopoly. And still more important, despite all the wasted years and high body count of the Vietnam war, today's US leadership somehow apppears even more determined and demented than it was during the Vietnam era. E.g., Robert S. McNamara seems a tortured, Hamlet-like figure compared to that grinning gargoyle Donald Rumsfeld. I remember reading that McNamara had to have his teeth capped because he wore down the enamel grinding his teeth in his sleep -- such was his anguish over the destruction going on in Vietnam. Rumsfeld, OTOH, I could easily imagine drinking a hearty toast from the skull of a vanquished Saddam Hussein.
In short, I think US leadership today is the most instinctively primitive, brutal and ruthless of all time, possessing more power than any of its predecessors and facing fewer checks on the exercise of this power. It's hard to see what amount of public outrage would really make a difference to this crew.
Car;
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