>>Vietnam was the fight put up by the Vietnamese, only secondarily the
>>opposition back home and the unruliness of the troops. These encouraged
>>each other, of course. This assumes that there is a military objective,
>>other than selling and consuming military hardware.
Kelley:
>which pretty much leaves us fucked, doesn't it.
Not really. I don't support the U.S. regime but if, say, Spain were trying to reoccupy Florida, I'd fight back.
>the chatter by the warmongers on list over the indecency of iraqi citizens
>shooting at downed POWs in the water--it was all evidence that the iraqi
>people are barbarians.
>
>new twist for the war and one, no doubt, this administration will pursue
>with gusto. it's so much easier to gitchyerwaron if you can demonize the
>people, too.
They do have a problem, which is that is that it's contradictory to say stupid racist shit while you're simultanously claiming to be fighting in the interests of the 'Iraqi people.' Just as Operation Iraqi Liberation--oh, no the abbreviation is too obvious--Operation Iraqi Freedom conflicts with 'nuke their ass, take their gas' (recently written on a comment wall on campus).
>i think comparing this situation to viet nam is less than worthless. the
>japanese fought hard. did we pull out? no, we just nuked 'em.
There is a military reality, though. The Japanese were not going to be able to hold off the U.S. at that point, it was pretty clear. Dropping the bomb was probably intended to cut costs in materiel and men, and threaten the Soviets. The military reality now I won't speculate on, except to say that segments of the anti-Gulf War I movement made a mistake overestimating the Iraqi military's capacity before the war started.
Mark Bennett:
>The ruling class genuinely feared a violent civil insurrection,
>which would have to be suppressed with an unreliable military - not an
>inviting prospect. In other words, it was both the reality and threat of
>revolutionary violence, not the vocal opposition of the anti-war movement,
>that brought the Vietnam war to an end, and which coerced temporary
>accommodations from the bourgeoisie. The same is true today. Hundreds of
>thousands of people can take to the streets to denounce the Bush junta as
>war criminals, but as long as they limit their protests to shouting slogans,
>carrying signs, and engaging in harmless agitprop, the junta is safe and it
>can disregard the protests. As we have seen.
I agree that comparing this to Vietnam is probably not that helpful, but it drives me nuts that the debate about why the U.S. withdrew is always about what the U.S. actors did (troops, protesters) not what the Vietnamese did. Yes, theoretically, it's what we have more control over, but it's uncomfortably similar to big power chauvinism: All that matters is what 'Americans' do.
Carrol wrote:
>This vet told me, also, that in the VA hospital there was a sharp split
>between those who had been wounded before and after Tet. Almost all who
>had been wounded after Tet were anti-war.
Right, in talking about fragging you can't discount that the U.S. was not winning the war. They were bogged down, soldiers didn't want to die pointlessly, whether the cause seemed to them just or not. And that was not due *primarily* to the protests, or the movement in the U.S., it was due to the actions of the Vietnamese. The domestic protests did apparently stop them from using nukes, we should remember, while we're wondering if all this has any effect.
Kelley:
>we, i think, have to press forward for a more radical critique of state
>policy and more radical actions against it. we have to til the soil because
>this war might not last a long time, but the hostilities will, and so will
>the blowback.
The NY Labor Against the War position--starting in September 27, 2001, before the assault on Afghanistan--was against the endless war eagerly announced by Bush. The 50-year war. And the one forecast by Perle in the Dreyfuss article in TAP that Michael Pollak posted recently. Another example, the Labor Party's position on the war ends with the line, "We call upon our brothers and sisters to rise up in defense of our country by opposing the pernicious doctrine of pre-emption and this war without end." So while we may be a bit off-balance since the all-out assault started, we can still be clear what war we're opposing.
Kelley:
>i don't buy revolutionary defeatism. i fail to see what wish horrors on
>people does for radicalism.
I agree. But I think a lot of what comes off as wishing horrors is actually speculating on the effect of horrors over which we have no control. Of course, the reason to hope the U.S. military gets bogged down is that they won't be inclined to do it again.
Jenny Brown