Yes, fuck these guys, but turn your attention elsewhere to working out how we can get people involved in opposing the Occupation of Iraq; later on they will be glad to hear what we have to say about Vietnam.
Carrol
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Well, it's Memorial Day weekend. We are supposed to remember the great sacrifices of the US military services. And jesus god did Vietnam demand them in great quantities. What greater sacrifice could there be than getting killed or fucked up forever for nothing?
For the record there were 14,589 US military killed in Vietnam in 1968, the highest number per year of the war. Meanwhile domestic opposition to the war had only risen to about 30% in the polls---in the face of casualty figures that averaged 280 a week. This cost was justified by the inflated reports that we were bleeding the VC and North at ten times that rate, i.e. the war of attrition was winning by the numbers.
In any event, I am not interested in persuading anyone about Iraq. We lost that argument. Some majority of US voting public put Bush in office after a year and half of stunning revelations on the meaninglessness of the invasion and the pointless brutality of the occupation. A majority of voters took one look at the facts (no WMD, Abu Ghraib) and voted their values.
Opposition argument is pointless since there is no dispute on the facts---only a dispute on the value of the goal and cost which seem to be going nowhere and spending anything to get there. So, there is only one argument left. Iraq has to grind out US casualties week after week.
Two years and a few months is not a long time to mount a resistance. The Iraqis are doing a pretty good job given most of the first year was wasted in shock, looting, false hope, argument, and ambivalence.
Now they know. The US will keep killing them and destroy their country until they can kill enough US troops to dismantle the occupation. There is no other way out.
CG