It wasn't prolonged, no serious physical harm was done (which is why waterboarding is not torture; it's uncomfortable, but definitely will not kill you (I've experienced it). Compare and contrast with VC methods that killed the victim, or left them with lasting physical disabilities. Isolation, sleep deprivation, and similar methods are not torture. Does that help spell it out for you. I don't know why I bother; educating a liberal is an exercise in futility anyway; I'd rather have no heart, than no brain! Go take your sympathy for the enemy elsewhere, I'm fresh out of compassion for them! By the way, where's the answer to my other question? What idf the you were in my boots? Would you have felt like I did, or not? See if you can manage that much honesty.
OK, just wanted to be clear. You seem to take the same view of torture as the Bush administration. I'd like to point out that none of the added elements you listed are mentioned in any definition of torture I have seen. And several of the techniques you describe, many people who prosecute this sort of thing explicitly call torture. The Bush administration simply changed the meaning of the word. This is why he is not able to visit various countries... because they would arrest him for war crimes.
That's about a far as we're gonna come on this subject. I don't think our minds are going to come any closer on it. Can you at least accept that many people do consider his actions torture? And that those people are right under any definition except Bush's?
Manage that must honesty? What have I ever said to make you think I'm dishonest?
It's not even nearly on topic, but I'll bite. How would I have felt if I were in your boots? I dunno. It's hard for me to picture myself in your boots. I probably would have dodged the draft. I don't see what good I could have done there, besides get myself killed and maybe take a few strangers with me. Even if I had single handedly won the war, so what? The world would be much the same today either way.
But that's not really doing your question justice. Let's imagine a different war. I'll really put myself in your shoes, and imagine that there's a war I think is worth fighting. And that a huge chunk of the population thought it wasn't, and was very disrespectful about telling me so.
Well, yeah, I'd feel hurt. That's not what I need. I'm probably traumatized from killing people and watching other people die. Maybe I shot some kid by accident, and I'm real torn up about it. So having that guy call me a baby killer and spit in my face hurts.
But y'know what I'd be really pissed off about? I'd be really pissed off that the country I served abandoned me. I'd be really pissed off that Reagan kicked me out of the mental hospital and onto the street. I'd be a broken shell of a man. Drinking my meals and vomiting up real food.
You should know that I've known several homeless Vietnam vets. I've done my best to feed them, make sure they're warm and safe. There's not much individuals can do. Or even small groups that I worked with. But we can do our part.
In your place, I might even find myself 40 years later, yelling at a 30-year-old who's being perfectly respectful as if he had personally spit in my face.
Well, at least you tried (kinda, sorta).Of course, that skewed point of view you have affects both your objectivity and your knowledge of history.. Very well; history class is now in session. Just so you know, it wasn't "evil republicans" who sent me to Vietnam; that was Lyndon Johnson's war. In typical liberal fashion, Johnson and his illustrious SecDef Robert Strange McNamara had no idea what they wanted us to do, but they sent us anyway. The amazing thing is, that we were pretty successful in the field in spite of them, until Uncle Walter Cronkite and a gaggle of self-agrandizing "journalists (professional liars) told the American people we were "losing the war". (That was not just a lie, it was a damned lie, told for ratings and prizes!)
Back home, the Bolshevik rabble marched in the streets, while we marched in the jungle; they cheered for Uncle Ho, while we dodged bullets in the rice paddies; they waved the VC flag, while we sweated and bled in the elephant grass. They dodged the draft, and ran off to Canada, and did whatever else cowards do, when faced with having to fight. I can actually forgive the cowardice; hell, I was afraid too; any man who isn't scared in battle is a damn fool, or insane.. The difference is, those of us who fought had to overcome our fears, and do our job anyway.
Then we came home, from the war liberals started, and what did we get? Cursed, spat on, jeered and kicked to the curb. That was cowardly; the hippie rabble cussing and spitting on us knew we weren't allowed to do anything about it. Don't get me wrong; I'm no hero, and I didn't expect or want any parades; all I and most others wanted was to get back to life outside the combat zone; but by then, the Lefties had turned our own country into something we didn't recognize anymore. Hell, if we were going to fight communism, we could have started right here at home, and saved ourselves a trip. Do you understand what it feels like to come home, and find large numbers of your own countrymen actively supporting and cheering for your enemy, and acting as if YOU are the real enemy? Do you, really? We "didn't need" the insults and the spit? Well, we didn't, but that does not begin to describe how it felt to put up with it! You think the verbal tongue lashing I've given you here is unfair and rough? You've done nothing wrong, you say? Well, that's how I felt! Now imagine the message delivered with spit and curses, and hearing your disabled brothers told they "deserved it" and having these whackos blame YOU for everything the enemy did. It's still going on; one of the resident loons here, informed me just last week, that I and the rest of the men who served in Vietnam were responsible for the atrocities the VC and NVA committed; if we had refused to go, he said, they would not have "had to do that"! Yep, you heard right; we "made them do it"!
About the time the spitting and the screaming and the cursing and the accusations slowed down, dear sweet liberal Jimmy Carter let the draft dodgers come home from Canada. That was a direct slap in the face to every single one of us who served. Meanwhile, they covered up the effects of Agent Orange, and started dismantling the mental hospitals. It was Carter and liberal democrats, not Reagan, who turned my broken brothers (and a lot of other people) out on the street; wasn't fair to keep them confined, they said.
Just so we're clear, I don't feel one bit of guilt for anything I did to the enemy; I didn't murder anyone, or rape anyone, and I didn't "accidentally shoot some kid" either. Any guilt I feel is for not being able to bring all my guys home safe. The nightmares I have, are from seeing what Charlie did to our guys, and to his own people. Don't worry; I won't upset your delicate sensibilities by describing it; the fact that it made hardened professional soldiers puke should tell you all you really need to know. The Cong and NVA weren't men, or soldiers, just sub-human, murdering, torturing scum. I don't won't to sit around singing Kum-By Ya with a damn one of them; I'd rather slit their lousy throats!
I came home, PTSD and all, to a country the Bolsheviki had filled with lies, where they had replaced the morality I knew, with something as filthy and nasty as their dirty, unwashed, scruffy selves. I came home to a country where draft dodgers and turncoat soldiers were praised, and patriotism was scorned. I came home to a country, where a "journalist" was a hero, and a soldier was a zero. I came home, to a country where college professors told the students every filthy lie they could about us, while they ran down the country that gave them the liberty to do that. That's not the America I went to war for. The Left took that from me too. And today? I've seen Vietnam vets slandered by liberals right here on this very board.
So I came home, and put up with all the shit, but I don't have to like it, and I'm tired of having my nose rubbed in it. The left called me an "enemy of the people". Well, to me, they are the enemy of liberty. Those people hated us, just as much as the VC they idolized did, and were just as much our enemies. No, I never forgave them, and I won't. I promised myself, and my brothers, especially those who died, that I would do all in my power to make the filthy lying despicable Left pay for what they did to us, if it took the rest of my life.That is a continuing mission for me, and I take it seriously. Anything I can do, that hurts the left in America, I will do; if I could stamp it out, I would. Those who spat and cursed, ran down America, dishonored and lied about soldiers, earned it. I've paid for my views, and by God, I want the Left to pay for theirs. I want you gutless wonders to experience just a little of the hell I have. You're sorry? I don't believe you. God, I hope I live to see the left take just 10% of what it dished out to us!
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