Ok, I'm going to wade in here, in a way I haven't for awhile. Vietnam had more 'shellshocked', 'battle fatigued' than previous wars. I truly do not believe that was do to their actions, but rather the concensus at home. They were the baby killers that Kerry and his ilk succeeded in labeling them.
Conservatives do a lot of rewriting history in regard to Vietnam Kathianne. They like to blame our failure on liberals, hippies, protesters, and just the general opposition at home.
What Cons seem to forget is that the situation over there turned bad as a result of poor policy. Opposition didn't begin at home until the public found out that it was being lied to about the reasons for us being over there. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an example.
Vietnam was also the first time in history Americans got to see the reality of war on their televisions every evening. If the same kind of TV coverage had been available during WWII and Korea there wouldn't have been the consolidated "support" at home for those wars either. When Cons bring up the "good old days" of WWII and cite the support at home they're only telling half of the story. At that time war was sanitized and the only reports the average American got were DOD press releases (propaganda) that only glorified our efforts and painted every action America took as "just" and "noble."
It is unfortunate that some Americans vented their shock, outrage, and horror on returning soldiers. I'd like to think we know a lot more collectively now as Americans. I think we've learned that if you've got to spit on somebody it should be on the politicians that order our troops into situations like this in the first place.
Iraq? I think in the sense that the US needs a launching point in the ME, this is relevent, but that is not how it was sold. In any case, we are there, so we need to 'win'. Problem is, that would leave a positive GW legacy, which is unacceptable to some.
That's called "throwing good after bad" and it's not a very effective strategy for winning war. This whole thing was launched on false premises and poor strategies and those strategies have failed. The only person who can't admit that seems to be George Bush. To just hang on trying the same things that have been failing in the past hoping they're going to finally start working is suicidal and frankly borders on insanity.
Yeah....we're there alright. That's the problem. There's probably not going to be any happy ending here. Admitting that doesn't mean I'm wishing for defeat. It's simple pragmatism. We need to cut our losses, bring our troops home, regroup, assess and evaluate, and live to fight another day. That's the best we can hope for now.
Cons shouldn't shoot the messengers who are simply stating the obvious!
