If I had a prosthetic leg, I'd have it unscrewed right at the moment.

Yep. Visualize me here banging a keyboard with a fake lower left leg.

There were 3.2 million who served a `Nam tour. Most, rear necessary supports.

A mere miniscule number were 11-b (Grunt) in the jungle day and night, every day.

A 6.2% were in infantry units. * A daily repetition, a daily meditation, on life and death.

Figures vary. It was 58-60-thousand US dead. And 350,000 were sever medevac wounds.

Jails, bad discharges, suicides, and drinking to self medicate caused many premature deaths.

The figures are estimates.

History will say 6 X's 60 were dead within the decade post 1972? Whatever? 'It don't mean nothing'.... huh. McCain is a "walking dead" man. They were like that in Vietnam. GOPS too.

The Nazis touted the notion -- popular among German soldiers -- that Germany had not really been defeated in World War I, but had been betrayed by politicians, Jews and Communists. Likewise, some Vietnam "historians" tout another "stab in the back" theory -- that America was betrayed by politicians, the media, and war protestors.

When it was time to criticize the hawks' claims or warn of long & difficult and counterproductive engagements, you danged liberals were completely wrong to use an analogy with the U.S.' war in Viet Nam to the current action in Iraq.

It is absolutely and completely different.

However, when it comes time for right wingers to allege that just like as in Viet Nam we coulda won it if it hadn't been for all them traitorous hippies stabbin' us in the back, so too can we win in Iraq if we're willing to stay there forever.

In that case the analogy is apt and okay.

See?

This quote:

He called his approach "MindWar" -- using network TV and radio to "strengthen our national will to victory."

Is that really from the New York Times, or are you slipping in bits from 1984 on me?

Honestly, how much more damn Orwellian can this country get? The parallels are terrifying, right down to the almost overnight shift from war on al Qaeda to war on Iraq.

Not only did the Soviets have complete control over what went out in their press, they had basically no limits as to what sorts of tactics the soldiers could use. No nukes, but beyond that, it was anything goes. All the atrocities that get American soldiers in the headlines, they could do with impunity. They were completely free to "take the gloves off" (god, I hate that RW euphamism).

And they still lost.

"too many words" wasn't in any way a criticism of the argument or your presentation. It was my own (lame) verbal shorthand for the inherent difficulty of making the point in such a fashion that the "average joe" understands.

I agree w/ this 100%:

As he [Chomsky] has pointed out, when you have a message that is something other than conventional wisdom being said over and over, then it's impossible to express the message in a persuasive way using very few words. Those who espouse conventional wisdom need not offer evidence or articulate their premises, because it's all just assumed. Only those who challenge that wisdom are required to do so, which makes that message one that, by definition, can't be accommodated on television.

I would argue, though, that many of your arguments (illegality of FISA, media failure/complicity/laziness, unAmerican aspects of Unitary Executive theory, shallowness of Republican identity politics, etc.) are a bit less "radical" than Chomsky's. Yes, fully articulating the position can't be done in sound-bites. But "Torture is UnAmerican" can conceivably sway some as a sound-bite. "The U.S. is the largest exporter of State-sponsored Terrorism", not so much.

At antiwar.com Justin Raimondo points out:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12827

It looks like the War Party is victorious, at least according to Philip Giraldi writing on The American Conservative blog:

"There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Quds-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action."

Alarm bells ought to be going off across the nation. The presidential candidates ought to be debating whether or not this is the right course. Obama, the "antiwar" candidate, ought to be speaking out.

[...]

This is an important issue. We are at war in Iraq (or it is an occupation), but yet another war in the middle east would be a nightmare. Will Oabama speak out?

Vote for More War
Vote for McCain

McCain's chief foreign policy adviser is neocon, PNAC director, and all out war-monger Randy Scheunemann. Here's a sweet little taste of his "prescient" views from April 2003 with Jim Lehrer.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/un_04-12.html

Mr. Scheunemann, should the United Nations and Britain stand aside now and let the U. N. run reconstruction of Iraq?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: Absolutely not. It would be the wrong moral and strategic choice. The United Nations has a sordid track record that helped keep Saddam Hussein in power, to give the U. N. a leading role gives France a veto, and I don't think anyone believes that France has to interests of the people of Iraq as its first primary motivation. Finally, the U.N.'s record in political administration is not very good, and I don't think we want to replicate the experiment of Kosovo, for example, in Iraq.

...

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Scheunemann, why not share it with the international community?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: Sharing is fine. The problem is going to be if we allow the U.N. a controlling role. I think Pres. Bush has said he would welcome a vital role for the U. N., a specialized agency as a provision of humanitarian aid, resettling refugees should that become an issue, the provision of food. The real question, though, comes down to what's going to happen when we go to the U. N. Security Council because we will need a resolution to lift the sanctions that have been in place since 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait, and how the French and others are going to react, and if in fact they are going to support the lifting of sanctions on a liberated Iraq the way they supported the lifting of sanctions on Saddam Hussein, or whether in fact they try to leverage the need to lift sanctions into a greater political controlling role for the U.N..

IM LEHRER: Do you see this, Mr. Scheunemann, as an issue about France, Germany, and Russia, more than -- in other words if they had supported the resolution would you have a problem with the U.N. having a controlling role?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: Absolutely, it's more than the coalition of the unwilling in St. Petersburg today. It has to do with the record of the U. N. itself. Kofi Annan went in 1998 and cut a deal with Saddam dam that undermined the UNSCOM arms inspection regime. The oil for food program has strengthened Saddam's repressive apparatus, and also perversely given a huge incentive to the United Nations to keep it going. They've gotten over a billion dollars from it, they employee 40,000 people. Listening to Kofi Annan on Iraq you like listening to Arthur Andersen on Enron.

...

JIM LEHRER: Now, your position, Mr. Scheunemann, is that U. N. Security Council should have nothing to do with this?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: No no -- no. I think that we would welcome a resolution that blesses participation, that facilitates the IMF and World Bank going in, that facilitates U.N. specialized agencies. The problem comes exactly as you said, on the issue of control. I think it would be a little easier to think the French actually cared about the people of Iraq if their position were they were going to forgive the $9 billion of debt that they accumulated with Saddam Hussein, and if they renounce their sweetheart oil deal that is they signed with Saddam Hussein. The reality is, I don't think the people of Iraq believe, and I certainly don't believe, that the French have an interest in building democracy in Iraq. Neither does much of the United Nations Security Council. We do. We shed American blood to build, to liberate the people and to build a democracy there. I don't think China has that interest. I don't think Russia has that interest.

JIM LEHRER: And because we shed the blood, then we have the right to control the process?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: We certainly have a right to ensure that our goals, which are the betterment of the Iraqi people, the liberation, the building of a free market economy, and a building of pluralistic political institutions, is the outcome of the process, for the benefit of the people of Iraq, not for the benefit of the United States or France.

...

JIM LEHRER: What about the ambassador's point that he just made that it's impossible to set up a situation where the U. N. would be reporting to an American official?

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: If the U. N. doesn't want to report to an American official, that's fine. U. N. Specialized agencies can come in and do what they do well. I don't think dredging up the experience of South Vietnam serves the purpose of arguing the United Nations can build nations better. I don't think anyone argues, perhaps even the ambassador won't argue the U. N. should have a leading security role in Iraq. After all, they had a leading security role in Rwanda and we had genocide and in Srebrenica, and we had genocide. I don't think we want to go down that road again.

I think it is safe to say that McCain would be France's worst nightmare.