[Sh**ter]: McCain's view is correct, and why we shouldn't go to "war" again.

Do it well or don't do it at all.

As long as you're Slim Pickens with your cowboy hat, Sh**ter. Enlist. Now. Then you'll get a chance to ride it down.

Oh, but wait!: Sh**ter said he'd vote for Obama over McCain. Why do I think he's a venal pig and a liar?

Cheers,

If the Iraq War has any positive outcome, it will be this: the Vietnam myth can now be put to rest. Here we have a war with complete congressional compliance and complete media compliance. And yet the US still cannot "win." That's because, as in Vietnam, the US did not understand whom or why they were fighting.

Meanwhile, the reason many more Vietnamese did not die from the bombing of N. Vietnam is that they had an elaborate system of warning sirens and underground bunkers. In fact, the bombings took place at the same time everyday at some points. I read somewhere that some men died not from direct hits but from feeling the pressure from the bombs in their testicles.

A great work of fiction from the Vietnamese perspective is "Behind the Red Mist," a collection of stories by Ho Anh Thai.

I say: if they want to bring up the Vietnam War, by all means, let's revisit it. Tragically, students barely study it in high school or college these days.

It is possible to literally name the US servicemen and women who die (indeed, that is the basis for your Vietnam war memorial), but the margin of error when it comes to the civilian populations of the countries you are "freeing" from the tyranny of communism and 'evil' dictatorships tends to be about plus/minus a half a million anonymous deaths (and I'm being generous here).

Amen, and keep preaching that brother!

There is nothing moral about any American foreign action since 1945 at least. Both political parties are guilty and the American public has watched us kill foreigners wholesale for generations without complaint.

Reagan should have been tried for war crimes for Granada. (as an example)

Bumpers Stink ~;~ Bumping to Giggle. Mohawk McSane. Presidents are Imbeciles.

McCain Promises Poison Gas Cramps. Mr. McCain Can Clips Dog Food Coupons.

More Iraq Memorial Day Used Mattress Sales. Veterans Hate Use Old Mattress.

Fight The Urge To Puke.

Golf Ball in the Jaw.

I Forgot my brain.

Hey Glenn you're the lead story at Swampland today....

Glenn also got a H/T from Democratic Underground's Top 10 Conservative Idiots" (http://www.DemocraticUnderground.com/top10) this week (not for being one; for pointing some out...)

Cheers,

McWarmonger can and does reduce his views to a bumper sticker. The other side needs to do that as well.

There's one I like on a neighbour's car:

"At least the war on the environment is going well...."

Puts a lot into one pithy phrase. ;-)

Cheers,

That there could even be any confusion as to whose casualties that number (52,000) referred, American or Vietnamese, reveals the abject horror of war, American-style. More than anything else, it is what the current war (Iraq) has in common with Vietnam, namely, a complete and willful ignorance of the only "metric" that matters when one is purportedly coming to the aid of another country.

It is possible to literally name the US servicemen and women who die (indeed, that is the basis for your Vietnam war memorial), but the margin of error when it comes to the civilian populations of the countries you are "freeing" from the tyranny of communism and 'evil' dictatorships tends to be about plus/minus a half a million anonymous deaths (and I'm being generous here).

At least people like McCain and Hillary "Obliterate Iran" Clinton are more honest about how little America cares about the lives of others when pursuing its own interests. What is hypocritical is pretending to be squeamish whenever someone like a McCain speaks unflinchingly about what has been, is being, and will continue to be, done in your name.

@ 9:24 Ben Sen. ... "outdated belief".... And the outdated notion of a diabolical untamed beast from Sheol. Yes. Sun Tzu.

Never underestimate evil.

The dark bile, or whatever.

All the more McCain's jaws,

need to be stopped. Ghastly.

Oh, Fox have teeth? Dastardly.

These are real dark lost-ghost.

The lust for blood is monstrous,

dark menaces are bottomless hades pits.

Keep 'em coming!

Everytime I have this argument about McCain, someone always says this, either as a prelude to "...but..." or more often, to nod to his allegedly superior wisdom in all things military and foreign policy.

Here is what I say, taking leave of my usual prescription for balance, conciliation, and so forth.

Fuck John McCain's service.

He sat out the war in the Hanoi Hilton. Yeah, it wasn't in a spa in Canada, but even there he would have been better informed than he was about Vietnam from 67-73 (and for however long afterwards). He needs to STFU and stop putting himself out as the expert-by-proximity.

He's the exact opposite of an Example I would want to hold up as noble warrior chieftain, even if such a thing were desirable.

Embracing the 'stab in the back' narrative is no different than embracing the 'agents of intolerance' --- it's just courting a bunch of people on the periphery who will serve as a political blocking force to the others he can't or won't reach. And as usual, choosing the most digusting, retrograde and destructive elements for the kiss.

McCain's entire existence has been about grooming himself for membership (already provisional by birth) in the ruling class. There's nothing wrong with leveraging your service for social mobility, or even out of some kind of noblesse oblige, but the intentionality runs in the opposite direction here.

...is because he was a pilot in the Vietnam war, one of the pilots who bombed North Vietnamese targets.

McCain is dangerous with a capital D, not to mention just plain stupid. Like Bush, who gave Osama bin Laden everything a terrorist could wish for, McCain will give the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan exactly what they want: increased, manic efforts to eradicate them that will result in increased civilian casualties, increased damage to population centers. As a result, the insurgents will win the war of ideas when they are no longer seen as the enemies of peace but as defenders against an awesome bully (as in David and Goliath).

It's exactly how the Russians lost in Afghanistan. If we should be studying any war for clues on how to proceed, it should be that one, not Vietnam.

Moreover, the US understanding of who exactly the "terrorists," our enemies are in this war is, just as in Vietnam, sorely deficient and remarkably obtuse. Our enemy is Al-Qaida, a deadly but diffuse and loosely connected organization of sworn emenies of the US. However, we are fighting them in a place where they are able to bulk up their slim numbers by recruiting in population centers that are sympathetic to their cause. What makes them sympathetic to Al-Qaida's cuase? We do, with precisely the kinds of Vietnam War strategies that McCain advocates.

It's a vicious circle!