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roachboy · 09-02-2004, 01:52 PM

on vietnam. the "vietnam card"......

the americans were not stabbed in the back by anyone..that is a far right canard that somehow has wended its way into mainstream discourse....the fact is that the americans had no idea what they were fighting against, what the historical situation that shaped that fight was--hell if robert macnamara can admit this freely, you would think the american right would be able to follow suit.

and there **are** parallels between these situations--formal ones--but they exist--from the selling of a war under false pretenses (the tonkin gulf charade) to the refusal to take seriously what is happening on the ground, to the idiotic idea that you can impose democracy, in its shallow american form even, through war and simply wipe out and entirely different mode of thinking about politics, to a kind of collective mental block that prevented the americans in both cases from understanding that national liberation did not mean colonial occupation by americans==the list goes on and on.

the john-wayne attitude (we cahnt do nuthin with handwringing gestures) functioned during vietnam as a public justification carnage in vietnam, much more than waht might have been necessary, even if you accepted the american argument for being there in the first place--which i do not. the same kind of john wayne idiocy in iraq has and will do the same.

that saddam hussein was not a great guy is not in dispute--but (i have written this before) the americans have supported dictators far wrose than him without the slightest qualm over the past 70 years or so--if you look at the history of american foreign policy, you find that this is a country that really does not give a shit about human rights unless the matter gets tangled up in one of political expediency
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saddam hussein was a problem for the neocons because of the narrative they floated about the first gulf war--that "the job was not finished" because the americans were hobbled by the evil united nations--this war is much more about an attempt by these people to reverse a precedent and place american military power over any and all international institutions--except they fucked it up and will continue to fuck it up---because they believed the totally false scenarios created by nitwits like wolfowitz who actually persuaded bush that this would be easy, that the americans would be welcomed with open arms and flowers--we'll be home by christmas, ma--blah blah blah.

instead you have a fiasco. unjustified from the outset, sold on the basis of lies at worst, of wildly misread "intellgence" at best, not thought out, not going according to plan--an action with nothing--aboslutely nothing--to do with any "war on terror" that has causesd thousands of civilian casualties that the americans try to deal with by not talking about them. great stuff. worked out great in vietnam too.

you even have a repeat of the "guns and butter" mode of funding a war by not funding it really thing that worked so fabulously for johnson.

it is astonishing. it required an incompetent of a really high order to pull this off. you have one in george w bush--who by the way is obviously a unilateralist, not an isolationist (buchanan was and is one of these)....

09-02-2004, 01:52 PM	#78 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	on vietnam. the "vietnam card"...... the americans were not stabbed in the back by anyone..that is a far right canard that somehow has wended its way into mainstream discourse....the fact is that the americans had no idea what they were fighting against, what the historical situation that shaped that fight was--hell if robert macnamara can admit this freely, you would think the american right would be able to follow suit. and there are parallels between these situations--formal ones--but they exist--from the selling of a war under false pretenses (the tonkin gulf charade) to the refusal to take seriously what is happening on the ground, to the idiotic idea that you can impose democracy, in its shallow american form even, through war and simply wipe out and entirely different mode of thinking about politics, to a kind of collective mental block that prevented the americans in both cases from understanding that national liberation did not mean colonial occupation by americans==the list goes on and on. the john-wayne attitude (we cahnt do nuthin with handwringing gestures) functioned during vietnam as a public justification carnage in vietnam, much more than waht might have been necessary, even if you accepted the american argument for being there in the first place--which i do not. the same kind of john wayne idiocy in iraq has and will do the same. that saddam hussein was not a great guy is not in dispute--but (i have written this before) the americans have supported dictators far wrose than him without the slightest qualm over the past 70 years or so--if you look at the history of american foreign policy, you find that this is a country that really does not give a shit about human rights unless the matter gets tangled up in one of political expediency . saddam hussein was a problem for the neocons because of the narrative they floated about the first gulf war--that "the job was not finished" because the americans were hobbled by the evil united nations--this war is much more about an attempt by these people to reverse a precedent and place american military power over any and all international institutions--except they fucked it up and will continue to fuck it up---because they believed the totally false scenarios created by nitwits like wolfowitz who actually persuaded bush that this would be easy, that the americans would be welcomed with open arms and flowers--we'll be home by christmas, ma--blah blah blah. instead you have a fiasco. unjustified from the outset, sold on the basis of lies at worst, of wildly misread "intellgence" at best, not thought out, not going according to plan--an action with nothing--aboslutely nothing--to do with any "war on terror" that has causesd thousands of civilian casualties that the americans try to deal with by not talking about them. great stuff. worked out great in vietnam too. you even have a repeat of the "guns and butter" mode of funding a war by not funding it really thing that worked so fabulously for johnson. it is astonishing. it required an incompetent of a really high order to pull this off. you have one in george w bush--who by the way is obviously a unilateralist, not an isolationist (buchanan was and is one of these).... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 09-02-2004 at 02:04 PM..