Burying Vietnam, Launching Perpetual War
By Christian Appy / TomDispatch February 8, 2015Photo Credit: Keith Tarrier/Shutterstock.com
In the 1980s, however, the Americans most saddled with blame for abusing Vietnam veterans were the antiwar activists of the previous era. Forget that, in its later years, the antiwar movement was often led by and filled with antiwar vets. According to a pervasive postwar myth, veterans returning home from Vietnam were commonly accused of being baby killers and spat upon by protestors. The spat-upon story -- wildly exaggerated, if not entirely invented -- helped reinforce the rightward turn in American politics in the post-Vietnam era. It was a way of teaching Americans to honor victimized veterans, while dishonoring the millions of Americans who had fervently worked to bring them safely home from war. In this way, the most extraordinary antiwar movement in memory was discredited and dispatched to the trash bin of history.
From the Vietnam War, the Pentagon and its apologists learned fundamental lessons about how to burnish, bend, and bury the truth. The results have been devastating. The fashioning of a bogus American tragedy from a real Vietnamese one has paved the way for so many more such tragedies, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Pakistan to Yemen, and -- if history is any guide -- an unknown one still emerging, no doubt from another of those 133 countries.
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/world/burying-vietnam-launching-perpetual-war
VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)clamoring for war with John McCain!
polly7
(20,582 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)I DO!
What ages would you say most of those old White guys marching around are?
polly7
(20,582 posts)hate what that war did to them and are against seeing it happen again?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)the endless wars were fighting for no good reason.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I hope you're doing ok.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)doing good here outside of Flagstaff, AZ, we have a small farm and we're living our sunset years just enjoying life and peace.
polly7
(20,582 posts)DustyJoe
(849 posts)Maybe they will get stupid enough to reinstate the draft and force millions more just out of high school boys into the service and send them to be cannon fodder for ISIS, AQ, Ukranians, Russians, Boko Haram and any other host of bad guys they feel ill will towards.
Then maybe the anti-war movement, as body bags by the thousands as in the 1960's pour back home with teenagers ripped from their homes by the draft board enrage parents and relatives.
Till then with an all volunteer military, you will never see the anti-war sentiment of the 1960's again.