So, finally George W. wants to draw a comparison with Iraq and Vietnam and has the audacity to do so before a group of Vietnam veterans. Of course the veterans are the lock step, revisionist, mindless assholes of the VFW who would have us believe Vietnam was some damn honorable action of a nation only wanting to come to the aid of the poor underdog.
Instead of calling out the Chicken-hawk-in Chief, the VFW crew applauds the sorry SOB when he calls for more men and women to sacrifice their lives for an endless and fruitless war. And they think they’re supporting the troops.
Sorry, assholes, but you’re living in the past thinking you can win this counter-insurgency conflict using your sons, daughters and grandchildren as sacrificial lambs.
I suggest the VFW crew quit sitting around the bar and telling war stories about their past glories and take the place of the young folks in the military who detest what they’re being asked to do in Iraq. For once in this nation’s history, let’s send the old war mongering hawks out to be killed and kill.
Paraphrasing Dick Lamm’s remarks about old people many years ago…”we have a duty to die”. Lamm was talking about elderly folks trying to live forever and overburdening the healthcare system but why not send the old bastards who sit around saying we should have stuck it out in Vietnam or if only we’d had more of this or that, we could have won?
Dubya’s stunt is less reprehensible than veterans who applaud him as he says “more, more, more...” like the “fortunate son” he’s always been. It just boggles this old grunt’s mind to think anybody who bled in and endured the fiasco and slaughter of Vietnam could applaud a bastard that did everything he could to avoid going and got away with it.
It demonstrates how the rich and powerful not only use privilege to avoid sacrificing as much as the poor or middle class for this nation but also dupe the dumb bastards into believing another war is needed. Just don’t ask the rich and powerful to sacrifice in this one either because “it is a volunteer army”. And the troops chose to be part of the slaughter.
The rich “fortunate sons” are needed to run the “democracy” at home and take advantage of college education given them on a platter because mom and dad are alumni and donors. The rich can’t be bothered with the dying when they are needed to plan the bloodshed.
Bob Dylan called them the “masters of war” and said “even Jesus can’t forgive what you did”. Michael Franti says “those that start wars never fight them, those that fight wars never like them”.
The sickening realization I’ve come to is too many that fight wars forget them when it comes time to make another sacrifice to a senseless and immoral war machine that eats generation after generation. I see the VFW and American Legion as the feeder system to the meat-grinder killing American kids and kids in the nations we occupy and destroy.
I shouldn’t be surprised Vietnam veterans would divide up on this war just as they have on the legacy of Vietnam. Revisionists like the Swift Boaters and the flag flyers joining the groups like VFW and the Legion want the bloodshed to have meant something other than a failed foreign policy and imperialistic designs of the rich. They can’t accept the truth. They can’t believe their nation’s leaders would send them to war without a true threat to the national good.
What surprises me is the same flag flyers would join ranks with the lying lowlife who did everything he could to avoid going to Vietnam. He and his entire cabinet have thumbed their noses at the lowly grunt and the veterans. And yet these groups of veterans that include many Vietnam veterans applaud the bastard chicken-hawk.
Bush has long turned my stomach with his total disregard toward the poor, the middle class and the working person. He’s consistently shown his administration will only do the right thing for veterans when the veterans and family demand it and not before.
At the start of the war the body armor and armored vehicles were missing but they sent the troops anyway. Bush has yet to go to one single funeral of a dead troop killed in the two wars. Walter Reed and most of the other hospitals meant to treat the returning veterans for physical and emotional problems have been substandard. Several attempts have been made to thwart treatment of PTSD and TBI by this group of cowardly men and women.
The list goes on and on as documented by several reports and several watchdog groups.
Apparently the VFW on August 22, 2007 overlooked the lies and disregard of Bush and trust his management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Apparently they don’t give one damn bit about the welfare of the troops on the ground or returned from several tours of duty.
Apparently all that matters to them is some concept of winning a war that can never be won.
Apparently the VFW has seen too many John Wayne movies and think war is like some damn video game where there has to be a winner. Apparently they forget there are no winners in war.
I would expect such an attitude from George W. but I can’t believe these guys would fall for the same bullshit all over again.
Some will say veterans are brothers in arms but I will categorically say veterans who refuse to accept the truth and will voluntarily put another generation at risk for the benefit of the rich could never be my brothers.
Veterans living in the past and failing to learn are fools. It doesn’t matter how many medals or how many battles they’ve fought if they didn’t learn from the violence.
Veterans subjecting another generation of young people to war without absolute need for war are as culpable as the “masters of war” perpetrating the wars. They rally the cannon fodder for the bidding of the gangsters Smedley Butler so eloquently talked about in his article “War is A Racket”.
No matter how many alleged services organizations like VFW and American Legion claim they perform, the deaths they take part in promoting can never be forgiven…even by Jesus.
William T. Leichner
USMC combat veteran
Vietnam December 31, 1968 – February 12, 1969
Instead of calling out the Chicken-hawk-in Chief, the VFW crew applauds the sorry SOB when he calls for more men and women to sacrifice their lives for an endless and fruitless war. And they think they’re supporting the troops.
Sorry, assholes, but you’re living in the past thinking you can win this counter-insurgency conflict using your sons, daughters and grandchildren as sacrificial lambs.
I suggest the VFW crew quit sitting around the bar and telling war stories about their past glories and take the place of the young folks in the military who detest what they’re being asked to do in Iraq. For once in this nation’s history, let’s send the old war mongering hawks out to be killed and kill.
Paraphrasing Dick Lamm’s remarks about old people many years ago…”we have a duty to die”. Lamm was talking about elderly folks trying to live forever and overburdening the healthcare system but why not send the old bastards who sit around saying we should have stuck it out in Vietnam or if only we’d had more of this or that, we could have won?
Dubya’s stunt is less reprehensible than veterans who applaud him as he says “more, more, more...” like the “fortunate son” he’s always been. It just boggles this old grunt’s mind to think anybody who bled in and endured the fiasco and slaughter of Vietnam could applaud a bastard that did everything he could to avoid going and got away with it.
It demonstrates how the rich and powerful not only use privilege to avoid sacrificing as much as the poor or middle class for this nation but also dupe the dumb bastards into believing another war is needed. Just don’t ask the rich and powerful to sacrifice in this one either because “it is a volunteer army”. And the troops chose to be part of the slaughter.
The rich “fortunate sons” are needed to run the “democracy” at home and take advantage of college education given them on a platter because mom and dad are alumni and donors. The rich can’t be bothered with the dying when they are needed to plan the bloodshed.
Bob Dylan called them the “masters of war” and said “even Jesus can’t forgive what you did”. Michael Franti says “those that start wars never fight them, those that fight wars never like them”.
The sickening realization I’ve come to is too many that fight wars forget them when it comes time to make another sacrifice to a senseless and immoral war machine that eats generation after generation. I see the VFW and American Legion as the feeder system to the meat-grinder killing American kids and kids in the nations we occupy and destroy.
I shouldn’t be surprised Vietnam veterans would divide up on this war just as they have on the legacy of Vietnam. Revisionists like the Swift Boaters and the flag flyers joining the groups like VFW and the Legion want the bloodshed to have meant something other than a failed foreign policy and imperialistic designs of the rich. They can’t accept the truth. They can’t believe their nation’s leaders would send them to war without a true threat to the national good.
What surprises me is the same flag flyers would join ranks with the lying lowlife who did everything he could to avoid going to Vietnam. He and his entire cabinet have thumbed their noses at the lowly grunt and the veterans. And yet these groups of veterans that include many Vietnam veterans applaud the bastard chicken-hawk.
Bush has long turned my stomach with his total disregard toward the poor, the middle class and the working person. He’s consistently shown his administration will only do the right thing for veterans when the veterans and family demand it and not before.
At the start of the war the body armor and armored vehicles were missing but they sent the troops anyway. Bush has yet to go to one single funeral of a dead troop killed in the two wars. Walter Reed and most of the other hospitals meant to treat the returning veterans for physical and emotional problems have been substandard. Several attempts have been made to thwart treatment of PTSD and TBI by this group of cowardly men and women.
The list goes on and on as documented by several reports and several watchdog groups.
Apparently the VFW on August 22, 2007 overlooked the lies and disregard of Bush and trust his management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Apparently they don’t give one damn bit about the welfare of the troops on the ground or returned from several tours of duty.
Apparently all that matters to them is some concept of winning a war that can never be won.
Apparently the VFW has seen too many John Wayne movies and think war is like some damn video game where there has to be a winner. Apparently they forget there are no winners in war.
I would expect such an attitude from George W. but I can’t believe these guys would fall for the same bullshit all over again.
Some will say veterans are brothers in arms but I will categorically say veterans who refuse to accept the truth and will voluntarily put another generation at risk for the benefit of the rich could never be my brothers.
Veterans living in the past and failing to learn are fools. It doesn’t matter how many medals or how many battles they’ve fought if they didn’t learn from the violence.
Veterans subjecting another generation of young people to war without absolute need for war are as culpable as the “masters of war” perpetrating the wars. They rally the cannon fodder for the bidding of the gangsters Smedley Butler so eloquently talked about in his article “War is A Racket”.
No matter how many alleged services organizations like VFW and American Legion claim they perform, the deaths they take part in promoting can never be forgiven…even by Jesus.
William T. Leichner
USMC combat veteran
Vietnam December 31, 1968 – February 12, 1969
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