Well, no doubt there were lots of Vietnamese were dying while the fighting was going on. That's sorta the point of fighting, isn't it?

Just to kill people? I'm beginning to understand your position on Iraq better. At the time, there were other reasons advanced for the war, but if people dying is what you were after, then I guess it was Mission Accomplished all the way.

Since the North Vietnamese were the enemy, I'm less concerned about the number of casualties they incurred than I am concerned about the losses of our allies.

You might forgive the Vietnamese for considering themselves human.

I don't know the ration of South Vietnamese who lost their lives in combat versus those who lost their lives in the purges that followed our withdrawal.

I just tried to look it up, and it's a mess. Everyone has different estimates. The war dead seem to be from two to four times the postwar dead for the South, but it's hard to know which figures to put credence into. The main point is that however many postwar deaths there were, they were going to happen no matter when we left. If anything, dragging the war out hardened the attitudes of the eventual victors and contributed to more deaths. In any scenario other than some of the more fanciful that include the fantasy of South Vietnamese victory, it is obvious that the earlier we'd left, the fewer of every nationality would have died.

And her 'advice' should be listened to why?

It would have saved American lives.

...all those retruning veterans who claimed that these 'convenient myths' actually occurred are liars and that all the reports of such occurrences are in error, but I don't see any reason to suppose that.

Educate yourself
Quote:
Debunking a spitting image
By Jerry Lembcke | April 30, 2005

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.

What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their point of origin in time and place is obscure, and, yet, they have very similar details. The story told by the man who spat on Jane Fonda at a book signing in Kansas City recently is typical. Michael Smith said he came back through Los Angeles airport where ''people were lined up to spit on us."

Like many stories of the spat-upon veteran genre, Smith's lacks credulity. GIs landed at military airbases, not civilian airports, and protesters could not have gotten onto the bases and anywhere near deplaning troops. There may have been exceptions, of course, but in those cases how would protesters have known in advance that a plane was being diverted to a civilian site? And even then, returnees would have been immediately bused to nearby military installations and processed for reassignment or discharge.

The exaggerations in Smith's story are characteristic of those told by others. ''Most Vietnam veterans were spat on when we came back," he said. That's not true. A 1971 Harris poll conducted for the Veterans Administration found over 90 percent of Vietnam veterans reporting a friendly homecoming. Far from spitting on veterans, the antiwar movement welcomed them into its ranks and thousands of veterans joined the opposition to the war.

The persistence of spat-upon Vietnam veteran stories suggests that they continue to fill a need in American culture. The image of spat-upon veterans is the icon through which many people remember the loss of the war, the centerpiece of a betrayal narrative that understands the war to have been lost because of treason on the home front. Jane Fonda's noisiest detractors insist she should have been prosecuted for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in conformity with the law of the land.

You won't remember this article next time, but I will.

Most people want to avoid senseless deaths. But, of course, in the minds of most of the anti-war crowd, nothing says 'I support the troops' better than proclaiming that the deaths of their comrades in arms and the cause for which they fight are 'senseless'.

Perpetuating the fantasy that it makes sense to kill more Americans in Iraq is far worse.

Who said that?

So you are in favor of withdrawal? Why didn't you say so?

And since when did you become concerned about taking 'right' steps in Iraq? I thought you were of the opinion that there is no such thing as a 'right step' in Iraq since the whole thing is a necon boondoggle.

The right step now is to withdraw our military.

If the North Vietnamese had been defeated, I think that the deaths of South Vietnamese at the hands of the North Vietnamese after the war would have been less.

Well, that wasn't ever going to happen. The strongest nation in the world threw a half-million men at them, and bombed the hell out of them, and they still were not beaten. The ARVN was sure not going to do it.

You doubt that. I'm not sure why that's important, but I'll grant that you doubt that.

You were trying to make a moral argument, and now you've backed off from it. Fine.

So her complaints, and that of the anti-war movement of the day, had more to do with 'strategy'? How does linking arms with the enemy and simultaneuosly denouncing one's own country bring about military victories, strategically-speaking?

I'm asking you to think, Iowan. Is that too much? The point is that the war served NO PURPOSE. It would have been better to withdraw.

Since we don't know whether or not we and they'd have been better off (whatever that vague phrase means), what is there to learn?

I'm making the noncontroversial statement that the US would have been better off to have lost fewer troops in Vietnam, and you can't even agree with that. You are unreachable.

The only sort of 'poll' I'm interested in is a vote. If things were determined by 'polls', then John Kerry would be president today. He's not.

And what are the chances of such a vote? You're just wilfully ignorant on this point.

That's the purpose of a refendum, to find that out.

The referendum you don't seem to want enough to demand it?

The Iraqi government doesn't appear to think a precipitous withdrawal would make us and them better off.

They don't want a surge either. They want a gradual withdrawal starting now. But neither you nor Bush cares what the Iraqis want. Is it any wonder the Iraqis are thoroughly sick of this occupation and what it's brought?

Which means that today Congress is not serious about their opposition to the surge.

Not serious enough for me, no. They sure don't support it, though.

Atta boy! Maybe you can hire Fonda as a consultant.

Unlike your side, we don't require payment. Trying to do the right thing is enough.

I don't think the American people want the war defunded. In that respect, I think I'm right in line with what the American people want.

Wow, that was evasive enough for anyone. Americans want a reduction of troop levels, not an increase. The rate at which we withdraw is up for discussion, but Bush is going the wrong way. Are you with Bush or the American people on this?

Splendid! My government tax dollars at work?

Not the postage, of course; I'm paying that. But since we're govt employees and sending you stuff you asked for (and some you didn't) at no charge, I suppose you could say it is your tax dollars at work. In Washington, we live to serve the public. (Or is that service the public?)