.

• What's our campaign slogan, Bussy? "Happy day's are here again!" -- Franklin Roosevelt questions his granddaughter in a 1932 campaign film

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

This veteran's recall of the "ambivalence" back then, along the lines of the NYT (page 2) election story, tells me that forty years have served to escalate the memory of Vietnam into something far more and far different than what it really was. The Vietnam story can only be understood in the aftermath of the victorious glow of WW II, while the successful Iraqi elections can only be told in the aftermath of the defeatist "quagmire" that Vietnam has become.

My period of service was 1966-70. In '66, we all were a bit concerned about the war, but it was no big deal. That was the general attitude until Tet of '68. After that, it all turned around. I was outside the US at the time, adn still managed to be aware of this shift. It was tectonic.

Kinda reminds me of the sort of general ambivalence that greeted the bull market prior to 1929. Oh, sure there were some folks warning of the coming danger. But nevertheless most believed the New Economy promised a "chicken in every pot, a car in every garage."

By 1933, FDR was championing the "Forgotten man" amid swelling breadlines and 25% unemployment. Twenty years later, Truman handed Ike a national budget with 70% earmarked for the military.

Forty years following the great bull of the 1920s, the once "Forgotten man" (now aging New Dealers, fat labor bosses and proud veteran war heroes) became ambivalent to the approaching dangers posed by the hubris of the New Frontier, and it's associated economic engine: the "military industrial complex."

And, soon, a new Forgotten Man would replace the old one of FDR's day, and Oh, happy days were seemingly "here again."

Sounds cyclical to me.

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Well, its better than leaving them destroyed, in my opinion.

No doubt. At the same time, to fix or replace someone else's property, after you yourself have broken it, is hardly praiseworthy. Only in elementary school do people get kudos for meeting the minimum appropriate behavioral level for human beings. Should we run hagiographic stories about American soldiers washing their hands after using the toilet, too?

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

.

• What's our campaign slogan, Bussy? "Happy day's are here again!" -- Franklin Roosevelt questions his granddaughter in a 1932 campaign film

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

This veteran's recall of the "ambivalence" back then, along the lines of the NYT (page 2) election story, tells me that forty years have served to escalate the memory of Vietnam into something far more and far different than what it really was. The Vietnam story can only be understood in the aftermath of the victorious glow of WW II, while the successful Iraqi elections can only be told in the aftermath of the defeatist "quagmire" that Vietnam has become.

My period of service was 1966-70. In '66, we all were a bit concerned about the war, but it was no big deal. That was the general attitude until Tet of '68. After that, it all turned around. I was outside the US at the time, adn still managed to be aware of this shift. It was tectonic.

Kinda reminds me of the sort of general ambivalence that greeted the bull market prior to 1929. Oh, sure there were some folks warning of the coming danger. But nevertheless most believed the New Economy promised a "chicken in every pot, a car in every garage."

By 1933, FDR was championing the "Forgotten man" amid swelling breadlines and 25% unemployment. Twenty years later, Truman handed Ike a national budget with 70% earmarked for the military.

Forty years following the great bull of the 1920s, the once "Forgotten man" (now aging New Dealers, fat labor bosses and proud veteran war heroes) became ambivalent to the approaching dangers posed by the hubris of the New Frontier, and it's associated economic engine: the "military industrial complex."

And, soon, a new Forgotten Man would replace the old one of FDR's day, and Oh, happy days were seeming "here again."

Sounds cyclical to me.

This is totally bizarre. We have a guy that was too young for Vietnam excouriating a Vietnam vet for his interpretation of the very conflict he fought in.
My father was in that conflict too - drafted against his will. If Gerry Ford had had his way, there would have been many others drafted too. but it was Ford that accused Johnson of "pulling punches in Vietnam" in 1968 in a moment of wholly unpatriotic partisan vitriol.
It's nice to see that somethings never change...must be a cycle :shock:

Originally Posted by Blue Stater

This is totally bizarre. We have a guy that was too young for Vietnam excouriating a Vietnam vet for his interpretation of the very conflict he fought in.
My father was in that conflict too - drafted against his will. If Gerry Ford had had his way, there would have been many others drafted too. but it was Ford that accused Johnson of "pulling punches in Vietnam" in 1968 in a moment of wholly unpatriotic partisan vitriol.
It's nice to see that somethings never change...must be a cycle :shock:

Lyndon Johnson was 59 years 7 days at the time of the aforementioned 1967 presidential election in Vietnam.

George W. Bush today is 58 years, 6 months, and 26 days.

Subject: Republican Dictionary



ACTIVIST JUDGE, n. A judge who attempts to protect the rights of
minorities--most especially homosexuals--against the tyranny of the
majority.

ALARMIST, n. Any respected scientist who understands the threat of global warming.

ALLIES, n. Foreigners who do what Republicans tell them to do.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, n. New locations to drill for oil and gas.

BALANCED, adj. 1. favoring corporations (a more balanced approach to the environment.); 2. favoring conservatives (fair and balanced reporting).

BI-PARTISANSHIP, n. When conservative Republicans work together with
moderate Republicans to pass legislation Democrats hate.

CIVIL LIBERTIES, n. Unnecessary privileges that you aren't afraid of losing unless you are a God-hating, baby-killing, elitist liberal who
loves Saddam Hussein more than your own safety.

CLARIFY, v. Repeating the same lie over and over again.

CLASS WARFARE, n. Any attempt to raise the minimum wage.

CLEAN, adj. The word used to modify any aspect of the environment Republican legislation allows corporations to pollute, poison, or destroy.

CLIMATE CHANGE, n. Global warming, without that annoying suggestion that something is wrong.

COALITION, n. One or more nations whose leaders have been duped, pressured or bribed into supporting ill-conceived, unnecessary,
under-planned and/or illegal US military operations.

CONVICTION, n. Making decisions before getting the facts, and refusing to change your mind afterward.

CULTURE OF LIFE, n. A reduction of reproductive freedoms.

DEATH TAX, n. A term invented by anti-tax zealots and referring to a tax used to prevent the very wealthy from establishing a dominating
aristocracy in this country.

DEMOCRACY, n. My way or the highway.

DEMOCRATIC ALLY, n. Any democracy, monarchy, plutocracy, oligarchy or dictatorship--no matter how ruthless--that verbally supports American diplomatic and economic goals.

DEREGULATE, v. To pursue greed and exploitation.

DETAIN, v. Hold in a secret place without recourse to law and treat in
any manner one wishes.

ECONOMIC PROGRESS, n. 1. Recession; 2. Rising unemployment; 3.
Minimum-wage freeze.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY, n. When three out of five software engineers who
lost their jobs to outsourcing are able to find part-time work at
Wal-Mart.

ELECTION FRAUD, n. Counting every vote.

FAIRER, adj. Regressive.

FAITH, n. The stubborn belief that God approves of Republican moral
values despite the preponderance of textual evidence to the contrary.

FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE, n. Christian Right Payoff.

FAITH COMMUNITY, n. Evangelicals, because they are saved, and hawkish
conservative Jews, because they are useful. Israel is the
bait-on-the-hook just waiting for God to take that Rapturous bite.

FAMILY VALUES, n. Oppression of women.

FISCAL CONSERVATIVE, n. A Republican who is in the minority.

FOX NEWS, n. White House Press Office.

FREEDOM, n. What Arabs want but can't achieve on their own without
Western military intervention. It bears a striking resemblance to
chaos.

GIRLY MEN, n. Those who do not grope women.

GROWTH, n. The justification for tax cuts for the rich. What happens
to the deficits when Republicans cut taxes on the rich.

HARD WORK, n. What Republicans say when they can't think of anything
better.

HEALTHY FORESTS, n. No tree left behind.

HONESTY, n. Lies told in simple declarative sentences: "Freedom is on the march."

HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY, n. The invasion of any sovereign nation whose
leadership Republicans don't like.

HUMBLED, adj. What a Republican says right after a close election and
right before he governs in an arrogant manner.

INSURGENT, n. Armed or unarmed, violent or non-violent Iraqi on the
receiving end of an American rocket blast or bullet spray, regardless
of age, gender or political affiliation.

JOB GROWTH, n. Increased number of jobs an individual has to take
after losing earlier high-paying job.

JUNK SCIENCE, n. Sound science.

MORAL VALUES, n. Hatred of homosexuals dressed up in Biblical language.

MANDATE, n. What a Republican claims to possess when only 49 percent
of the voting public loathes him instead of 51 percent.

THE MEDIA, n. Immoral elitist liberally-biased traitors who should
leave Republicans alone so they can complete God's work on Earth in
peace and quiet, behind closed doors.

MODERNIZE, v. To do away with, as in modernizing Social Security,
labor laws, etc.

NEOCONSERVATIVES, n. Nerds with Napoleonic complexes.

OBSTRUCTIONIST, n. Any elected representative who dares to question
Republican radicals on the issue of the day.

OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES, n. Christian Right payoff.

OWNERSHIP SOCIETY, n. A society in which Republican donors own the
rest of us.

PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION, n. A non-medical term invented by anti-choice
zealots that refers to a broad class of abortion procedures; employed
as a first step in reversing Roe v. Wade.

PHILOSOPHY, n. Religion.

POLITICAL CAPITAL, n. What a Republican president receives as a result
of a razor-thin margin of victory in an election.

PRESS CONFERENCE, n. A rare event designed for the President to brag
about his prowess as a leader while simultaneously dodging difficult
questions.

PRIVATIZE, v. To steal the resources of the national community and
give them to private business.

REFORM, v. To eliminate, as in tort reform (to eliminate all lawsuits
against businesses and corporations) or Social Security and Medicare
reform (to eliminate these programs altogether).

REFORM, n. Rollback of New Deal reforms, laws, standards and social
protections.

RESOLUTE, adj. Pig-headed.

SIMPLIFY, tr. v. To cut the taxes of Republican donors.

SLAVE, n. A person without legal rights, e,g. a fetus.

SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, n. rich person

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM, n. Leave no Wall Street broker behind.

STAYING THE COURSE, v., The act of being stubborn and unable to admit
glaring policy mistakes; being wrong and sticking with the wrong idea
regardless of the consequences.

STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST, n. A judge with extremely conservative
beliefs, who interprets laws in a manner that fits his/rarely-her own
belief systems, while maintaining that this was the original intent of
the law.

SUPPORT THE MILITARY, v. To praise Bush when he sends our young men
and women off to die for no reason and without proper body armor.

TAX REFORM, n. The shifting of the tax burden from unearned income to
earned income, or rather, from the wealthy elite to the working class.

TAX SIMPLIFICATION, n. A way to make it simpler for large US
corporations to export American jobs to avoid paying US taxes.

TORT REFORM, n. Corporate immunity and impunity.

UNITER, n. A Leader who brings together his followers by fomenting
hatred for anyone who disagrees with him.

VERY CLEAR, adj. Modifier used immediately before any preposterous
explanation or rationale.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112895/

Beating a Dead Parrot | Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common.
By Christopher Hitchens | Posted Monday, Jan. 31, 2005, at 1:16 PM PT

There it was again, across half a page of the New York Times last Saturday, just as Iraqis and Kurds were nerving themselves to vote. "Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam." The basis for the story, which featured a number of experts as lugubrious as they were imprecise, was the suggestion that South Vietnam had held an election in September 1967, and that this propaganda event had not staved off ultimate disaster.

I can't quite tell why this article was not printed on the day before the Afghan or Palestinian elections, or at any of the times when Iranian voters overwhelmingly chose reform candidates but were thwarted by the entrenched reserve strength of the theocracy. But perhaps now is the moment to state the critical reasons why there is no reasonable parallel of any sort between Iraq and Vietnam.

To begin with, Vietnam had been undergoing a protracted struggle for independence since before World War II and had sustained this struggle militarily and politically against the French empire, the Japanese empire, and then after 1945 the French empire again. By 1954, at the epic battle of Dien Bien Phu, the forces of Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Giap had effectively decided matters on the battlefield, and President Eisenhower himself had conceded that Ho would have won any possible all-Vietnamese election. The distortions of the Cold War led the United States to take over where French colonialism had left off, to assist in partitioning the country, and to undertake a war that had already been lost.

Whatever the monstrosities of Asian communism may have been, Ho Chi Minh based his declaration of Vietnamese independence on a direct emulation of the words of Thomas Jefferson and was able to attract many non-Marxist nationalists to his camp. He had, moreover, been an ally of the West in the war against Japan. Nothing under this heading can be said of the Iraqi Baathists or jihadists, who are descended from those who angrily took the other side in the war against the Axis, and who opposed elections on principle. If today's Iraqi "insurgents" have any analogue at all in Southeast Asia it would be the Khmer Rouge.

Vietnam as a state had not invaded any neighbor (even if it did infringe the neutrality of Cambodia) and did not do so until after the withdrawal of the United States when, with at least some claim to self-defense, it overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. Contrast this, even briefly, to the record of Saddam Hussein in relation to Iran and Kuwait. ?

In Vietnam the deep-rooted Communist Party was against the partition of the country and against the American intervention. It called for a boycott of any election that was not an all-Vietnam affair. In Iraq, the deep-rooted Communist Party is in favor of the regime change and has been an enthusiastic participant in the elections as well as an opponent of any attempt to divide the country on ethnic or confessional lines. (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is not even an Iraqi, hates the Kurds and considers the religion of most Iraqis to be a detestable heresy: not a mistake that even the most inexperienced Viet Cong commander would have been likely to make.)

No car bomb or hijacking or suicide-bombing or comparable atrocity was ever committed by the Vietnamese, on American or any other foreign soil. Nor has any wanted international gangster or murderer ever been sheltered in Vietnam.

American generals and policymakers could never agree as to whether the guerrillas in Vietnam were self-supporting or were sustained from the outside (namely the northern half of their own country). However one may now view that debate, it was certainly true that Hanoi, and the southern rebels, were regularly resupplied not by minor regional potentates but by serious superpowers such as the Warsaw Pact and China, and were able to challenge American forces in battlefield order. The Iraqi "insurgents" are based among a minority of a minority, and are localized geographically, and have no steady source of external supply. Here the better comparison would be with the dogmatic Communists in Malaya in the 1940s, organized principally among the Chinese minority and eventually defeated even by an exhausted postwar British empire. But even the die-hard Malayan Stalinists had a concept of "people's war" and a brave record in fighting Japanese imperialism. The Iraqi "insurgents" are dismal riff-raff by comparison.

Where it is not augmented by depraved Bin Ladenist imports, the leadership and structure of the Iraqi "insurgency" is formed from the elements of an already fallen regime, extensively discredited and detested in its own country and universally condemned. This could not be said of Ho Chin Minh or of the leaders and cadres of the National Liberation Front.

The option of accepting a unified and Communist Vietnam, which would have evolved toward some form of market liberalism even faster than China has since done, always existed. It was not until President Kennedy decided to make a stand there, in revenge for the reverses he had suffered in Cuba and Berlin, that quagmire became inevitable. The option of leaving Iraq to whatever successor regime might arise or be imposed does not look half so appetizing. One cannot quite see a round-table negotiation in Paris with Bin Laden or Zarqawi or Moqtada Sadr, nor a gradually negotiated hand-over to such people after a decent interval.

In Vietnam, the most appalling excesses were committed by U.S. forces. Not all of these can be blamed on the conduct of bored, resentful, frightened conscripts. The worst atrocities?free-fire zones, carpet-bombing, forced relocation, and chemical defoliation?were committed as a direct consequence of orders from above. In Iraq, the crimes of mass killing, aerial bombardment, ethnic deportation, and scorched earth had already been committed by the ruling Baath Party, everywhere from northern Kurdistan to the drained and burned-out wetlands of the southern marshes. Coalition forces in Iraq have done what they can to repair some of this state-sponsored vandalism.

In Vietnam, the United States relied too much on a pre-existing military caste that often changed the local administration by means of a few tanks around the presidential palace. ... Unlike the South Vietnamese, the Iraqi forces are being recruited from scratch. ?

I suppose it's obvious that I was not a supporter of the Vietnam War. Indeed, the principles of the antiwar movement of that epoch still mean a good deal to me. That's why I retch every time I hear these principles recycled, by narrow minds or in a shallow manner, in order to pass off third-rate excuses for Baathism or jihadism. But one must also be capable of being offended objectively. The Vietnam/Iraq babble is, from any point of view, a busted flush. It's no good. It's a stiff. It's passed on. It has ceased to be. It's joined the choir invisible. It's turned up its toes. It's gone. It's an ex-analogy.

http://marccooper.typepad.com/marcco...nd_pollin.html

Fear and Polling In Iraq [UPDATED]

The Iraqi elections were surreal but on the whole heartening and downright inspiring. I cannot imagine many Americans voting under such horrific conditions, frankly. There are many reasons why the Bush administration insisted on having this vote take place in the midst of a bloody war?and few of them have anything to do with the advancement of democracy. And please remember that the Bush administration originally opposed this type of direct voting having originally pushed for a cockamamie caucus system. The direct one man-one vote polling was won by the Iraqis, and specifically by the struggle of Ayatollah Sistani.

All in all, I don't think it was fair to force people out into the current atmosphere to vote and that the elections should have been preceded by enhanced security conditions.

That said, millions of Iraqis disagreed and were willing to brave the risk of car bombs and mortar fire because they hope and want a better future-- something they are absolutely entitled to.

I don?t believe that the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing occupation were justified by the arguments presented by the Bush administration. Nor do I believe for a moment that this administration knew or currently knows what it is doing and is dangerously lost in a fog of dogma.

But the political opening in Iraq, no matter its limited size and the grotesque distortions imposed by the war, is a felicitous by-product of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the U.S. occupation.

Those of who opposed this war and who want to see the U.S. troops withdrawn as soon as possible should unequivocally encourage the tenuous political process now underway in Iraq. We should stand for more and better elections, not fewer. We should be encouraging the writing of a fair constitution, an inclusion of the Sunnis into the process in order to reduce the violence, and a bolstering of civil society (as a safeguard against fundamentalism). If we merely write off yesterday's vote as only potemkin or charade elections we take ourselves out of any serious debate and we degrade the legitimate aspirations of the Iraqi people. Indeed, the more one opposes the war and its pretexts, the more we should support the stabilization of a successful, pluralistic Iraqi state.

There is no ?other side? to support. The Bush administration?s cartoonish characterization of the armed opposition is just that -- cartoonish. The insurgency is, indeed, rife with religious fundamentalists, revengeful Ba?athists and a certain foreign terrorist element. We can also be sure that there are other less politically defined ?nationalist? strains who are just plain angry and humiliated by the dire economic conditions and by the presence of foreign troops. But taken together, this insurgency offers no evidence of supporting a political process that is somehow more open than the limited process imposed by the U.S.

I was truly encouraged and inspired by the Iraqis who went to the polls today. I will keep them uppermost in mind in the days to come as fundamentalists on both sides of the political spectrum step in to spin these complicated and still uncertain events. The Bush administration is already verging on a posture of Mission Accomplished Version 2.0 while ignoring the more complex ramifications of this war ? both abroad and domestically. Likewise, some on the anti-war left are making an equal error by writing off Sunday?s voting as a ?charade? a ?farce? or as ?so-called? elections. Both of these attitudes from the right and the left are a dis-service to the Iraqi people.

We need to find a way to escalate the politics and reduce the bloodshed and simplistic nostrums from triumphalist on the one side or Leftish isolationists on the other will not cut the mustard. We owe a more sober response to the Iraqi people.

Originally Posted by NickSmoliga

Beating a Dead Parrot | Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common.
By Christopher Hitchens | Posted Monday, Jan. 31, 2005, at 1:16 PM PT

There it was again, across half a page of the New York Times last Saturday, just as Iraqis and Kurds were nerving themselves to vote. "Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam." The basis for the story, which featured a number of experts as lugubrious as they were imprecise, was the suggestion that South Vietnam had held an election in September 1967, and that this propaganda event had not staved off ultimate disaster....

And very little Hitchens writes is directly germane, because every 'cause' is a bit different. Makng specific cross-references is a waste of good printers ink ... or pixcel stress on my monitor.

The only point being made by the Times, or anyone else, is the fagility of elections in states that have no democratic history.

People like to vote, then they want what they voted for. If they don't get it, which is a given for the minority in a contested election, they usually opt for other solutions.

That may happen in Iraq, or not. The history of unsuccessful democratic movements argues against success and for a return to chaos, but I'm willing to give it a chance. The other options are decidedly bad.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Well, its better than leaving them destroyed, in my opinion.

No doubt. At the same time, to fix or replace someone else's property, after you yourself have broken it, is hardly praiseworthy. Only in elementary school do people get kudos for meeting the minimum appropriate behavioral level for human beings. Should we run hagiographic stories about American soldiers washing their hands after using the toilet, too?

Right, because as we all know, the minimum appropriate behavioral level for human beings is to endure months of difficult training to fly thousands of miles from home into a warzone to get shot at by neo-fascists and religious fanatics so that they can do their jobs -- which in Iraq are often the kinds of jobs I've listed.

Well, yes. If, that is, they flew thousands of miles from home in the first place to wreck a whole bunch of stuff belonging to other people, the continued injury of whom, not incidentally, inspires some of them to forcibly try to send the perpetrators home... That, or something like it, would end up being a minimum appropriate. Kind of an argument against hurting people in out-of-the way places, I think. There are bigger arguments against hurting people in general, but your point seems to be directed against the circumstances of this specific case.

If only there were more people like that, and fewer patronizing pieces of shit like you.

Go fuck yourself.

Hey man, I'm not the one demanding gold star stickers be handed out for people just for fixing the mess they (though they may not be the very ones who did the destroying, they are rightly considered equal parties to the organization which did the destroying) made in other peoples' lives. If that is your idea of particularly laudatory behavior, I'd hate to be around what you must consider as baseline...

I tend to be of the opinion that the elections in Iraq will in retrospect be rightly regarded as a significant milestone on the path to a stable and democratic Iraq, and that quite frankly the Sunni insurgency will not in the end succeed in restoring Baathist tyranny or creating some sort of Sunni-dominated Islamo-fascist state. Furthermore, I find the whole partisan frame in the American MSM (George W Bush is the next Lincoln vs George W Bush is Hitler, and his foreign policy is a total failure) depressing and grotesque.

However, as optimistic as I may be about the prospect of a decent outcome in Iraq (however many years that may take), and as good as it is that a brutal thug like Hussein is no longer in power, anyone who expects me to cheer the likely triumph of ordinary douchebagdom over brutal, tyrannical douchebagdom in Iraq is really just asking too much. Soon Iraq will be governed by the same kind of corporatist, demagogish, douchebags who currently and have pretty much always run our country (from both parties I would add), and quite frankly just about all democratic countries (insert caveat here for the complete idiots reading this post about how non-democratic leaders tend to be extraordinary rather than simply ordinary douchebags.)

War supporters are busy exalting over the triumph of ordinary douchebagdom over extraordinary douchebagdom, but that doesn't change the fact that they are still defenders of douchebagdom. Indeed, they exalt in it. Too bad their partisan opponents are themselves so invested in their own version of douchebagdom they have neither the moral authority nor the imagination to tell it like it is.

But whatever. Maybe in twenty years I'll emigrate to the New and Improved Iraq, get myself a nice 4 bedroom three bath Ottoman style in the El Mirage subdivision outside Baghdad, spend sixty hollow and meaningless hours a week in a 4x4 cubicle cell in some exurban office park, my nights watching vapid, porny soaps beamed in by satellite from Bahrain or the latest celebrity sex monkey trial on Al Jazeera or Fox, and the whole of my hollow and meaningless weekends shopping for cheap and extraneous crap made by near slave labor in the newly industrializing sub-saharan Africa at the Al Anbar Wal Mart. Banality is always better than brutality, but no one should forget that that's what our kids are fighting for...

Yes, all I've heard is the mantra "The elections went better than expected" repeated dozens of times implying a great success. Yet, 37-44 people died in insurgent violence on election day (depending upon which report one reads) and between 80-100 people were additionally injured (again, depending).

Proportionally thats like 450 Americans killed and 1,000 injured at voting booths. That would be a massive screw up in my book.

And the reports on how few voted in the Sunni portion of the country was greatly, greatly downplayed, and part and parcel of whether this was a success.

I submit it was not, especially for that last reason. I don't know about y'all, but to me it's seems quite likely that once a Shiite regime is in place, and once the US military (and media) are gone, payback will be a bitch for the Sunnis. I would hate to have the massacre of 10,000's of Sunni's on my hands as an American. That's assuming we can ever get out of there, but I don't "misunderestimate" [sic] Bush's intention to declare victory and leave. Some nation-building.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Yes, all I've heard is the mantra "The elections went better than expected" repeated dozens of times implying a great success. Yet, 37-44 people died in insurgent violence on election day (depending upon which report one reads) and between 80-100 people were additionally injured (again, depending).

Proportionally thats like 450 Americans killed and 1,000 injured at voting booths. That would be a massive screw up in my book.

And the reports on how few voted in the Sunni portion of the country was greatly, greatly downplayed, and part and parcel of whether this was a success.

I submit it was not, especially for that last reason. I don't know about y'all, but to me it's seems quite likely that once a Shiite regime is in place, and once the US military (and media) are gone, payback will be a bitch for the Sunnis. I would hate to have the massacre of 10,000's of Sunni's on my hands as an American. That's assuming we can ever get out of there, but I don't "misunderestimate" [sic] Bush's intention to declare victory and leave. Some nation-building.

Don't forget that the Bush people (of course) implemented electronic balloting in this third world country. Electronic balloting in a third world country under martial law? Hahahahah! Hoohoo! Haha! How Kool-Aid sodden and brain-dead are Americans not to even question this silly charade? What a farce! RESTORE THE STUARTS! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Seadog '66 wrote:

Don't forget that the Bush people (of course) implemented electronic balloting in this third world country. Electronic balloting in a third world country under martial law? Hahahahah! Hoohoo! Haha! How Kool-Aid sodden and brain-dead are Americans not to even question this silly charade? What a farce! RESTORE THE STUARTS!

Strange, all of the video clips I saw showed paper ballots, and plastic ballot boxes. The news reports all talk about summary sheets, transporting those sheets to central locations, and the like. Whence came the reports of electronic balloting?

Beating a Dead Parrot | Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common.

Do Iraq and WWII really have much in common. These are the two conflicts most American people can "work with" analytically. Comparing them is like comparing bananas with mangos with watermelons.
It doesn't matter - it's all political.
Why waste one's time debunking an argument.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Hey man, I'm not the one demanding gold star stickers be handed out for people just for fixing the mess they (though they may not be the very ones who did the destroying, they are rightly considered equal parties to the organization which did the destroying) made in other peoples' lives. If that is your idea of particularly laudatory behavior, I'd hate to be around what you must consider as baseline...

Allow me to clarify my position:

For the most part, reporting on the war in Iraq has been overwhelmingly negative, and has been for the most part has been nothing more than simple arithmetic. And it has gone something like this:

2 dead Americans on Tuesday + 31 dead Americans on Wednesday + 9 dead Americans on Thursday = Vietnam

That is the history of the war in headlines and soundbites, which are very influential. But there are other stories, and these stories aren't being told...

In some cases, this is the result of incompetence, because most journalists don't really understand the military, and don't have much interest in trying to. All that they understand is that Americans died, and that's all they can really report. Other journalists believe that bodycount reporting will hurt their political opponents -- the higher the bodycount, the fewer likely Republican voters there'll be. Then, some news agencies are basically anti-American in their reporting, and they're literally tallying the score for the other side.

I don't think that this is desirable. You apparently think that it's justified. Fair enough.

You miss the larger and vastly more important issue. It's not about the military. It's about social and political cohesion. In fact, this was addressed very early in the war by a journalist with your POV, mainly that As bodies pile up, support can slip.

This is a recurring theme, and an important one. The deeds of the miltary, unless unique in some way, are just not important to 95% of Americans who, after all, have no dog in the fight. They want broad-brush stuff they can understand ... and some spin on how that impacts them. The press writes for its audience. That's as true for the NY Times as it is for Rush Limbaugh, except the audiences are different.

Originally Posted by NickSmoliga

Seadog '66 wrote:

Don't forget that the Bush people (of course) implemented electronic balloting in this third world country. Electronic balloting in a third world country under martial law? Hahahahah! Hoohoo! Haha! How Kool-Aid sodden and brain-dead are Americans not to even question this silly charade? What a farce! RESTORE THE STUARTS!

Strange, all of the video clips I saw showed paper ballots, and plastic ballot boxes. The news reports all talk about summary sheets, transporting those sheets to central locations, and the like. Whence came the reports of electronic balloting?

News articles. If I come across a link, I will post it.

Originally Posted by Seadog '66

Originally Posted by NickSmoliga

Seadog '66 wrote:

Don't forget that the Bush people (of course) implemented electronic balloting in this third world country. Electronic balloting in a third world country under martial law? Hahahahah! Hoohoo! Haha! How Kool-Aid sodden and brain-dead are Americans not to even question this silly charade? What a farce! RESTORE THE STUARTS!

Strange, all of the video clips I saw showed paper ballots, and plastic ballot boxes. The news reports all talk about summary sheets, transporting those sheets to central locations, and the like. Whence came the reports of electronic balloting?

News articles. If I come across a link, I will post it.

What I heard on NPR is that the ballots were being coded into a computer and that the paper ballots were being sent to a central location for storage but that they wouldn't be looked at again unless some irregularity turned up.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

Originally Posted by Witchiepoo

Don't you think that focusing on the "good deeds" could also be an example of biased reporting?

Yes, but I never said that it wasn't. By definition, bias is when one side is favored over another (or several others). A lack of bias would be to show those other perspectives, or at the very least, attempt to.

Allow me to offer the words of a journalist to explain:

?Try looking at things as they appear to journalists on the ground. Ask yourself how you would cover Iraq. Then tell me what ?objective? means.?

Suppose that you (I continue saying to them) are a reporter somewhere in Baghdad with a squad of Marines. An Iraqi family in a car, not knowing the patrol is there, turn the corner. The Marines open fire on the car. The parents are killed. Their young daughter, splattered with their blood, stands screaming in horror. Mommy, though dead, is still moving. Ugly things are coming out of her stomach. The girl is ten.

This happens. What do you think automatic weapons do to people? Groom them? Being a reporter, you shoot pictures. It?s what reporters do: make notes, take pictures. Report.

What next? How do you report the?is ?occurrence? a suitably neutral word?--objectively?

You have no apolitical choice. People react powerfully to wounded or emotionally devastated children, particularly little girls. If you publish that picture, it will tend to turn people against the war. Not being stupid, you know this perfectly well. On the other hand if you suppress it, you will be supporting the war by hiding the truth. You know this too. It?s A or B: you file the photo or you don?t. Which?

The military will want you not to write the story at all. They can?t quite say so, but will want you to emphasize that the Marines with good reason are frightened of car bombs (which is true) and that the killing was an accident, and couldn?t you leave out the photographs? It was an isolated mishap, a colonel will say. The military?s PR apparatus will want you to write about some Marines somewhere else who repaired a school. Hawks will say that the incident was unfortunate, but necessary in pursuit of a greater good. War is hell; get over it.

Doves will say that publishing the picture will show people what is really happening, that the public has a right to know what its soldiers are in fact doing. It wasn?t an isolated mishap, they will say (and they will be right). So: What do you do?

I would file the story, and the pictures, with no hesitation at all. My job as a reporter is not to shill for the war as a volunteer amateur Goebbels, nor to play Jane Fonda Goes To Baghdad, but to report what happens. If the military doesn?t want such incidents reported, it can stop committing them.

Again, suppose that you are trying very hard to be objective, whatever you think that means. How do you do it? Reporting of necessity requires that a reporter make choices. Any choice constitutes a slant.

Do you write pleasant home-towners?boyish young Marine relaxing in the compound and remembering his high-school sweetheart waiting in Roanoke? Do you focus on the alert courage of our young men as they patrol the mean streets, etc? On the sniper who says he likes to shoot a man in the stomach so that his screams will demoralize the enemy, before maybe finishing him off? On the Marine with his eyes and half his face gone because of a roadside bomb? The twenty-seven Iraqis killed by a car bomb downtown? Beheadings? Where do you put your emphasis?

Usually journalists turn against wars. Why? Consult the foregoing paragraph. It is not because they are Commies. It is because they are there. After a few weeks on the ground, you will find yourself acquiring pronounced opinions about things. This is inevitable. No one short of a diagnosable psychopath remains emotionally remote.

You have to be very ideologically committed indeed not to be worn down by the destruction and ghastliness of it all, by the mutilated kids and head-shot snipers? victims, by flies crawling in the mouths of the dead. This is especially true of doubtful wars of uncertain provenance and murky purpose. Remember that what appears on the screen in Dallas is sanitized, adjusted, shaped at corporate to whatever end the networks seek to promote. The reporter on the ground sees the exit wounds, the woman?s face three days gone into decomposition.

Without profound ideological commitment, you will come to loathe the military command. This will happen regardless of whether you think the particular war necessary. The military lies, and lies, and lies. The flacks of the armed services, like any other PR types, do not recognize truth and falsehood as legitimate categories, but only positive and negative. They will tell you over and over with chirpy optimism things that you know by daily observation to be false. Everything is hunky-dory. There may have been a minor problem but we?ve got it licked. It was a precision strike with a 1000-pound bomb in a residential neighborhood. The people love us because we rebuilt fifty schools.

You get sick of it. In Vietnam it was the Five O?clock Follies, the press conferences with officers lying about pacification, lying about body counts, lying, lying, lying. The spin coming out of Iraq is exactly the same.

How do you juggle all of these things? Unless you are a witting propagandist, you will find that the best you can do is report the truth as well as you can discover it, as you would want it reported to you if someone else were doing it?not let interested parties tell you how to report it, and not give a damn who likes it.

_______________

"There's also no such thing as 'environmentally-friendly.' The environment doesn't need friends, because it is the environment. And even if the environment wanted friends, do you really think it would want to be friends with you? I mean, come on, look at you..." -- Jeffery Rowland

Very accurate. The only choice is not to censor oneself if you obtain accuracy and seek to serve the "truth" rather than an agenda or even "important national effort."
It's also an accurate description of authority in general. Most authorities (I've experienced this first hand) lie outrageously to the press, then back peddle, and "get their stories straight." They also have no concern for the press and will gladly majorly screw any journalist they can if it suits their purposes. So why continue to bend stories and give them breaks if they are out to destroy you?
The relationship that ferments is wholly adversarial. I can imagine the military authorities are not used to dishing out orders and not having them followed only exacerbates the situation.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Allow me to offer the words of a journalist to explain:

This misses the point entirely. A photojournalist's justification for his moral position on war and the military have almost no bearing on the discussion, and what bearing it does have is primarily incidental. (And I'll save my opinions on photojournalism --the lowest and most base form of journalism-- for another time.) The kinds of images that are his stock and trade only tell a part of the story.

Most Americans would be able to tell you that Americans died in Iraq last week, but few would be able to tell you much about how they died, the missions that they were engaged in when they died, or what the objectives are in, say, the al-Anbar province now that the third phase of the war has begun -- or what the objectives were in the second. Most probably have only a fuzzy idea that this war has been moving along a timetable, and that it has passed through different phases.

I think this is more a function of the attention-span of most Americans than of the journalistic coverage of the Iraq war.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

Originally Posted by jeffw

I think this is more a function of the attention-span of most Americans than of the journalistic coverage of the Iraq war.

Nice try, but it doesn't wash. As I said further along in the post, most of the people here believe themselves to be better informed about the events of the day, but there's nothing to indicate that they know any more about it than the average person -- and in some cases they seem to know less.

Even though I pay careful attention to the news, if I wasn't in the military and didn't know so many people who've been to Iraq, I would know little of consequence about the war and nothing of consequence about the enemies we face in Iraq.

Try listening to NPR.

Originally Posted by Chris Seamans '75

... Most Americans would be able to tell you that Americans died in Iraq last week, but few would be able to tell you much about how they died, the missions that they were engaged in when they died, or what the objectives are in, say, the al-Anbar province now that the third phase of the war has begun -- or what the objectives were in the second. Most probably have only a fuzzy idea that this war has been moving along a timetable, and that it has passed through different phases.

Most people seeing/hearing/reading a news report on a mine collapse can't tell you anything about that, either. It's the single event that's news. I doubt anyone but the miners and the mine owner care a whit about the mining operation.

Originally Posted by then, Chris

... Most Americans would be able to tell you that there were two significant battles in the city of Fallujah, but not too many would be able to tell you why that city was strategically important to the terrorists or the Coalition forces, what the objectives of those battles were, and whether or not those objectives were met, and what the direct effects of those battles were.

Was the first battle a success or failure? How about the second one?

We could go down the line on important events in the war, and the results would be the same.

Again, this is not important to anyone not directly involved or already interested enough to follow the activities a lot closer than a news story here and there. Understand: the 'people' don't care. They may care if you can reduce everything to the equivalent of 'box scores'. 'A' won, 'B' lost, and final score was <insert score>. Most news reports take this well-know wisdom to account, and report accordingly

Originally Posted by then, Chris

... One way to try to get an accurate picture would be to actually cover the war factually and seriously, which would include good and bad news, but news outlets aren't really interested in doing that.

I don't think that's possible. You want your version to be 'the truth', because you believe it is the truth. Well, the truth is lot slipprier than that. Major errors are made by everyone, once in a while. Even the 'good guys' have a few miscreants in their midst. Innocent people die - often horribly. Arguing that good deeds outweigh the bad is a philosophical - perhaps thoeological - argument.

Unquestionalby good wars are rare.

Vengeful insurgents ramp up Iraq attacks
By Jason Keyser, Associated Press
February 3, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Insurgents struck back with a vengeance following a post-election lull, waylaying a minibus carrying new Iraqi army recruits, firing on Iraqis heading for work at a U.S. base and gunning down an Iraqi soldier in the capital, officials said Thursday. Two U.S. Marines were killed in action.

At least 20 people, including the Marines, died in insurgent-related incidents starting Wednesday night, according to U.S. and Iraqi reports. Insurgents had eased up on attacks following Sunday's elections, when American and Iraqi forces imposed sweeping security measures to protect the voters.

In the deadliest incident, insurgents stopped the minibus south of Kirkuk, ordered army recruits off the vehicle and gunned down 12 of them, said Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin. The rebels allowed two of the soldiers to go free and ordered them to warn others against joining Iraq's U.S.-backed security forces, he said.

The assailants identified themselves as members of Takfir wa Hijra, an Islamic group that emerged in the 1960s in Egypt, rejecting society as corrupt and seeking to establish a utopian Islamic community...

It is only a matter of time, probably just a few months, before we invade other countries in pursuit of terrorists -- coming in the name of canonized Democracy despite any other different ways of looking at the world. You could hear it in the tone of Bush's State-of-the Union address. I would expect to see Iran, Egypt, Syria, and who knows what else on the Pentagon's shopping list. We'll be Good To Go, you know.

And to what saintly outcome?

--Croakmore

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Again, this is not important to anyone not directly involved or already interested enough to follow the activities a lot closer than a news story here and there. Understand: the 'people' don't care. They may care if you can reduce everything to the equivalent of 'box scores'. 'A' won, 'B' lost, and final score was <insert score>.

David, IIRC, didn't the American military win a lot of battles in Vietnam?

In the long run, it really didn't matter, because the policy behind the Vietnam War turned out to be so misguided. I happen to believe that the policy behind the Iraq invasion is also misguided.

There's not a direct correspondence between Vietnam and Iraq, but for many of us oldsters who remember the former, the memory is still fresh. I'll never forget the TV pictures of that helicopter plucking American personnel off that roof in Saigon.

In any case, Chris, I pray that you come back from your tour safely.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

It is only a matter of time, probably just a few months, before we invade other countries in pursuit of terrorists -- coming in the name of canonized Democracy despite any other different ways of looking at the world. You could hear it in the tone of Bush's State-of-the Union address. I would expect to see Iran, Egypt, Syria, and who knows what else on the Pentagon's shopping list. We'll be Good To Go, you know.

And to what saintly outcome?

--Croakmore

"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."
Bush, 9-21-01