[lit-ideas] Re: comments the DEMs must defend

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 01:08:42 -0600

Think how different things would be if we had found WMDs there! The same mismanaged war, the same questionable errand, the same counterpropaganda, many of the same casualties -- but the reason, believed even by generals on Saddam's staff, would have been justified.


What surprises me most about this war is that we learned nothing from Vietnam. I still wonder did those best and brightest guys really believe in the domino theory? Or was that just some sop thrown to the public? Certainly, we now know that Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, setting the stage for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that almost all the congressmen voted for. At the time it was happening, it all seemed to me a charade. But what did I know? A "B-" student in a sump pump college in the most backward part of the US? I remember fierce arguments at work with men 20 and 30 my senior who had experienced either WWII or Korea. "Well what would you do? Just pick up and leave?" "Yes," I'd scream, "yes!" Oh, lord, you'd have thought I'd made fun of Mohammed. Their anger and contempt for me was palpable. But, of course, in the end that's exactly what we did. Estimates of Vietnamese deaths (both North and South) are 5 million (4 million of whom were civilians). That war was so horrendous. And what made it even more horrid was that President Johnson didn't even believe in it. He didn't believe it could be won. But he kept feeding boys into the machine, kept feeding the Vietnamese into the machine. He could have been the greatest President this country has ever had if he'd only had the courage to stop that slaughter. But once you let loose the dogs of war it's almost impossible to call them back. What were these Bushies thinking? I think they were thinking that they were the best and the brightest. The fact is Eric, there was no GOOD, VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE that Saddam had WMDs. NONE. There was only suspicion. How many Amadou Diallos must be killed before you decide that maybe mere suspicion just won't cut it? 5 million? 50 thousand American soldiers? It's wrong. It must be ended. See you at the Pentagon on March 17th.

Mike Geary
Memphis





----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 11:57 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: comments the DEMs must defend


>>selling fear to the people of the U.S.



The Bush Administration gambled and lost. Those who, like myself, like the DEMs in the video, assumed the government knew a lot more than they could tell the public (the old protecting sources and methods routine), would have felt justified in their suspension of disbelief -- even though the same bureaucrats, the same faulty intelligence, was in play.
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