There are only losers now.

  This is a war that can not be won because we are now dealing with hate. Hate of our troop presence there, the policies of the Bush admin. and just Bush himself.

  Just as in Vietnam the general public was snowballed into thinking we were going in there with good intentions. When in reality we, (the government and the Military Industrial Complex), didn't give a rat's ass about the Vietnamese, North or South. All they wanted was to control the resources of south east Asia and to establish permanent American military bases there. The exact same reasons why we are in Iraq. Sure it would be good if we had American bases in strategic places around the world but only if the countries really wanted us to be in their countries. Even our friends, the Philipines, once our military leases expired they wanted us to leave.

  This is the Iraqi's place under the sun, not ours, and they resent us being there, period. They know what's going on there when we the American public doesn't seem to have a clue. We are very slowly learning the truth but not fast enough. We are creating the hate directed towards us by the Iraqi people just as in Vietnam and their resentment and hate towards us, by both the North and South Vietnamese.

  The Vietnam war also came to an end because of the media coverage, the draft and the daily and weekly body counts of both Americans and the N. Vietnamese. All of these played off of each other, but the draft was probably the single most reason why we pulled out of Nam.

  The majority of the American public was gung ho about the Vietnam war in the begining, but when the young men of this country had a good look at what they might be headed into with no say in the matter, the attitude of the American public began to slowly change. When college deferments were no longer allowed and college students were being drafted to fight, that's when the attitude of Americans really changed. The only deferments allowed to my knowledge were if you had a family, and there was a rush among young men to inadvertently start families whether they really wanted to or not.

  This is when college students began to really care about the war and become educated about the realities of the war and why we were over. It was when the real protesting in America against the war began to happen. For this reason, above any others, the protests brought the war in Vietnam to an end. Why do you think they, (Bush admin.), are making our troops do extended time in Iraq. They absolutely do not want a draft, because they know the consequences of having a draft. They learned the lessons of Vietnam well.

  Sometime soon a draft will almost certainly have to be started to relieve the troops now serving in Iraq. And if we really support our troops maybe one should be started. I can see one being started sometime after the November elections. If it isn't we are putting our troops under extreme uncalled for stresses. And you can bet your last dollar that if we start a war with either Iran or N. Korea there will be a draft, and you will see protesting in the streets. But by then it will be too late to put an ebrupt stop to the process of war once it is in motion. It will take, I fear, a long time before it can be stopped.

  What's it gonna take to put a stop to this madness of power and greed. Are the young people of today going to wait until there is a draft, and there are no college deferments, before they take action. Logic and reasoning are good things and necassary but don't seem to work when you are staring down the barrel of the gun that's going to kill you.

 

•  I don't know myself

  but, Iraq is spiraling out of control, no doubt now.

  by xjac on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 07:57:44 PM PDT

•  The evil brilliance of Nixon & Kissinger

  What ramped the antiwar movement up to the critical quantum level happened before college deferments went away.  It happened when the college kids ran out of their four years of 2-S deferments & got caught in the draft.

  It happened when the sons of the white-collar upper middle class started to come home in body bags.  Because it pissed off their parents big time.

  The brilliant stroke of RMN & Henry the K was to "Vietnamize" the war--drawing down US troop strength as fast as they could to minimize the number of upper middle class kids coming home dead.  As that happened they replaced deferments with a 1-year vulnerability (& if your number was low you could join the Reserves--or the Texas ANG if you were connected ;)...) so no more UMC kids went off to get shot up in the jungle.

  And as soon as those kids' asses were no longer in the bullseye, their folks went back to their Sunday Times & the antiwar movement collapsed.

  Ever since then the second most hallowed principle in US foreign policy (just behind Never get involved in a land war in Asia ~snicker~) is Fight your wars with an all-volunteer army, because a draft is poison.

  My prediction (sad though it sounds) is that the GOP would resort to nukes before a draft, because a draft to fight an already-unpopular war would be political seppuku.

  by Uncle Cosmo on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 08:25:34 PM PDT

  •   Uncle Cosmo, that is

    exactly what I said in my diary. I'm sorry but what's your point?

    by white is black on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:15:37 PM PDT

    •  Apologies if I repeated your points

      It was late & I suppose I was paying less attention to the thrust of the diary than I should.

      Does it add anything to your argument to say that your views are shared by someone who was draftable during that time--& who served as pallbearer for one of his high-school classmates who came home in a body bag?

      by Uncle Cosmo on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 08:48:55 AM PDT

•  The Vietnam years for me were:

    Times that I'd rather forget. My dad flew combat missions for 3 tours, dodging NVA SAMS while Bush moved "heaven and earth" to avoid his flight physical. My uncle Marty was a Marine Lcpl who got blown away when his APC hit an IED. My uncle Ivan was an Army SFC in the 82nd Airborne Rangers and pulled four tours because he "wanted to get our boys home". My cousin Ricky was an Army Capt. and Infantry Co. Commander who did 3 tours-made Major and came home. My cousin David was an Army Staff Sgt.in the Infantry did 2 tours and made it home only to get killed by his Korean wife.
     From age 12 to 18 I remember the war vividly as it came into our living room and thinking "it will all be over when I get old enough to go." Wrong.
  We were taking heavy casualties and many weeks in a row we were losing over 500 KIA a week. I hated that war, especially when I found out [years later] that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution legalizing the war was a total sham and based on lies-North Vietnam never attacked our ships! I hate the Iraq War even worse because it too was based on lies!

  by ImpeachKingBushII on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 08:33:05 PM PDT

  •   I salute you

      for having the courage to accept the truth. It's hard for some Vietnam vets even now to admit that it was not a just war and that we should never have been there in the first place. I think we all at first got suckered into that war. I also have to salute the vets that came home and protested the war in the streets. As on the battlefield, it took a certain amount of courage to do what they did to try to put a stop to it. And I salute you again, for serving your country.

    by white is black on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:32:01 PM PDT

•  Sorry, but your Diary is riddled with ...

  ...errors that gravely weaken your conclusions.

  For instance, When college deferments were no longer allowed is a when that happened well after hundreds of thousands of students (and others) had joined the fight against the war. II-S classifications (student deferments) remained intact right up to 1971 (a year after the lottery went into effect). Massive demonstrations by students and others had begun in 1967. I did my first anti-draft counseling in 1966.

  by Meteor Blades on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:13:37 PM PDT

  •   Yes, only

    hippies protested back then. Students didn't really get involved until it concerned them seriously.

    by white is black on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:35:57 PM PDT

    •  Pardon me ...

      ...While it is certainly true that many student protestors got involved against the Vietnam War because they were concerned about being drafted, there were huge numbers of students who were involved in the antiwar movement from its earliest days, as a little reading on the subject would inform you.

      The idea that only hippies demonstrated at the beginning of the antiwar movement is ahistorical. There were substantial protests - with students making up the greatest proportion of antiwarriors - as early as 1964, and some quite large ones in 1965, which is when the first of big war escalations occurred.

      If the draft is reinstituted now, of course, there won't be any student deferments, but the anti-draft movement of the '60s absolutely did not come about, as you claim, because of an end to student deferments.

      by Meteor Blades on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:45:22 PM PDT

      •   It was the draft

        overall that derailed the war. There was some protesting in California but not much anywhere else. And I grew up in those years, I was there also. The protesting didn't pick up steam around the rest of the country until student deferments were denied.

        by white is black on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 11:11:28 PM PDT

        •  The historical record shows

          that MB is right.  Certainly the draft was important, but the end of student deferments did not come until well after the anti-war movement was extremely large.  For instance, wikipedia has something of a timeline.

          by MissLaura on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 11:44:57 PM PDT

          •   I'll have to

            get back to responding to your comment. There is too much for me to write down and transfer it and type it tonight. Thanks for the interaction.

            by white is black on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 01:55:41 AM PDT

          •   See you in Gittmo, maybe

             This is some of what I found when I went to Wikipedia.

             Opposition to the United States involvement in the Vietnam war began slowly and in small numbers in 1964 on various college campuses in the United States. This happened during a time of unprecedented student activism reinforced in numbers by the demographically significant baby boomers, but grew to include a wide and varied crossection of Americans from all walks of life. The growing opposition to the Vietnam war was also partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information compared with previous wars and extensive television media coverage of what, ultimately, became America's longest combat war. Likewise, a system of conscription that provided exemptions and defermants more easily claimed by middle and upper class registrants - thus inducted disproportionate numbers of poor, working class, and minority registrants - drove much of the protest.

             Thousands of young American men chose exile in Canada or Sweden rather than risk conscription. In order to gain an exemption or defermant many men obtained student defermants by attending college, though they would have to remain in college until their 26th birthday to be certain of avoiding the draft. Some got married, which remained an exemption throughout the war.

               Kent State shooting - 1970
             Lead up to the shooting.

             In November 1969 the My Lai Massacre was exposed, promting wide spread outrage around the world and leading to reduced public support for the war. In addition, the following months saw the first draft lottery instituted since WWII. Since the war had appeared to be winding down throughout 1969, a new invasion into Cambodia angered many people who felt it only exacerbated the conflict.

             Many young people, including college students, were concerned about the risk of being drafted, and the expansion of the war into another country appeared to increase that risk. Across the country, camuses erupted in protests in what Time magazine called " a nation-wide student strike."

             The shootings led to protests on college campuses throughout the United States, causing hundreds of college campuses to close because of both violent and non-violent demonstrations. In particular the Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks. Just five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington D.C. against the war. Shortly after the shootings took place, the Urban Institute conducted a national study that concluded the Kent State shooting was the single factor causing the only nationwide student strike in history - over 4 million students protested and over 900 American colleges and universities closed during the strikes.

             White is Black

              Sure students protested from about 1964 on, mostly on moral grounds of the war being unjust. But when Richard Nixon announced expansion of the war to include Cambodia, in 1969, and a lottery draft was instituted and college students knew their defermants were no longer effective, the students at Kent State held a protest where four students were killed which sparked nationwide protesting by students on a scale never seen before. And people in general, not just students, became more violent, angery and mad in their protesting.

             Now days there is virtually no protesting of the war in Iraq. There is minimal media coverage of the war, and what there is is censored. There are no pictures of flag draped coffins coming home. And there is no draft as yet to spark real protesting here in America. Rumsfeld and Cheney aren't stupid, they know what the effects are when the public are bombarded with uncensored media comming from Iraq, and that instituting a draft would spark protesting. They learned their lessons well from Vietnam, and what not to do this time around.

             If a draft is finally instituted for the war in Iraq, will students start protesting when the working class, poor, and minorities are drafted into service first, or are they going to wait until they start getting drafted? It will be interesting to see what happens. Either way a draft will start protesting here in America, and that was the point I was trying to make, whether I did or not, in my diary. And that's what we, the American people should have been doing long ago before these things become reality. We have, as of yesterday, lost Habeas Corpus which people don't either see the implications by losing them or just don't care. Now Bush can put in prison any U.S. citizen he feels is a danger or threat to his policies or the government of the U.S. for as long as he wants to without trial, with torture. Just as Hitler didn't allow free speach, which created fear of speach, paranoia, and people turning people in for their thoughts, the Bush admin. now has this fear factor going for them. It's too late to protest it now. May God help us, the American people won't help themselves.

             

            by white is black on Wed Oct 18, 2006 at 11:11:12 AM PDT

        •  You are completely wrong. n/t

          by Meteor Blades on Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 11:15:17 AM PDT

•  Vietnam Years

  The 60's were a time of joy and sorrow. Sorrow for the awful tragedy the US was inflicting on the people and country of Vietnam and for the divisiveness of the American people, about the war and about civil rights. Sorrow multiplied by assassinations, John, Bobby, Martin, Malcolm.

  But there was a measure of joy, too, after '68, when the whole world was watching and the true patriots in this country started reclaiming the ideals of our nation. It took a while, but we succeeded and Nixon was impeached.

  These times now are even more horrific. The US is once again engaged in an unjustified war, our young men are dying while merchants of death and oil line their own pockets. This time, though, the Admin public relations team had already laid the ground for a coup d'etat so that BushCo has virtually had carte blanche for six years since the Presidency was stolen.

  But, We the People are rising up again. We, the people, will not be deterred.  The People will not be defeated. We must and we will return honor to this country. One vote, one district, one state at a time. And, this time, We, the people, will take to the streets if our elections are stolen.

  Help John Laesch make Hastert disappear!

  by Empower Ink on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 09:14:15 PM PDT

  •   Alright,

    let's hope they have the guts to do it.

    by white is black on Mon Oct 16, 2006 at 10:40:23 PM PDT