As many of you know, Senator Clinton has been "requesting a conversation" via a Blog set up for this - its advertised on dKos. Here is my 2 cents worth, and some reasons why she needs to apologize for her IraqNam stance in 2002 and on. I'm sure that she and her campaign can figure out some face saving ways to do this...but whatever. Here goes...
Title = IRAQNAM - Apology Required
Dear Ms. Clinton,
By now, only the hardcore Paleo-conartists and the truly hypnotized can deny the large number of similarities between the US Vietnam War and the present US Iraq War. Both were based on a huge series of lies, and were mistakes before they even began. Both required a lot of gullible Democratic Senators and House members for both wars to proceed and continue. History has shown in multiples what a disaster 'Nam was, especially in terms of what could have been accomplished if all the lives had not been wasted (killed, mutilated, altered), and if all of the money diverted from more pressing domestic concerns (civil rights, womens rights, ecology, peaceful economic development) had not been toasted. Call it the opportunity cost...And the 'Nam conflict was instrumental in getting the criminal government of Nixon elected in 1968, and re-elected in 1972.
Well, your apology for your disasterous decisions to support Bu$h's Oil War is in order. Your initial support (triangulation?) has also had its costs. It helped cost the Democrats the 2002 and 2004 elections, so it was politically a disasterous calculation. Trillions of dollars have been shoveled down the drain (current and future) as a consequence of IRAQNAM, and our standing in the world is now significantly less than Bush's current 28% approval rating in this country. It has helped contribute to bankrupting the country, and diverted attention from real problems needing solutions, including Global Warming/Global Meltdown (= glacier and icesheet), Peak Oil, Peak Natural Gas in North America, AIDS, whacked out trade policies and an economy increasingly disfunction and stilted towards dumping booty to the wealthy only, at the expense of the bottom (on income and wealth basis) 90% of our country.
I'm alive today in no small part as a result of those who protested and suffered for their protests against the insane Vietnam War. That was the reason Nixon cancelled the Draft as of Jan 1, 1973. My draft number was 6, and I was "certified" as "Grade A Cannon Fodder", with no rich relatives there to give me a "legal draft dodge". Supposedly you also disagreed with the Vietnam FUBAR, and maybe even protested against it.
At a minimum, you even failed to uphold "The Prime Directive"...oh well, just some TV fiction and wisdom, and not real law. But you should look it up sometime. At least it tried to use ethics to guide the actions of the powerful towards the less powerful. And in many ways, Iraq in 2001 was world's apart form the US...
Yet, in October of 2002, you blew it completely, and did not even have the minimal courage to abstain from that fateful vote. How could you even think that George W. Bu$h and his cronies/advisors/handlers were capable of telling the truth? Truly a lack of judgement on your behalf. You too swallowed the Kool-Aid, submitted (if only temporarily) to The Dark Side. Thousands of dead and wounded US people, hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Iraqi's as a result of the Bu$h War of Choice, which you may not have been able to stop...(singlehandedly, anyway)
But, like the NY loto, you never know...Bottom line, this was a POLITICAL calculation/gamble for you, and it came up snake eyes for you. Yes, you were not alone in this wretched affair...even Senator Kerry got burned trying to be complicated instead of clear. Your opinion and voice could have convinced many to delay and thus avoid the IRAQNAM war...Time was not on the side of the war mongers, after all, as they were dreadfully afraid that all the lies, obsfuscations and weasels they told/tall tales that had been so cleverly spun with the aid and comfort of a compliant, government-whore like press/media would come undone. But, we will never know what the effect of you showing courage instead of triangulated cowardice, like a deer staring at the oncoming trainlight, would have done.
So, we are awaiting your apology. Without that apology for believing Bu$h & Company and all the prewar propaganda, it's hard to take your candidacy as the Democratic Party choice for 2008 seriously. Now is not the time to go "Neo" on us (Neo-liberals and Neo-conservatives, analogous perhaps to Sunni's and Shia's, or perhaps Roman Catholics and Baptists....). After all, the entire IRAQNAM policy of these neo's requires a suspension of disbelief, which sounds religious to me. Not a good one, but certainly disconnected with reality, for sure.
Dave Bradley
Buffalo, NY