Over and over, we hear well-intentioned people claiming that the situation in Iraq is like Vietnam, in that eventually we'll have some type of national awakening from the nightmare. If you're one of those people, I don't think you understand - this time it's different - the unfolding atrocity in Haditha and comparisons with My Lai not withstanding.
It's different because in the 60s and early 70s, voices of protest mattered...
It's different because reporters were not afraid to embed themselves in the operation, and send back the true story, grisley footage and all. Cameras which capture unflattering images of war are confiscated now, and reporters in-country practice hotel journalism from the Green Zone Bar and Grille™ , for the most part.
It's different because the media, which during the Vietnam era still considered itself the guardian of a free society, was unafraid, unintimidated, and willing to show the pictures and tell the story.
It's different because we now have a hard core contingent of fringe lunatic, mouthbreathing howler monkeys that have been emboldened and enabled to spew their special brand of hate. And get away with it time after time.
It's different because the vast majority of politicians cowtow to the mouthbreathers. Or the mouthbreathers have become the politicians in some instances (it's the only explanation I have for the junior Senators from South Carolina and Oklahoma).
It's different because the mouthbreathers have a vast marketplace in which to peddle their war making, jingosim, and intolerant ideology, while simultaneously robbing the country blind.
It's different because many progressive activists are afraid -- literally afraid -- do you think for a moment that Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin would have been blogging with a 3-layer deep nom de plume in 1968, had blogging existed back then?
It's different because an intellectual view of the carnage has been supplanted by a neandrethal bloodlust. We are actually lectured by the President of the United states to "look beyond the bloodshed".
It's different because forty years ago, the government was afraid of the public. Now, it's the other way around.
It's different because we're too far historically removed from Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to have a first hand institutional memory of what those dictators and madmen rained on the world - and why what this country is experiencing now is sooooooo damn close to what the world experienced during the rise of fascism in 1930s and 40s.
It's different because, well, it is. There will be no peace accord or surrender by the "insurgents" and "evildoers". There will be no peace accord or surrender by the "imperialists".
It's different because this time, the end of the atrocities comes with a big bang rather than a diplomatically signed piece of paper. There is no other way out. The cabal that runs our government has been backed into a corner. When the bloodletting in Iraq is no longer financially viable or politically sustainable, the big bang comes. Sooner than later.
It's different because nothing, absolutely nothing short of a big bang will get people's attention. Nothing.