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July 7, 2004 As a Vietnam War vet I tend to be VERY suspicious of those claiming to be protesting the war but "supporting the troops." I remember too well how that "support" manifested itself when I came back in 1968; shortly after Tet. The same sorts seem to be at it yet again-- virtually ALL leftist radicals, it seems. Why is it that these unwashed, unshaven, grubby, sandal-wearing, apparently unemployed folks seem to have so much time on their hands that they can appear whenever and wherever our President appears--seemingly so they can try to shout him down, wave placards with stupid messages echoing Michael Moore's slanders and work themselves into a frenzy? It was learned around 1991, when the Soviets opened up their archives to researchers, that, after the total disaster of Tet in which not a single town was taken for longer than about 36 hours, not a single battle won and the loss of fully 1/3rd of the VC's fighting strength and weapons, Ho Chi Minh was ready to sue for peace. Instead, his advisors (including those from the USSR) advised him to hold on a bit longer so they'd have a "friendlier" U.S. government with which to bargain. How did they GET such an idea? From the news reports eminating from the U.S. showing the campus riots, flag burnings, draft protests and seemingly unending coverage of draftees fleeing for Sweden and Canada, that's where. If such activities were to occur in THEIR countries, they'd be on the verge of violent revolution so naturally, they assumed the same thing applied here as well. In short, the protests, in addition to emboldening our enemies and giving them the will to hold on, were responsible for every casualty on BOTH sides from mid-1968 to the end of the war, during which the majority of the casualties actually occurred. If we learn nothing else from Vietnam we should have learned that the public APPEARANCE of disunity gives aid and comfort to our enemies and actually PROLONGS the conflict instead of shortening it. None of this is to say that legitimate protest shouldn't occur. However, it SHOULD occur in the halls of Congress or in the editorial pages of newspapers--not the streets of San Francisco or New York or Berkeley, and NOT be given the inordinate TV coverage the protesters seem to be looking for. A few years back, six women from NOW showed up in some Florida market to picket it because it sold Florida Orange Juice which was one of the sponsors of the Rush Limbaugh show. They'd arranged for TV cameras before which they were going to call for a boycott of Florida Orange Juice until the growers' association dropped their sponsorship of Limbaugh. The press dutifully showed up, but some Rush fans had gotten wind of it and showed up en masse, some 300 strong, and bought up all the store's supply of Florida OJ and laughed and jeered at the NOW girls. The TV cameras were never turned on and the "press conference" was cancelled and the NOW girls got back into their Jaguar and drove away. My question was why was their "protest" considered newsworthy, but the counter-protest wasn't? The answer lies in exactly why the anti-war protests are given so much news play now and back during Vietnam--the vast majority of "journalists" actually AGREE with the aims of the protesters. That the American press has long been compromised should come as no surprise. One could fill volumes with true, factual stories both about Iraq AND Vietnam that were simply ignored by the press because those stories would NOT have placed the United States in an unfavorable light and, more importantly, would have given the public the perception that the GOP President involved today actually knows what he is doing and is doing it for the right reasons. ------------ Email David Allen Jared: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net |
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