[antimedia] antimedia: Since he was elected....
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Wed Feb 21 22:04:04 EST 2007
I think--and have thought--that something snapped in Web's brain a while
ago. He even said he wanted to 'punch out' Bush when Bush asked about his
son. The hatred there is worse than the far left's, so again, something has
snapped in his brain. Sad, because I think he was awarded the DSC in
Vietnam, and that goes a very long way with me.
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Subject: [antimedia] antimedia: Since he was elected....
Posted by antimedia:
Since he was elected....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1172111325.shtml
....Jim Webb has been all over the news as the face of the Democratic
party. So who is [1]this guy?
Contrary to persistent mythology, two-thirds of those who served
during Vietnam were volunteers rather than draftees, and 77 percent
of those who died were volunteers. Of those who died, 86 percent
were Caucasian, 12.5 percent were African-American, and 1.2 percent
were from other races. The common claim that it was minorities and
the poor who were left to do the dirty work of military service in
Vietnam is false. The main imbalance in the war was simply that the
privileged avoided their obligations, and have persisted since that
time in demeaning the experience in order to protect themselves
from the judgment of history.
And what of these elites who misread not only a war but also their
own countrymen? Where are they now, other than in the White House?
On this vital historical issue that defined our generation, they
now keep a low profile, and well they should.
What an eerie feeling it must have been for those who staked the
journey of their youth on the idea that their own country was an
evil force, to have watched their naiveté unravel in the years
following 1975. How sobering it must have been for those who
allowed themselves to move beyond their natural denial, to observe
the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fleeing
the "pure flame of the revolution" on rickety boats that gave them
a 50 percent chance of death at sea, or to see television pictures
of thousands of Cambodian skulls lying in open fields, part of the
millions killed by Communist "liberators." How hollow the memories
of drug-drenched and sex-enshrined antiwar rallies must be; how
false the music that beatified their supposedly noble dissent.
Indeed, lets be frank. How secretly humiliating to stare into the
face of a disabled veteran, or to watch the valedictory speech of
the latest Vietnamese-American kid whose late father fought
alongside the Americans in a cause they openly mocked, derided, and
despised. And what a shame that the system of government that
allowed that student to be so quickly successful here is not in
place in the country of her origin.
The "administration" referred to is the Clinton administration. The
writer? Jim Webb! The same Jim Webb who [2]now says
I think that the real question to me is, is our leadership in the
diplomatic arena up to the same level of the proficiency and the
loyalty of our troops. And I don't think that it has been. Our
political leadership needs to bring this war to a conclusion. And
it is wrong for them to simply keep going back to the well and
burning these troops up.
yet back then he wrote
In the most comprehensive study ever done on Vietnam vets (Harris
Survey, 1980, commissioned by the Veterans Administration), 73
percent of the general public and 89 percent of Vietnam veterans
agreed with the statement that "The trouble in Vietnam was that our
troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in
Washington would not let them win."
Hello? Earth to Webb? Is anybody home?
Apparently, when you want to win politically, principles are
irrelevant.
References
1. http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16181/article_detail.asp
2. http://www.bornfighting.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
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