Hey there Rich, it is good to see you back! You had me scared for a moment about a Chilian secret prison. So lets get it on and we will start from the top...
Referring to Joel Kuntvermin Steins' article, that point is made in about as many words as you defend him on for calling out the anti-war movement for supporting the troops which is completely disgusting. My wrath is more to do about 70% of the rest of the article which is his main message, to deface the military, calling them suckers and essentially in undermining fashion, losers, which is really what the cusp of his bloathing was about. Besides, I dont see a great deal of the Left avoiding the concept of undermining our troops or saying that they support the troops, quite contraire.
Stein has much loftier goals in printing his bloathing, to energize the anti-war movement, and you know where I stand with that. Freedom of speech goes both ways, he can bloath and I can tell him to shut his filthy pie hole.
Bensnooty wrote
And I highly disagree with you about your points about Vietnam; the US military may have been more of a volunteer army in 1964, but by 1968 that was simply not the case.
Drafted soldiers only ever accounted for about 10% of our forces, throughout the entire conflict.
Bensnooty wrote
But you also make my day of what should be of serious concern about fruitcake op-ed rants. Yes, the US did kick Ho Chi Minh's ass and we still came home with our tail between our legs (special thanks to descent or dessent).
No, it had nothing to do with dissent, it had everything to do with Nixon's deal with Mao.
Now I am always trying to live up to the adage of learning something new everyday, if possible forward me some source about a 10% draftee breakdown of US forces in Vietnam. I do know two things about the numerical stats of the war, 3.5 million men and women served in Vietnam, and between 1965 and 1970, the US drafted 1.2 million men into the military. If 10% of the Vietnam military make up is true for draftees, that would mean that only 350,000 conscripts served in Vietnam. Also, that would leave just under a million draftees who were not sent. Under the circumstances of a military that got "stretched" as the war progressed, I find your precentage of conscripted soldiers who served in Vietnam to be astonishing to say the least.
Now to your other points about Ho Chi Minh, Nixon and China: In the wake of the Tet offensive in 1968, which was an utter failure for Minh, Johnson "abdicated" and THIS IS WHEN downsizing in the Vietnam force began and it was in direct response to the dissent, discourse and Johnson's unpopularity over the war in general and the anti war movement specifically.
In the wake of that very same event, the anti-war movement hit the stratosphere (as they were believing that they brought a president down) and which had destructive effects on the morale of the soldier yet to ship out, as well as the soldiers coming home getting spat on by better off dead vermin. In those concurrent years, 1968-1970, morale in the military did dissipate greatly, and the infantry started to sink into the concept of NOT being proactive with the enemy, which led our troops to remain in stationary fronts which in turn led to more effective Chinese supplied mortaring by the enemy, and hence, a greater disproportional number of US casualties and fewer NV casualties during those years. Is this kind of demoralization acceptable for the situation of Iraq?
Furthermore, before the Chinese deal was entered into negotiations, Nixon had to exhaust his last possible conventional option militarily, (unlike Johnson, Nixon was unmoved and dismissive of the antiwar movement) and that option he undertook was outright carpet bombing of both the NV and Cambodia. THIS is was brought Ho Chi Minh to his knees, and to the table for a negotiated peace. The China deal is what sealed it, indeed. But the background of what got to that agreement cannot be lost on the antiwar movement of today and must be discredited for what they continue to be today, filthy kuntvermin degenerates.
I agree, there's nothing of Vietnam which can be applied to the current conflict. My position is simple: we should nuke Mecca and Medina, repeatedly, until they figure out that Allah is a myth; let the bleeding hearts whine all they want about it. Islam is fundamentally incompatible with liberty, and Bush is either a fool for thinking otherwise, or he really is a theocratic douche who despises liberty; I'm still uncertain as to whether he's the former or the latter though.
I couldn't agree more! Nuking Mecca and Medina would speed up the process of the what is most likely the inevitable unfortunately. Bush's strategy was to be politically correct and take baby step approaches. BUT are you willing to deal with the consequences of taking such a major step. Instant conscription, fortress America, executive power unseen in American history and not just left wing whining, but most plausibly, left wing terrorism as well as a nice new wave of low level islamic terror coming from every direction on the planet. Could you stomach all that for an extended period of time? All I can say is "People get ready!"
Say what you want about Bush, but you cant say he hasent taken the cautious and methodical approach in the war on terror. He asked for UN permission to invade Iraq when he should have given them the finger, Congress was kept abreast of Bush's NSA extension AND the Patriot Act was sent to and passed in the Senate 99 to 1 with an expiration date I might add.
Again, I don't care if you are citizen or not, if you are aiding and abetting an enemy to conduct war on your own soil, you just committed treason, and be rid of you. Next you are going to tell me the Rosenberg's got acceptable due process in court. The bottom line is THEY DIDN'T DESERVE IT and the real travesty about that incident is that there were hundreds of other treasonous abettors who should have fried right along with them. I don't care a pitcher of warm piss about about the rights of citizens who do business with your enemy in wartime. If there are innocent citizens who get caught up in the dragnet, then to avoid that is like trying to conduct a war without civilian casualties. Go ahead and try and see how you will succeed.
The main point here, DEMOCRACY IS INCONGRUENT WITH WARFARE. I'll say it again, DEMOCRACY IS INCONGRUENT WITH WARFARE. This is why executive power gets expanded in wartime and this is why presidents have taken liberty with our very own in the process. But dont tell me that Executive power does not retreat. Please take a good look at the comparisons of the executive privilege of FDR and lets include Woodrow Wilson for that matter and compare it to Reagan's for Christ's sake.
A case in point, the military. After WW2 we had over 12 million combat trained forces at the ready. They were plenty disbanded in the wake of victory, effectively diminishing the executive authority over the use of the military in foreign policy matters, and the military would continue to expand and diminish with each concurrent conflict or tension. You state it correctly, "congress authorizes" military architecture and the same goes with Presidential power. Hell, in another area of executive power Congress gave Clinton the line item bill veto provision (a great big executive power granted), and the supreme court promptly struck it down.
I will agree with you about the official "declaration of war" being needed in our conflicts with North Korea, North Vietnam, the first Gulf War as well as the Yugoslavian conquest. But with GW, his predicament was what are you declaring war on? And where does that declaration limit you to do within the dynamics of an illusive enemy. Do you declare war on Afghanistan and conclude victory at that point, or Al Qaeda, and then have more delarations with each seperate terrorist organization or, better yet how about the broad scope of declaring war on the Muslim religion in general. But to recap, this is a conflict with no conclusive battleground or game rules with an enemy that IS INCONGRUENT WITH DEMOCRACY. It is a conflict which could ingulf us with a good portion of a religion that has over a bilion followers and growing.
Open flexibility is the only way to keep from letting our enemies pigeon hold our objectives and stab us in the ass with it, ie; Iraq. Bush did not have to state his lofty ambitions of establishing a democracy, but he did and the insurgency has used this against us from the very beginning. As it is, again, Bush has asked for congressional authority for each military option, and without the constitutional blanket of expanded authority that an official declaration of war permits him. I think that it has been a shrewd move on his part, not to give any excess political motivation to the opposition party and undermine your military strategies.
Say what you want about Lincoln, but had the Union not held, and he failed in his authority to conduct the war, the south would be a different country, and a very different nation. Slavery would have lasted for a few more generations, and segregation and voting restrictions could still be around today. Ostracizing (sp?) the South, like we and the western world did with South Africa in the 1980's would have been implemented and the "New South" would still be just a dream as well as an extreme embarrassment to the US. To trade Lincoln's behavior over expending a huge and important region of our nation and culture, easy decision here.
You make mention of Hoover, and here again another example, his death is a fine episode of a shrinkage of the executive branch's authority, and don't just brush a broad stroke as to him being responsible for all FBI abuses like most liberal revisionist historians. All the presidents I mentioned earlier were well into abusing FBI enforcement just as well for their own personal and political purposes. And don't forget RFK's approval of wiretapping MLK as attorney general. Oh, the irony is killing me.
I admire your libertarian ideals, in peacetime, I would be squarely in your square. But warfare require different parameters in order to insure survival and victory. Liberty will suffer, and the more devastating the conflict, the more Liberty will suffer indeed. Handcuff your leaders, and the outcome becomes all that much more murky, while the will to fight is expended and wrung out to dry by the very degenerates that are a product of extended peacetime and affluence; the American and Eurotrash kuntvermin degenerates.
Bush as Ho Chi Minh, or a theocratic ruler, Please! While I do not question his own religious convictions, the religious right are his rubber stamp sector of his base. Otherwise, Bush is an enigma as a conservative because of all kinds sloppy Joe big government initiatives, no budget retraint, ect. FYI (this is the aspect of unlimited big government where your rule of thumb about no shrinking from REALLY APPLIES TO). Far too many government entitlements and social programs become part of the landscape, never to be demolitioned. Bush has proven himself to be staunchly pro-business and enterprise, and that is his domestic agenda. His promotion of free trade initiatives are almost on par with Clinton's legacy at this point.
Here is an analogy to ponder. While pandering to the religious right, I have never heard Bush mutter a word how corporations gearing gangsta and whore culture to the youth of society should be curtailed. Especially when we are talking about the underaged, who are most susceptible to this rubbish and the marketing of it. Parents either refuse to stand up to this permeation or are too busy promoting it themselves to their children. I have heard no Bush speech in wich he takes on the corporate apparatus who gear this trash toward the youth of our nation. If he were so damn theologically wired to his base, we would be seeing otherwise.
One More Thing, your contradictory explanation of the Bush powers debacle:
Also, moonbats who don't care about liberty are riding on the coattails of people who actually give a shit about liberty, in denouncing the warrantless domestic surveillance, solely because it's an opportunity to attack Bush, whom they hate, and other moonbats, who also don't care about liberty, are using that to denounce those who actually give a shit about liberty.
So your damned if you do, damned if you dont. You would be labeled one or the other regardless. And fighting with your elected protectors over this issue when your enemy wants your destruction is just a contradictory strategy. And to answer one other query you had about giving power to the president or to the enemy and their fruitcake counterparts, in time of war and survival, this is your only options and optional outcome as far as I am concerned.
Go ahead, keep it coming Rich!
