Vietnam, Then and Now
Hugh Hewitt has a thoughtful piece on the broader significance of the Vietnam war and its central place in John Kerry's campaign and in the election. It's worth reading in its entirety. Here is a portion of Hugh's conclusion:
America then and America now was and is undeniably the greatest force for good in the world. Its troops, then and now, fought and still fight to protect and defend the United States and to stop evil men, regimes, and ideologies from murdering millions of innocents. In those fights, there will be terrible tolls, and many innocents will die or be injured, but American armies fight wars --then and now-- with more concern for the innocent and with more discipline and accountability than any armies in history.I think that is exactly right. The fundamental divide on foreign policy in the American electorate is not over strategy, still less over tactics. What is said on those subjects is almost always subterfuge. The question that divides conservatives and liberals is much more fundamental: is America, and are America's armies, as Hugh says, "the greatest force for good in the world." Conservatives say Yes. Liberals say No.At one point in his life, John Kerry rejected the core principles of the preceding paragraph. He has never confessed that error and asked for forgiveness of the people he slandered at that time. That's why he won't be the president...The men John Kerry slandered are now fighting for their honor--again. Karl Rove didn't tell them to do so, and they aren't going to stop because [liberals think] they deserved to be branded barbarians.
It was a branding. It is still a brand --a dishonest, slanderous one. Men fight for their honor, and the ads aren't going away as a result.
Liberals think that America is a stupid, blind, corrupt and greedy power that commits only crimes when it tries to act in the world. That is what John Kerry said in 1971, in words he has never renounced. That is what Kerry's core supporters believe today, and they apply that furious conviction to the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan war, to the war on terror generally, and to any conflict in which America might take part at any time in the future.
This, really, is the issue that divided Americans in 1971, and it is the principal issue that divides Americans today. The issue has never gone away because the left has never gone away, and it has never recanted its slanders against this country or the servicemen and servicewomen who defend it.
So let's fight the battle. The left is weaker now than it was when John Kerry got his start in politics. If Americans have lost their nerve, and no longer believe in this country's mission and in its future, the left--John Kerry--will win. Those of us who still believe in our country must do everything in our power to make sure that doesn't happen.
BIG TRUNK adds: On the subject of Vietnam then and now, see also "A tangled web" by Mac Owens and "Kerry's moment of peril" by Andrew Busch. (Courtesy of Peter Schramm and No Left Turns.)
