American Extremists: "Celebrate bad times"
Recommended reading on this topic, from Reuters: "Obama calls treatment of Vietnam War veterans 'a disgrace.'"
The president said to Vietnam vets "you came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated," thus perpetuating the rightwing notion of dirty hippies spitting on heroic veterans, a trope he directly reinforced in his transformatively transformative second book.
He also said "you should have been commended for serving your country with valor," as if the mission we drafted a generation of young men into were truly in the service of a decent national aim.
The horrors we subjected them to, and the ones we sent them to visit upon so many others, are not—or by gum should not be—something to celebrate.
Pity, learn from, heal from, yes. But to use the language of disgrace to describe some Americans' reticence to celebrate Vietnam troops as conquering heroes is a vulgar display of pandering for the head of a nation that remains ready, willing, and able to repeat the sins of that war as long as our empire has bullets, bombs, and Selective Service and military volunteers.
Labels: American Extremists
posted by Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy at 9:06 AM
4 Comments:
This ranks high on the list of Obama's most despicable remarks.
Well, we should respect them for why they went, if not for why they were sent. Honor them for what was in their hearts and minds. Whatever was the purpose of those who sent them, there was nothing ignoble in the purpose and resolution of the men who went into harm's way, and they did not seserve calumny for it. Their courage and intention deserved celebration.
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I have to disagree, Jayhawk, though I might changefrom my mind if you extend the same respect to those who opposed the war. There was nothing ignoble in their purpose and resolution either, yet Obama felt free to vilify them.
And don't forget the significant role of Vietnam veterans in the antiwar movement. Not only do VVAW and such groups get little respect from war lovers like Obama, they're virtually forgotten. Will the same happen to Afghan and Iraq veterans who oppose Obama's wars now? Probably.
I'm still skeptical of your attempt to gloss over the motives of those who fought. If they were "in harm's way," that was because they were invaders, and the people they put in harm's way had little choice in what happened to them. Is it a good thing to serve in an illegal invasion of a country that had not attacked the US, or even done us any harm at all? Just doing what your country tells you to do -- just following orders -- was discredited as a reason or motive by the Nuremberg tribunals.
And moving to the present, we know that a good many Americans who went to Iraq did so because they saw the US invasion as 'payback for 9/11." There's nothing noble about that, not least because Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
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