Happy Birthday Redd and Siun!

Fitz!

Happy Birthday Christy, lots of martini love coming your way! Heard you kicked ass this morning, is there a youtube yet?

Happy Birthday Christy and Siun!

I still believe and hope for Fitz!

Too bad George Stephanopolis did not ask him how he might have won the Vietnam war.

OT - One word…NORON: http://mediamatters.org/items/200610180015

This is lovely. They found the rethugs that sent out the threatening do not vote letters.

Scum.

Well, it’s going to be another slimey day here in DC:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00533.html

“A Florida newspaper has interviewed a Catholic priest who acknowledged having an intimate, two-year relationship 40 years ago with a youthful Mark Foley, the former U.S. Congressman who resigned last month after being accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with Congressional pages.

Rev. Anthony Mercieca told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that he befriended Foley when he was assigned to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth, Fla. Foley was an altar boy in the parish.”

Well over here in the UK, Blair has committed himself to leave Iraq within sixteen months,when he goes next spring that timeframe will shorten.It will just be George then. Loved the Buffalo Sprinfield clip not heard that in years.

hey guys, those of you that would rather use ie but the features at the lake here only work in firefox

ie 7 is now out for official release

MUCH faster then firefox

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Inte.....d4955.html

[edit]

disregard

never mind, edit button STILL doesn’t work, I had to edit this in firefox

I lost nine friends and buddies in Tet. Thomas Friedman, keep your filthy hands off their sacrifice.

The manipulation of the history of the Vietnam experience by blithe wonks like Friedman and turncoats like Stephanopolous might work on ill-informed younger people already sporting cups half-empty of purple kool-aid, but not on most others.

Don’t forget one big parallel between Viet Nam and Iraq. No one from the Bush family served in Viet Nam and no one from that family will ever serve in Iraq.

Before too long he’ll be saying we must destroy Iraq in order to save it.

See…it’s all al Qaeda’s fault! They are dangerous! They are lethal! Uhh… They are fomenting sectarian violence! It’s not the U.S., we’re just over there trying to bring freedom and democracy to a poor nation, and these al Qaeda people are working to hurt us again! Just like 9/11! Terror! Fear! But have no worry, I’ll save us! Me! heh heh (smirk)

And then he steps into that huge cow paddy called Vietnam, willingly comparing this to Tet. What a complete idiot! I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve had enough.

marksb @ 13

See…it’s all al Qaeda’s fault! They are dangerous! They are lethal! Uhh… They are fomenting sectarian violence! It’s not the U.S., we’re just over there trying to bring freedom and democracy to a poor nation, and these al Qaeda people are working to hurt us again! Just like 9/11! Terror! Fear! But have no worry, I’ll save us! Me! heh heh (smirk)

And then he steps into that huge cow paddy called Vietnam, willingly comparing this to Tet. What a complete idiot! I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve had enough.

Oh yeah, and don’t go to football games this weekend…dirty bombs, Al Queda, terrorists, ooh, veddy, veddy scaddey, kids!

Riverbend has a post up about the Lancet study (link at LG&M.) She thinks the numbers in the study may be too low.

What Republicans said when Clinton sent troops to Bosnia

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
–Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

More Here

Ed*ard Teller @ 10

I lost nine friends and buddies in Tet. Thomas Friedman, keep your filthy hands off their sacrifice.

The manipulation of the history of the Vietnam experience by blithe wonks like Friedman and turncoats like Stephanopolous might work on ill-informed younger people already sporting cups half-empty of purple kool-aid, but not on most others.

Nobody studies the Vietnam war. I believe in our country there is zero knowledge of the history, context, and especially the experience, and no effort to teach it at all. In fact, I think it’s not taught by design. My daughter had a class in her Jr. year in high school on it, then went and visited, while I expanded her views at home. She was one of about twelve in the class, and I think that was the only class of it’s kind in my area. Her teacher was considered a radical for teaching this. It changed how she views history, war, our government’s policies, and her role in society, and I can see it’s coloring her direction in college.

Vietnam was the most important event in our country in the last forty years. No matter how hard it is to be honest about our errors and the pain we caused and experienced, we *must* teach the lessons of history!

Not caught up, so pardon if this already in:

SARASOTA, Fla. - A Roman Catholic priest said he had an inappropriate two-year relationship with former Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) in the 1960s that included massaging the boy in the nude, but he did not specifically remember having sex, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Priest admits Foley relationship

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more weird, it does. Now there is a direct link between the Foley/Republican scandal and coverup and the Church scandal/coverup. Will Fox play this a the priest that brought down the Republican party? They gotta blame someone.

The only thing missing is side-by-side pictures of a priest fondling a nude future member of Congress and the mound of nude men being overseen at Abu Ghraib. But wait, it’s coming.

marksb at 17 — actually, I did in college. I had a semester-long seminar on the Vietnam War taught by Anthony Lake, who later became the National Security Advisor in the first Clinton term. Was a fantastic class, and I learned so much about what can go right — and what can go so very wrong — among government officials without there being internal structures for accountability, with decisions being made without adequate consideration of consequences and ramifications. Sound familiar?

windje @
16

What Republicans said when Clinton sent troops to Bosnia

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
–Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

More Here

Great Catch!

. . . step outta line, the Man come, and take you away . . .

my deja wont quit vuing !

mc — I see you already had it. Thanks.

I like you even better today.

Ed*ard Teller @
10

I lost nine friends and buddies in Tet. Thomas Friedman, keep your filthy hands off their sacrifice.

The manipulation of the history of the Vietnam experience by blithe wonks like Friedman and turncoats like Stephanopolous might work on ill-informed younger people already sporting cups half-empty of purple kool-aid, but not on most others.

Yogi Berra once said, “This is like deja vu all over again.”
A better quote of his as far as Iraq is concerned is: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

OT– cspan carrying Gene Taylor talking about the results from the Katrina task force.

whoo-wee, he is pretty darn awesome.

“…a priest fondling a nude future member of Congress.”

Oh, Gawd, did you have to put it THAT way?!

The whole point of the Swift Boaters was that it was our (the anti-war movement in general and the VVAW in particular) that we “lost our nerve” and snatched defeat from the arms of victory. If we had just hung in there and killed a couple of hundred thousand more we woudl have won.

marksb @
17

Ed*ard Teller @ 10

I lost nine friends and buddies in Tet. Thomas Friedman, keep your filthy hands off their sacrifice.

The manipulation of the history of the Vietnam experience by blithe wonks like Friedman and turncoats like Stephanopolous might work on ill-informed younger people already sporting cups half-empty of purple kool-aid, but not on most others.

Nobody studies the Vietnam war. I believe in our country there is zero knowledge of the history, context, and especially the experience, and no effort to teach it at all. In fact, I think it’s not taught by design. My daughter had a class in her Jr. year in high school on it, then went and visited, while I expanded her views at home. She was one of about twelve in the class, and I think that was the only class of it’s kind in my area. Her teacher was considered a radical for teaching this. It changed how she views history, war, our government’s policies, and her role in society, and I can see it’s coloring her direction in college.

Vietnam was the most important event in our country in the last forty years. No matter how hard it is to be honest about our errors and the pain we caused and experienced, we *must* teach the lessons of history!

I also took a class in college about it and actually wrote my senior thesis on it (I was a history major.) There are so many misconceptions about Vietnam that pass as “conventional” wisdom you almost don’t know where to start.

Some good books on it are anything by David Halberstam-Making of a Quagmire, Best and Brightest. Also Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan is great too.

Happy Birthday, Redd and Siun.

Thanks for a great YouTube, Christy, Buffalo Springfield

Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Jim Messina.
Tight band.

Sure, Fox will play that card, and there will be some articles about the poor congressman who was acting out his pain.

But to the evangelicals? I dunno. I’m not sure this plays to them. Maybe they can blame the Catholics, something they are practiced at, but…I think it turns them off even more to the excuses and the story. In their mind, false church, evil deeds, congress, GOP coverup…What do ya think? Does this chain of mental images inspire or disgust the GOP’s most important demographic? I see the evangelicals staying home.

(And you can’t pay for this kind of news cycle extension. Every day on the news and interviews results in more people turned off and pissed off about it. House leadership on the defensive another day. Lame excuses and even lamer defenses recycled again. Negative campaigns you don’t have to pay for.)

Twisted — that Sheehan book is quite well done. I’d also add Long Gray Line (just for the military side of things — and because someone I know was in that class from the Academy and he tells me that it is quite accurate to a lot of what he experienced) and Stanley Karnow’s companion piece to the documentary that PBS did some years ago: Vietnam — A History. It’s a great overview as a starting point.

Try
Christian Appy’s Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides is an oral history that serves as a “final public record” from many who have struggled publicly with the war for 20 or 30 years. The book is also a monumental effort to capture voices long unheard and ensure that the words are not lost to a new generation.

and

Late Thoughts on an Old War Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam’s costs, opening wider the emptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here Beidler draws on deeply personal memories to reflect on the war’s lingering aftereffects and the shallow, evasive ways we deal with them.

Twisted Martini @ 28

I also took a class in college about it and actually wrote my senior thesis on it (I was a history major.) There are so many misconceptions about Vietnam that pass as “conventional” wisdom you almost don’t know where to start.

Some good books on it are anything by David Halberstam-Making of a Quagmire, Best and Brightest. Also Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan is great too.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 19

marksb at 17 — actually, I did in college. I had a semester-long seminar on the Vietnam War taught by Anthony Lake, who later became the National Security Advisor in the first Clinton term. Was a fantastic class, and I learned so much about what can go right — and what can go so very wrong — among government officials without there being internal structures for accountability, with decisions being made without adequate consideration of consequences and ramifications. Sound familiar?

That’s just it! All of us need this acountability taught, the contextual history of the war. I think it is taught in college but I believe it needs to be a class on it’s own and required in high school. A person could rewrite the old civics requirement around this subject alone.

old gold @
24

Yogi Berra once said, “This is like deja vu all over again.”
A better quote of his as far as Iraq is concerned is: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

Yogi the Jedi poet also said “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”

The GOP HAS come to the fork in the road, and now they’ve chosen to take it back to January, 1968? Bad choice…… talk about a fork in the road to nowhere.

And if that’s not enough

They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Rick
Maraniss (When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi) intertwines two compelling narratives to capture the Vietnam War at home and on the battlefield as well as, if not better than, any book yet written. The first narrative follows the soldiers of the army battalion the Black Lions, 61 of whom died in an ambush by North Vietnamese on October 17, 1967. The battle scene description is devastating, brilliantly compiled with painstakingly recreated details of the four-and-a-half-hour battle, unflinchingly drawn pictures of the damage modern ordinance inflicts and an equally unflinching record of the physical and psychological residue of battle. The second narrative centers on the October 18, 1967, riot at the University of Wisconsin at Madison when student protesters tried to stop Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm, from recruiting on campus. Here Maraniss, a Madison native and a freshman at the university at the time, successfully depicts the complicated range of motives that led students to participate in the protest: many began the day as curious observers, and the riot radicalized them against the war. The author also re-creates the sense of loss, confusion and anger of the university administrators as they were overtaken by events that would change the fundamental relationships between students and faculty. The two narratives together provide a fierce, vivid diptych of America bisected by a tragic war: a moving remembrance for those who lived through it and an illuminating lesson for a new generation trying to understand what it was all about.
raven316 @ 33

Try
Christian Appy’s Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides is an oral history that serves as a “final public record” from many who have struggled publicly with the war for 20 or 30 years. The book is also a monumental effort to capture voices long unheard and ensure that the words are not lost to a new generation.

and

Late Thoughts on an Old War Philip D. Beidler, who served as an armored cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam, sees less and less of the hard-won perspective of the common soldier in what America has made of that war. Each passing year, he says, dulls our sense of immediacy about Vietnam’s costs, opening wider the emptation to make it something more necessary, neatly contained, and justifiable than it should ever become. Here Beidler draws on deeply personal memories to reflect on the war’s lingering aftereffects and the shallow, evasive ways we deal with them.

Twisted Martini @ 28

I also took a class in college about it and actually wrote my senior thesis on it (I was a history major.) There are so many misconceptions about Vietnam that pass as “conventional” wisdom you almost don’t know where to start.

Some good books on it are anything by David Halberstam-Making of a Quagmire, Best and Brightest. Also Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan is great too.

Karnow’s book is good, but a little dry. From a soldiers standpoint, 13th Valley, a Rumor of War and Fields of Fire (by Jim Webb)are the best in capturing what life was like for the guys on the ground.

Stephanopoulis failed to ask the Preznit when Jenna and not-Jenna will be volunteering to serve in Iraq, what with their being the right age and all.

Why are others asked to sacrifice?

Conrad Burns is saying that Nixon Bush has a secret plan to win the war. (Wonder what John Dean thinks of it?)

I think I’ve read this book before . . . IIRC, it was a tragedy.

Oh, and for a great inner perspective, I should not forget “The Forever War,” written by a brilliant science fiction writer, Joe Haldeman, who also happens to be one of the nicest people I know. Brilliant stuff, and really gets to the heart of what he (and others) experienced in Vietnam. He won a Hugo Award for it.

OK on with my ‘normal day’. Off to a consult at UCLA medical center this afternoon. That’ll be fun. Thank you all for everything you write. What a community! Christy, as I recall, Hobbits gave everyone else gifts on their birthdays. You may have borrowed from that tradition, ’cause you certainly have gifted us.

Slothrop @
38

Stephanopoulis failed to ask the Preznit when Jenna and not-Jenna will be volunteering to serve in Iraq, what with their being the right age and all.

Why are others asked to sacrifice?

so they can import and snort coca on grampa’s farm on the Paraguay-Bolivia border?

OCTOBER SURPRISE(D)? http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/arti.....LRP3Q5.DTL

Busy day ahead here. Anyways, I was thinking about WHO taught me about Vietnam and I can’t remember anything beyond a cursory glance, in HS or college. Yet I make sure and cover it in depth in every US History class I’ve ever taught!

Sounds like an illuminating senior thesis Twisted. Mine was a 68 pager on “The Growth Of Presidential Powers in the U.S.” - written as a poli sci major in 1986-87. Glenn Greenwald basically wrote the update with How Would a Patriot Act?

What scares the shit out of me is that Bush can acknowledge a possible parallel, but he still cannot see, or will not acknowledge, that the parallels point to miserable failure; nor that his administration is responsible for creating those parallels. Even in insight, the man is utterly delusional.

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Ladies of the Lake!!!

OfT, FWIW, Mark Foley has been the beneficiary of some very shrewd PR advice, imho. He has inverted the narrative to portray himself as the victim.

I think it’s a net win for Dems. It allows this story to advance on a very broad front, for example, Trandahl and Boehner are testifying before the House Ethics committee today.

Lou Costello #43 — watched morning TV news as they went over the latest threat from what the government says is a less than credible source.

Questions not getting asked by corporate media:

– Article you linked in SFGate says the website at which the post was made was inaccessible after word got out (believe SFGate is implying traffic volume swamped the site). Why could I see the site on this TV report when they pulled up the post to display it?

– How did the government find out about the threat? did another commenter at the site turn it in to the feds?

Or was the site being watched?

I’m not going to name the site, but it sure looked banal to me.

Time to go to JuliusBlog and see if he’s mapping JAR to threats as he did in late summer/early autumn of 2004.

Christy replaying on CSPAN2 now!

It was a trick question…Bush doesn’t know what the Tet offensive was!!!

Eleven US soldiers charged with Iraq rape, killings

WASHINGTON - Eleven US soldiers face charges for murder and rape in Iraq, including two who could be put to death for the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family, the US military said on Wednesday.

The court martials, as US military criminal cases are called, are likely to be carried out in Iraq.

Four US soldiers in all are accused in the rape and killing of the girl in an alleged incident that happened in March at Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, and outraged the Iraqi government, which depends on US military support….

John Casper @ 47

OfT, FWIW, Mark Foley has been the beneficiary of some very shrewd PR advice, imho. He has inverted the narrative to portray himself as the victim.

He can try, but the accountability here is just too easy to calculate. It’s possible to get away with stunts like this in a financial scandal, but there just isn’t any abstraction here: Foley made sexual advances toward minors. It’s as simple as that.

Why do I not believe the priest’s story? It’s not like these people lie to us about everything. If true, the guy might want to vacate Italy for a hospitable home in Paraguay. Poor, pitiful Republicans are always the victim.

Oh gosh, Angie — I haven’t even worked up the nerve to watch the DVD of this morning yet. We had to work around a rather large earpiece (the usual ones had been packed and shipped out with most of the crew at the station, which does mostly sports for WVU — they are covering the game tomorrow), so I hope I didn’t end up looking too weird on camera. I had to sit at a slightly uncomfortable angle…

There are lots of things about Viet Nam I hope we don’t see again:

The notion that carpet bombing by B-52s against targets all over North Vietnam would destroy the “will” and warmaking capacity of the “enemy,” [just like it did in London in 1940!!]

The notion that carpet bombing by B-52s in S. VietNam could successfully disrupt supplies moving from North to South.

The notion that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” makes any tactical (or moral) sense.

The notion that just having more troops would make the difference. We had over 500,000 US troops in the South, plus another million ARVNs, plus tens of thousands of CIDGs (local militia headed by a US Captain with a radio opeator (me), and still were not able to maintain security in cities and villages. And we had a draft supporting this meatgrinder.

In Vietnam is was Strategic Hamlets; in Iraq, the same strategy is called “clear and hold.” We’ve been there, done that.

In Vietnam, Nixon’s strategy to reduce US casualties and eventually withdraw was to “vietnamize the war.” Bush calls this “as they stand up, we will stand down.”

Unlimited technology and nearly unlimited troops couldn’t save us then from the original strategic blunder. And it wouldn’t save us now. It would only increase the carnage.

elroy @ 50

It was a trick question…Bush doesn’t know what the Tet offensive was!!!

That possibility should not be ignored. It would help explain how he can claim to recognize an historical pattern without making any modification as a result.

I think ya’ll are making an assumption here: that Commander Bunnypants knew what Stephanopoulis was talking about when he mentioned the “Tet offensive”. I know what that means, since I grew up in the Sixties; this little chickenshit bully did his best to avoid Viet Nam — what makes you think the moron has a clue about Tet? If you take it in that context, his blithe, clueless answer makes perfect sense — he doesn’t know what Stephanopoulis is talking about. Tet was the beginning of the end in Viet Nam — there’s no sense that he understands that fact in his answer. This dim bulb is “the leader of the free world”! No wonder we’re all screwed.

Happy Birthday(s), Christy & Siun! And thanks so much for all that you do, both to change this nightmare situation our country is in, and to help keep our spirits up while we’re doing it.

Speaking of Vietnam books, the most powerful work of fiction I’ve read about the war is Tim O’Brien’s story collection THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. The title story, written from the viewpoint of an infantry soldier, is as eloquent and emotionally devastating as fiction gets.

scarecrow @ 55

There are lots of things about Viet Nam I hope we don’t see again:

The notion that carpet bombing by B-52s against targets all over North Vietnam would destroy the “will” and warmaking capacity of the “enemy,” [just like it did in London in 1940!!]

Three words: Shock. And. Awe. Been there, done that, and to no better effect than in Vietnam or the Blitz.

This is EPUed from the last thread in my birthday wishes comment. May well fit here as well, in response to cbl’s comment about our Marine families having to stand in food stamp lines:

cbl, a lawyer friend of mine just yesterday recommended Ricks’ book Fiasco to me…said what he took away more than anything was the utter contempt and disdain the Bushies have for the military.

Our Marines and Army and National Guards deserve far better than this administration.
Semper Fi…and Get Out Our Vote

The Tet timeline means we’ll wait for seven more years before this:
http://www.fallofsaigon.org/dao.htm
——-
Aother moving work:
http://www.roadjunky.com/greats/dispatches.shtml

We have all spent ten years trying to explain what happened to our heads and our lives in the decade we finally survived - but Michael herr’s Dispatches puts all the rest of us in the shade.” (Hunter Thompson)

Dispatches is a masterful collage of stories, dialogue and prose poetry on the Vietnam War from Michael Herr, a writer who spent a year trailing the marines and army on their operations in the hills, jungles and cities of Vietnam. The book is as much an account of his own experience as the scenes he witnessed and through a subjective voice bursting with pain, humour and compassion, Michael Herr takes the reader through a tour of duty in Vietnam.

Dispatches isn’t so much a travelogue or memoirs of a journalist as it is a slice of human reality in wartime. Herr hangs out with the troops in damp bunkers, gets stoned with the exhausted and freaked out journalists and gives the ordinary soldiers in the field a voice as never before. In a world where history concerns itself with the deeds and thoughts of the generals, presidents and kings, Dispatches takes us into the realm of real history, enacted by the young men who were made to lay their lives, hearts and sanity on the line.”…
——
Sen. George Aiken (R-VT) sagely said:
“The best policy is to declare victory and go home.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Aiken

rat bastahd @ 46

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Ladies of the Lake!!!

Righto! That goes for me, too,
Happy Birthday!

John Casper @ 51

Eleven US soldiers charged with Iraq rape, killings

WASHINGTON - Eleven US soldiers face charges for murder and rape in Iraq, including two who could be put to death for the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family, the US military said on Wednesday.

The court martials, as US military criminal cases are called, are likely to be carried out in Iraq.

Four US soldiers in all are accused in the rape and killing of the girl in an alleged incident that happened in March at Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, and outraged the Iraqi government, which depends on US military support….

How awful, but I’m afraid it’s a sign of the times. We’re going to see nothing for investivations, indictments and trials for years to come. The Bush era will be remembered as a time of unparalleled lawlessness, both at home and abroad, that permeated the ruling group and affected everyone it touched. A time when the nation’s image took one punch to the gut after another, without stop.

Had enough? GOTV. ActBlue/American

Patterning one’s foreigh policy on a disaster isn’t such a great idea.

Yes, Vietnam was a tragedy we’re still sorting out. In one sense this parallel to Iraq is fortuitious as it allows the American public to experience a catharsis wherein they can reject that kind of adventurism decisively. But, it’s a tragedy in all other respects. Why do we keep getting this kind of tragedy? I can only surmise it’s because our Democracy is failing to provide us leaders who really care about America and most Americans. Too much money in politics you say? Why yes, Jerry Brown argued that in his 1992 primary race for the presidency. Practically nobody listened. Anyway, knowing what we know now about what we didn’t know then we should be able to cut to the chase, end this quagmire and kick out Bush & Co. while leaving Iraq. There’s certainly no need to relive the entire long gut-wrenching experience all over again.

BTW, I’d appreciate it if fdl bloggers would post an article on the new law making Dubya Bush a dictator (and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld a demi-god).

John Casper @ 51

Eleven US soldiers charged with Iraq rape, killings

WASHINGTON - Eleven US soldiers face charges for murder and rape in Iraq, including two who could be put to death for the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family, the US military said on Wednesday.

The court martials, as US military criminal cases are called, are likely to be carried out in Iraq.

Four US soldiers in all are accused in the rape and killing of the girl in an alleged incident that happened in March at Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, and outraged the Iraqi government, which depends on US military support….

Just BAD APPLES…….awaiting another round of Medals of Freedom.

MarkH @ 64

BTW, I’d appreciate it if fdl bloggers would post an article on the new law making Dubya Bush a dictator (and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld a demi-god).

There have been many. Look back a couple of weeks to before the legal obscenity in question was a done deal.

EvilDrPuma @ 59

scarecrow @ 55

There are lots of things about Viet Nam I hope we don’t see again:

The notion that carpet bombing by B-52s against targets all over North Vietnam would destroy the “will” and warmaking capacity of the “enemy,” [just like it did in London in 1940!!]

Three words: Shock. And. Awe. Been there, done that, and to no better effect than in Vietnam or the Blitz.

Yep.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 40

Oh, and for a great inner perspective, I should not forget “The Forever War,” written by a brilliant science fiction writer, Joe Haldeman, who also happens to be one of the nicest people I know. Brilliant stuff, and really gets to the heart of what he (and others) experienced in Vietnam. He won a Hugo Award for it.

Second that! Christy, you know Joe and Gay?

I have an overwhelming suspicion that Bush does not know that Tet was a disaster for American forces. I think he only knows that it was a big battle and a “turning point”.

OfT - Once again, Indiana is a day late, several dollars short.

Appeal of Voter ID law won’t be addressed until after 2006 election:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/p.....mp;GID=yTC

When the end of the world comes, I wanna be here in Indiana, because it’ll be ten years late getting here.

Gotta hit the road to work soon, but Redd - you look Fabulous. Just like Jane on TV, the comparison between your happy, assured honesty and the powerline (male) slut’s devious eye-rolling and stuttering has got to be the faces who launched ten thousand votes.

Lou Costello @ 65

Just BAD APPLES…….awaiting another round of Medals of Freedom.

How many bad apples do you have to see before you start asking questions about the tree?

beth meacham @ 68

I have an overwhelming suspicion that Bush does not know that Tet was a disaster for American forces. I think he only knows that it was a big battle and a “turning point”.

Bush obviously doesn’t know a disaster when he sees one, so you could be very right.

Happy B-day and yes I’ve definitely had enough!
TV time: I got this message from Savetheinternet.com
“The Net at risk” When: Oct. 18, 10:30 pm Eastern / 7:30 pm Pacific
Where: http://www.pbs.org/moyers
Also for CT folks: Ned will debate Alan Schlesinger (R) and minor party candidates on WFSB
Date: Thu, October 19th 7:00 pm
Description:
CBS’s Bob Schieffer will moderate a debate between Ned Lamont (D), Alan Schlesinger (R), Ralph Ferrucci (Green), Timothy Knibbs (Concerned Citizens), and Joe Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman). The debate will air on Thursday, Oct. 19th, at 7pm on WFSB, Channel 3. (It’s really annoying me the campaign is not sending out email reminders and I told them so.)Can’t find it on CSPAN schedule.

EvilDrPuma @ 71

Lou Costello @ 65

Just BAD APPLES…….awaiting another round of Medals of Freedom.

How many bad apples do you have to see before you start asking questions about the tree?

You tell me: http://www.theinvisibleamerican.com/ ‘Hearts and Minds’ you know.

Gawd I love For What It’s Worth! That guitar sound immediately transports (one) back to the late 60’s. Might have to pull out that whole cd and that double cd Fillmore: The Last Days.

Feel the energy!

“How many bad apples do you have to see before you start asking questions about the tree?”

EXACTLY! I was asking about this specific tree even before any bad apples fell from it.

Oops I thought the savetheinternet thing was on the 19th. Oh well.

P J Evans @
15

Riverbend has a post up about the Lancet study (link at LG&M.) She thinks the numbers in the study may be too low.

Something she said in that post struck me—about the women who can’t get out of their black mourning clothes from one death to the next. Remember how the appearance of those robes early in the occupation was always interpreted as a result of rising religious fervor? Riverbend’s comment makes me think that it was just as likely a result of rising incidents of bereavement.

Ignorance is such a waste.

From Breathing In, the intro to Dispatches:
There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some night, coming back late to the city, I’d lie out on my bed and look at it, too tired to do anything more than just get my boots off. That map was a marvel, especially now that it wasn’t real anymore. For one thing, it was very old….
If dead ground could come back and haunt you the way dead people do, they’d have been able to mark my map CURRENT and burn the ones they’d been using since ‘64, but count on it, nothing like that was going to happen.

And so it goes…a heartbreaking book. Clearly, it cost Herr a lot to do this work.

angie @
1

Happy Birthday Redd and Siun!

no kidding? a two-fer! Joyeux anniversaires, mesdames….

Lou Costello @ 74

EvilDrPuma @ 71

Lou Costello @ 65

How many bad apples do you have to see before you start asking questions about the tree?

You tell me: http://www.theinvisibleamerican.com/ ‘Hearts and Minds’ you know.

I only saw a few seconds of the slide show, but that is really disturbing.

but they’re trying to foment sectarian violence
W is foment at the mouth

Bush nightmare: Saddam will be found innocent of all charges and returned to power in Iraq where he promptly restores order in his fashion and starts negotiating with North Korea for their shiny baubles.

I think ya’ll are making an assumption here: that Commander Bunnypants knew what Stephanopoulis was talking about when he mentioned the “Tet offensive”.

LOL! Too true.

mui @ 80

I only saw a few seconds of the slide show, but that is really disturbing.

There is an up side to that, believe it or not: it proves you’re a human being. We need every one we can get.

How delightful to stagger into my studio just now inhaling my first cuppa coffee, turn on CSpan and find Reddhead oh so skillfully articulating the failure on the ground in Iraq. “So many questions to be answered…” she purrs with an intelligence so rarely heard on public airwaves these days. Who knew they do such reruns so soon. Happy Birthday beautiful!

Happy Birthdays, Christy & Siun!

beth meacham @ 68 I have an overwhelming suspicion that Bush does not know that Tet was a disaster for American forces. I think he only knows that it was a big battle and a “turning point”.

I think Uncle Dickie told him that Tet triggered a massive cash infusion to Brown and Root (which nowadays is the “BR” in “KBR Haliburton”). Big business Republicans are objectively pro-Tet.

Watching rerun of Christy on CSPAN2.

Just to be perfectly superficial for one moment: Christy, YOU LOOK FABOO! WHAT A KNOCKOUT. And this is before you open your mouth and it’s clear how knowledgeable and articulate you are.

Lucky Mr. Redd and little Peanut. Lucky Us.

And once, Happy Birthday. Feel good today, you done good.

Great call on “Dispatches”, I had forgotten about it. It provided some of the background for Apocalypse Now, one of my favorite movies of all time.

And once again,

Go read Mr. Greenwald, for he is brilliant:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.....ghest.html

Glenn decisively deconstructs Bush’s war rationale in complete and objective terms.

Beth at 68 — I don’t know Gay as well, but Joe and I have done a couple of panels together at Worldcons past. (If you have a familiarity with the science fiction community, you know what I mean.) We did a fantastic panel at teh San Jose Worldcon on criminal justice in the future — Joe was amazing (as always), and David Brin and I got into an argument. *g*

OT: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Ar.....p?ID=24888

My good friend, a bird biologist, sent me this knowing I would be interested. Strange connections…

Nice Lieberman cartoon today.

Also Zogby has Lieberman 49 - Lamont 43.

I’m not sure what to make of these Zogby polls, he has Strickland 51 - Blackwell 41, to which I say: Get real! Blackwell is probably closer to 31.

Jonah Goldberg — in his own inimitably smarmy and disingenuous way has also found religion when in comes to Iraq. He’s finally figured out it was a mistake.

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....commentary

I already sent him my reaction to his rewriting of history and straw man arguments.

The marksb @ 17

Ed*ard Teller @ 10

I lost nine friends and buddies in Tet. Thomas Friedman, keep your filthy hands off their sacrifice.

The manipulation of the history of the Vietnam experience by blithe wonks like Friedman and turncoats like Stephanopolous might work on ill-informed younger people already sporting cups half-empty of purple kool-aid, but not on most others.

Nobody studies the Vietnam war. I believe in our country there is zero knowledge of the history, context, and especially the experience, and no effort to teach it at all. In fact, I think it’s not taught by design. My daughter had a class in her Jr. year in high school on it, then went and visited, while I expanded her views at home. She was one of about twelve in the class, and I think that was the only class of it’s kind in my area. Her teacher was considered a radical for teaching this. It changed how she views history, war, our government’s policies, and her role in society, and I can see it’s coloring her direction in college.

Vietnam was the most important event in our country in the last forty years. No matter how hard it is to be honest about our errors and the pain we caused and experienced, we *must* teach the lessons of history!

B

David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brighest” should be required reading for all High School juniors/seniors. It gave me a healthy dose of synisism and led me not to swallow whatever my Gov’t told me.

AJ @ 94

Jonah Goldberg — in his own inimitably smarmy and disingenuous way has also found religion when in comes to Iraq. He’s finally figured out it was a mistake.

http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....commentary

I already sent him my reaction to his rewriting of history and straw man arguments.

TNH has more: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.c......html#more

Delurking to add another Vietnam War book reference - 365 Days by Ronald J. Glasser. I just googled it and found that Glasser has written another book titled: Wounded: Vietnam/Iraq.
Glasser’s 365 Days is based on his service as a drafted U.S. Army M.D. working at Camp Zama, Japan, caring for the seriously wounded soldiers medivaced out. He’s a great writer, and the book is a series of vignettes based on the accounts that he heard from his patients while working at Zama. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to gain some insight into the tragedy that the Vietnam War brought.

Iraq, Gaza, presidential (Bush) responsibility. In that order. The three most important things for my party to tackle when the Democrats start taking over the government this coming January.

CSPAN 2 cut away to some othe pressing business before the end of the segment, so I’ll ask any of those who saw the original broadcast.

Did Mirengoff restate Bill O’Reilly’s Malmedy canard towards the end, as alluded to in the liveblogging part of the Late Nite thread?

Colonel David Hackworth’s book titled ‘About Face’ is an interesting read concerning Viet Nam from a warrior’s perspective.
Hack is said to have been the model for the character Colonel Kilgore [”I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”] in the movie ‘Apocalypse Now.’

beth meacham @
68

I have an overwhelming suspicion that Bush does not know that Tet was a disaster for American forces. I think he only knows that it was a big battle and a “turning point”.

I have a sneaking suspicion he hasn’t a clue what “Tet” refers to at all. Suspect his handlers told him to slither along & agree benignly with whatever, to make any such questions just disperse in the ether.

Incompetence is sufficient grounds for impeachment, isn’t it?! Lets get on with it!
Go Blue!