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What They Thought May 16, 2004 R.A.
Hawkins Click here for columnist bios |
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R.A.
Hawkins Last week my article received some rather heated emails. So here is a quick response to those. Yes, Eisenhower put advisors in Vietnam (1954) before Kennedy ever came along. The first American death in Vietnam, however, was one Lt. Col Dewey OSS in 1945. That was during WWII under Roosevelt as we assisted Ho Chi Minh oust the Japanese from Vietnam. Several people told me I would find a way to blame the Democrats for the whole mess, and as you can see I did. Truman also kept up the same game, but assisting the French against Ho Chi Minh this time. Next, Eisenhower, a Republican, came along and continued Truman’s policies of aiding the French, and the liberals all point to him. They also blame Nixon, too. Kennedy was the one that escalated the war. I don’t fault Kennedy for that either. We could have won that war with ease and we would have saved a lot of our lives, and Vietnamese lives, if we had actually tried to win it. Kennedy also removed the corrupt leader Diem, but he forgot something, and it is something we all tend to forget. We humans tend to point fingers and therefore tend to ignore the big picture. Diem was there because he represented the people. The corruption couldn’t be removed by simply removing one person. The people were corrupt, and as a result so was their government. This series isn’t about Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ or Nixon, however. This series is about a pattern of treason that led to our leaving. Our military wasn’t defeated in Vietnam - the will of the country here was defeated. That is the exact same game we are seeing in play right here, right now. Good old LBJ had a lot to do with causing us to lose in Vietnam. Under his tutelage our boys in uniform were completely hamstrung while the war was spread wider and wider. It was the numerous flawed rules of war that caused the problem. The soldiers in the field were required to ask permission before they shot back. They weren’t even allowed to bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail. The first rule of warfare is to cut off the line of supply. The politicians over here decided to make that against the rules. All of the rules of war were ground ruled out by people who were protecting their own kids from having to go. By the time Nixon came to power, the troops were completely hamstrung. It just got worse and worse as time went on. Back home, the Tet Offensive was cast as an American defeat. Never mind the fact that the other side lost half of its troops. The reason they lost half of their troops was because we knew they were coming. Col. Bill Davis who was in charge of defending Da Nang Airbase said they knew they were coming because they hadn’t found any booby traps in over 48 hours. “So we were waiting and we waxed them. We were the defenders and they were just coming in waves to be killed.” The attack took place in 68 towns and the media went wild stating it was an American defeat. These are the things I grew up seeing. But I also got to see something else. I grew up in that quiet little neighborhood called Columbine Knolls where nothing ever happens according to the media. That is, unless they see a chance to make political hay for gun control. Let me tell you a little bit about that neighborhood. The year after I left, a policeman’s car was blown up into the air by a ticked off thug. I asked the officer about it after I moved back into the area, and he said he knew who did it but couldn’t prove it. His Jefferson County Jeep Patrol vehicle was blown into the air causing it to land upside down in the street while his wife’s car was blown into their living room. It’s a real quiet neighborhood, most of the time. Also in that same neighborhood lived the highest-ranking official to be killed in Vietnam. He left the military in 1963 while Kennedy was still in charge and came back as a civilian after a few years. The brass was punishing him for his honesty. He openly said we were creating more enemies with our random and excessive bombings of hamlets. When he returned as a civilian LBJ was in charge, and the month he returned LBJ spread the war into areas all around Vietnam. This man of whom I speak was Major General John Paul Vann. His youngest son Pete and I were best friends. It was interesting meeting his dad because he met me once and knew my name and face from that moment forward. He would come home from the war for a few days and return not to be seen for many months. He was quite dedicated to the cause of defeating the Communists. Mary Jane, his
wife, would quite often have an article laid out on the kitchen table
when Pete and I would walk in. “Well your dad beat the odds again.”
I remember reading quite a few of those articles in the Denver Post.
He would always be away from his base of operations and it would get
wiped out. As a kid I used to wonder how that could be. It seemed odd
that he always managed to not be there. The Denver Post used to call
him ‘The Cat” because he had nine lives. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Lady Liberty's "Their View" Contributors: R.A.
Hawkins Jonathan
David Morris SARTRE |
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By now you've probably seen the photos of Americans mistreating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. It's some pretty compelling stuff. In one, there's a woman with a naked man on a leash -- like a Co-Ed Naked Westminster Dog Show. In another, a naked man with a bag on his head sniffs another naked man's groin. It's like Kurt Vonnegut's alien zoo in Slaughterhouse Five. Humans are animals. They screw in captivity. And the list goes on: Naked men in pyramids. Naked men in body bags. Naked men with panties on their heads. It's like the old Times Square, this demented Male Revue. It's disgusting. But you know what else disgusts me? The way it's been analyzed. Think about it. Pee-Wee Herman was arrested for petting his bird in a Grown-Ups Only theater. Janet Jackson is the scourge of the Earth for flashing a single nipple -- a body part everyone has. But as for Abu Ghraib? Abu Ghraib we compare to frat house antics. That's the best we can do. "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation," says Rush Limbaugh, condoning what went on. Yet, meantime, Kathleen Parker condemns it with the very same analogy. "The images from Abu Ghraib, now irreversibly tattooed on the Arab brain, were every frat-house cliché magnified," she says. "[T]he soldiers seem bereft of historical conscience, unburdened by any awareness of larger -- and lethal -- contexts into which their frat-house scrapbooks might be placed." Something is wrong with this picture. And I'm not talking about the pictures themselves. I'm talking about the comparison. There's something wrong with it. Abu Ghraib ain't no Animal House. It just isn't. And comparing the two is an injustice to both. Let me tell you something: I am a product of the Greek fraternity system. Me. JDM. And proudly so. I pledged a fraternity during the fall semester of my sophomore year in college, and it was one of the best things I ever did. Yet, at first, I didn't even want to do it. In fact, I hated fraternities before I went to college. I hated the idea of buying my friends. But that's not what I did. I made my friends before I pledged the fraternity. It just turned out that many of them already belonged to it. They treated me like a member before I wanted to be one. I liked that. I liked what they had. And that -- not "some fraternity" -- is what I joined. You can tell me I bought my friends if you want. I couldn't've bought a better bunch. No buyer's remorse here. And it's with that that I tell you the prisoner abuse/frat boy comparison represents a fundamental misunderstanding of frat boys. My fraternity was community service oriented. We cleaned up the nearby beaches on rainy Saturday mornings. We chaperoned dances for handicapped kids. And we threw some of the best goddam parties in town -- a community service all its own. We were also fairly diverse. A number of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. A few black guys. Hispanics. Even a few gays. Hell, we even took a couple of guys who weren't cool. Not everyone is Brad Pitt, you know. Some guys are David Schwimmer. But sometimes a guy just needs someone to reach down his throat, drag out his potential, and beat him over the head with it. We did that two times a year. It wasn't about all men being equal. It was about judging men by their own worth. And while it's true some guys just ended up joining a herd, other guys ended up shepherds. We told the same jokes and ogled the same girls, but an individualistic spirit was alive and well beneath our matching shirts and caps. Everyone brought something different to the table. That's what made us strong. "But what about hazing?" you say. "Wasn't there hazing?" Sure there was. Of course. And I won't get into specifics here, but let's just say I went through six weeks of humiliating initiation rituals, and I put the next group through the same thing once I got in. And, yes, a few frat boys have killed their pledges over the years. But those guys are idiots. Their antics aside, hazing isn't pointless -- no matter what you've heard. Lots of times, when you graduate high school, you think you can conquer the world. But what happens when you fall down off a high horse? You hurt yourself. And that's where fraternities come in: They knock you down, but they dare you to ride again. And you know what? Real men always do. Real men get up. They ask for more. They say, "Thank you, sir, may I have another," and they never stop saying it for the rest of their lives -- no matter the things they may face. Fraternities drill this thinking into you. From where I stand, that's a good deed. But was there a certain sick and twisted pleasure to watching the new guys writhe? Of course there was. I won't lie. But that came with the territory. I won't apologize. And that's just the thing: Guys who pledge fraternities want to pledge fraternities. They go streaking through the quad and call their peers "sir" because they want to. It's a rite of passage, but it's passed by freewill. No one has to be there. It takes a lot to earn Greek letters. Nobody owes them to you. And if you don't like that, you can drop out. There's no reason to endure this stuff if it isn't worth it to you. Which brings us back to Abu Ghraib. The prisoners there were just that: Prisoners. And prisoners, by definition, are kept against their will. And whereas a frat boy wants to join those who haze him, what happened here won't make many Iraqis join America. If anything, it'll have an opposite effect. So say what you will about this stuff being justified in the context of war. Say what you will about what kind of people the prisoners were. The Iraqis had a government that hazed them for thirty years. They didn't need ours to do it for them. To be honest, I can laugh at the Abu Ghraib photos to the extent that the Animal House similarities exist. But unlike what happens in a frat house, they weren't meant to be funny. That's what makes this comparison bunk. No frat boy ever endangered American troops in 130 countries. These soldiers did. Way to lead by example, guys. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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"Ask
not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your
country." - JFK
This stirring call to action best remembers the King of Camelot. He inspired an entire generation of youth to the call of public service. What noble intentions they had when entering into the hallowed halls of government duty. It is sad that the premise was so flawed! The invocation needed to read: "Ask not what you can do for your country -- Ask what we can do together to insure individual Liberty" How different our nation would be if Americans could understand the difference between these two calls to action. By the diminished standards of today, it can be argued that Kennedy was more of a reactionary than many current day Republicans. But let no one be misled, the propagandists of the ilk of Sargeant Shriver and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., designed a legend that defied factual references. Jack was a socialist through to the core. Don't be offended that a hero to some was really a predator with the charm of the tooth fairy. His open smile and quick wit, disguised the left hand that turned into the social excess of the 'Great Society'. What a legacy for decades to come. Its failure is evident to any sane person. The consequences of central planning and federal intrusion have allowed the multiple expansion of coercive government into every facet of society. Just what is great about this kingdom? The likes of a Stewart Udall and Abraham Ribicoff were certainly in the vanguard of a 'collectivist' revolution. Who could forget good old Abe, taking up the George McGovern cause at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention! But you don't have to rely on the ideology of appointees to strip away the sentiment of the fair haired hero. He proclaimed proudly to the NY Liberal Party on September 14, 1960:
Note the pompous self delusion when it came to rationalize the 'good intentions' of their cause. Couple this with a willingness to micro manage public policy that established the federal programs that would reshape America society, and we have the proof that for Kennedy, country really means - government. And what is a socialist, if not a 'public servant' of the State? And who can question that JFK's cold war interventionist credentials?
Read that again, 'our government', 'move ahead', 'liberal spirit of daring', the same old internationalist tradition of Wilson and FDR is pure socialism . . . So why not call it for what it is, the surrender of the Republic to the supremacy of the State. JFK surrounded himself with mad men like Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, who's only allegiance was to project the empire into world affairs. The notion that Communism in Southeast Asia was the greatest threat to domestic tranquillity, when the comrades were devising similar programs down in foggy bottom, decries credulity. So were we supposed to take JFK at his word when he proclaimed in his inaugural address that: "the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God." Or are we better served by reflecting upon the actual record that created the environment that allowed the next deceiver to establish that Great Society? The Peace Corp established little accord, but broke ground to instill a false duty to serve the State. His failed attempts to introduce the Medicare approach of cradle to grave health, greased the skids for the dismay we now call socialized medicine. Kennedy's civil rights bill was meant to right former wrongs, but as any credible historian will reluctantly acknowledge, we are more divided today in culture and convictions, than back some forty years ago. The ideological polarization's are clear to any student of current events. So why do we indulge in national denial about the real results and adverse consequences of the 'New Frontier'? The 'pretender emancipator', had no problem auctioning off the freedoms of the people to the overseers and carpetbaggers of the federal bureaucracy. The Kennedy plantation was extended far outside the Hyannis compound. The rise of the War on Poverty, has brought forth an even greater dependency. But this time, all American citizens are under the yoke of a federal master. The JFK government admiration society, ushered in the era of State/Capitalism that merges both big business and big government into the same axis of public control. Individual rights became the ultimate causality of this socialism. So how does the Liberal reconcile the inherent conflict in their programs with "the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state"? As we all know, consistency is seldom practiced while veneration for the federal crumbs are now a way of life. Idealism as the virtue of self sacrifice in support of government policy is a sickness. Kennedy is revered for preaching contempt for your own dignity. The illicit need to infuse a pathetic personal identity into the public persona, causes false heroes to be honored. When they become martyrs, factual chronicles become a fantasy. Just like Camelot, a nice dream better left for the theater. SARTRE Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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©2004 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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