[Peace-discuss] Vietnam veterans

[David Green]

 This was submitted to the News-Gazette:
As we observe 50-year anniversaries pertaining to the Vietnam War, it’s important that an accurate account of that era be differentiated from patriotic sentimentality regarding veterans. This effort towards truth and perhaps reconciliation should apply to any war in our history, but especially to those since World War II, all of which relate to efforts to obtain global hegemony for a class of individuals now referred to as the “one percent.” Victims of these wars can be counted in millions, a very small percentage of them Americans.The Vietnam War was illegal, immoral, genocidal, and based on lies from the start. By 1968, a majority of Americans viewed it as not just impractical, but immoral. A majority of the generation of young men of that era, including me as well as the majority reading this, rightly refused to fight. They (we) expressed that refusal by avoiding the draft, avoiding combat, refusing orders to engage in combat, and even killing their commanding officers. Wikipedia reports that 230 American officers were killed by their own troops, and 1,400 deaths of officers could not be explained. “Between 1970 and 1971 alone, there were 363 cases of ‘assault with explosive devices’ against officers in Vietnam.”Criminal leaders were responsible for this war, and by 1968 the American people were trying to stop them. Unfortunately, this pattern has been repeated in the last 15 years, but with less success by resistors. To invoke the famous words of Pete Seeger: “When will we ever learn?”
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