How do Americans feel about their wars (was RE: [thechat] name of Operation Infinite Justice to be changed)

[Bill Haenel]

> I meant a genuine question - it seemed to me that there were two
> strands of opposition to Vietnam:
>
> 1) The moral argument - we're bombing the shite out of a poor country
>     just to show the Russians that we're no pushover, and that
>     "My weenie's bigger" is no justification
>
> 2) This is killing lots of our kids for no good reason - why are we
>     sending our 19-year-olds off to a foreign land we don't actually
>     care much about for them to return in body bags?
>
> And I didn't know which mattered most. Which do you think it was?

Only thing I know is what I've been told - not a good meter. But I heard
both arguments, and I think people objected for both reasons. The people I
know who fought that war and came back alive hated it because they felt that
they did, saw and felt terrible things and then realized when they came home
that they weren't sure what the purpose was, and that people were not happy
about what they had done. They felt shame and remorse, combined with having
fulfilled their duty. What an awful feeling to live with.


> Now most conflicts that the US has been part of since then have avoided
> question 2 by either being so easy as to almost not count as wars at all
> (eg Gulf War & Grenada), or by being carried out by proxy - the CIA
> training and funding local groups to do all the nasty stuff (Afghanistan
> is a good example).

Due to lack of support of the people of the US. If we all ignore it, or just
plain don't find out, we can't very well object. This is probably the only
way we/they were able to get away with it.


BH