- During the Vietnam War, we were told a steady stream
of lies regarding the rationale, conduct and outcome of Americaís
intervention in Southeast Asia.
-
- Supposedly a battle to secure the world for democracy,
the U.S. was actually engaged in an imperialistic effort to make the regionís
natural and human resources readily, cheaply available to profit-seeking
multinational corporations.
-
- In his memoirs, Dwight Eisenhower admitted that access
to ìtin, tungsten and rubberî was what the unfolding debacle
actually entailed.
-
- From a fabricated Tonkin Gulf incident to the myth-shattering
Tet offensive -- with numbing revelations such as My Lai in the bloody
mix -- America took heavy blows to its collective psyche...as returning
aluminum caskets piled up on airport tarmac.
-
- Repeated promises of light at the end of the tunnel proved
bleakly false.
-
- We sank deeper into the heart of darkness. The tallied
dead formed a legion of ghosts that would haunt us for decades.
-
- Except for swirling sand replacing shifting elephant
grass, whatís different with Iraq?
-
- Instead of contrived assertions that the naval vessels
Maddox and L. Turner Joy were attacked off Vietnam's coast, we have George
Bush claiming there were weapons of mass destruction where plainly none
existed at all.
-
- Again, just as thirty-five years ago, communities across
our land have been emptied of their best and brightest, for a fundamental
falsehood.
-
- If you're too young to have learned that painful lesson
through family members' sacrifice, visit the Vietnam Memorial to become
grimly acquainted with the consequent cost.
-
- Perhaps the most tragic parallel is the deliberate misrepresentation
of people's loyalties.
-
- Where have we previously heard that flags and flowers
would profusely wave to welcome us as ìliberatorsî? Yes, in
Vietnam, just before the locals started rolling hand grenades under GIsí
tents.
-
- Whether Vietnam or Iraq, whatís a kid from Kansas
or Ohio to do when it turns out that everyone hates the Yankees? Very likely,
shoot everything and everybody in sight.
-
- Civilians fleeing from Fallujah tell uniformly shocking
stories of women, children, and the elderly being attacked by advancing
U.S. Marines. Their description is validated by reports from journalists
who happened to be in the Iraqi city when the American assault began.
-
- The dead are being buried in two soccer fields. An easy
third of the bodies are noncombatants. Confronted with evidence of even
ambulances being fired upon, Human Rights Watch is calling for a prompt,
independent investigation.
-
- Fallujah resembles nothing so much as the smoldering
aftermath of Ariel Sharonís brutal attack on the Palestinian Jenin
refugee camp two years ago, tinged with the flowing crimson of German collective
punishment meted out on the Warsaw Ghetto.
-
- Before saying that description is overdrawn, consider
this eyewitness account by Dahr Jamail of The New Standard:
-
- "As I was there, an endless stream of women and
children who'd been sniped by the Americans were being raced into the dirty
clinic, the cars speeding over the curb out front as their wailing family
members carried them in."
-
- His report continues: "One woman and small child
had been shot through the neck -- the woman was making breathy gurgling
noises as the doctors frantically worked on her amongst her muffled moaning.
The small child, his eyes glazed and staring into space, continually vomited
as the doctors raced to save his life."
-
- The Arab satellite network Al Jazeera and other foreign
outlets are running grisly footage of the dead and dying. But the U.S.
media play deaf, dumb and blind.
-
- Long years of being culturally attuned to a racist portrayal
of Arabs and Muslims as 'raghead' and 'camel jockey' terrorists make the
trigger pulling that much easier.
-
- Having gone for more than a decade with demonized Saddam
being equated with Iraq per se has blurred a key, moral distinction. Is
it any wonder that a 'kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out' mentality
is obscenely taking hold, much to our nationís eternal shame?
-
- It's disturbing enough to contemplate how a teenager
who was playing high school football and dating his pretty sweetheart just
a few months ago is now in the town cemetery because of a crazy, needless
war.
-
- Even more soul-devouring is pondering the phenomenon
we came to stunningly first experience in connection with Vietnam:
-
- Propaganda and deceit by those in power can make murderers
-- instead of just dutiful soldiers -- out of 'good kids' thrust into situations
where reality often totally conflicts with what they'd been duped to expect.
-
- Transforming innocence into the surpassingly bad and
ugly -- on the most basic human level -- is the reactionary warmongersí
greatest sin.
-
- And a monstrous crime far beyond any possible forgiveness.
-
- Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing
progressive commentary and verse for various outlets since the 60s. He
can be reached at dennisr@cp.duluth.mn.us.
|