I think torture is bad.

Torture is evil, stupid and bad, both negatively productive and morally wrong.

BTW, we never got spit on, but we did get ostracized at chruch when my dad was sent to Viet Nam. It was a cold year (my dad was enlisted, we were typical trailer park dependents).

There is a lot of gun camera footage of strikes against targets on the dikes—especially anti-aircraft guns mounted on the dikes.

Interesting issue there.

Anyone have a link to how it is impossible to suspend, partially or totally, someone from an arm that is also broken? Obviously there must be more details, any links would be appreciated.

Jerry Lembcke

Had the US “cut and ran” in, say, 1967, it’s not inconceivable to imagine that a lot of the postwar horror would have been averted. Hardline sentiments tend to get sharper and uglier in almost extra ten years of brutal war. Apparently (some) people on the ground in 1966, like Caputo in “Rumors of War”, considered the war already lost. I don’t know, I was born in ‘64, in a different country.

Those opposed to the Iraq war better get ahead of the backstabbing narrative, and soon.

Nixon is the SuXX0rz

Please, enough this denial crap. They’re mass-murderers, buddy, their job to fly missions was a crime against humanity, is this so difficult to understand? Fonda was exactly right.

Read this Wiki article on the dikes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Vietnam%27s_dikes and see for yourself.

Jerry Lembcke’s work makes him sound like a wannabe, June 7, 2005
Reviewer:T. Cox (Pontiac, MO) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I have been researching the homecoming stories of Vietnam veterans for the past three years or so for a Masters thesis, and Mr. Lembcke contacted me concerning my “possibly fictional” memories from veterans. I have to say that I don’t believe all of these soldiers lied about what was done to them at the airports. There are pictures of soldiers being hit with tomatoes and eggs, which are large enough to photograph well, but Lembcke seems to base his claim on the fact that there are no pictures of anyone spit on. How well does spit photograph anyway? And how quick would you have to be to capture it? I know security guards who worked in airports who witnessed it, I know a few protestors who claim to have done it, and I have talked to hundreds of soldiers who claimed it happened to them, either at the airport or out in public.
Mass hysteria? I don’t believe ir. And interestingly enough, Lembcke does not include in his book what branch of service he was in, or the dates, or his MOS. I have yet to read something, even emails, from Vietnam veterans who do not include that basic info on all their correspondence and writings.
What is he hiding? Save your money. Read the books written by the real Vietnam veteans who can tell you what happened to them, unanalyzed by a “sociologist professor” who claims to have been there. Another point strongly made by over 140 veterans I spoke to about this book: A true Vietnam veteran does not disparage the stories of his fellow veterans and call them liars.Lembcke’s work does not ring true. I have names of veterans this happened to, not, as he suggested, just veterans who know someone. They know where they were when it happened, and how it happened. They know how they felt when it happened. Lembcke’s work takes away what little dignity is left to the true Vietnam Veterans. Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing another person bought his lies.

“The story from the one guy who did claim he was tortured was a total fraud, and he retreated (probably in shame) soon after. Let me explain the passage you find illogical very slowly. POWs who were against the war were threatened with court martials if they didn’t play ball. They played ball. The pressure to play ball was sufficient that one of them committed suicide rather than play ball.”

I knew many former POWs while serving on active duty in the Air Force in the 1970s. A few—and only a few—were threatened with courts-martial based on accusations by one senior POW that certain of his fellow prisoners had been insufficiently heroic while in the prison camp. This officer was, admittedly, very heroic himself (and even escaped, briefly) but was also widely disliked, and had been ridiculed by his fellow pilots for his “John Wayne” posturing well before he was shot down. The fact is that every POW captured (until late 1972) was tortured to some extent and the expectation of the senior POWs was that a new prisoner ought to endure an undefined amount of abuse before signing a confession—and everyone signed a confession, sooner or later. But there were no hard and fast rules for all this.

One of the former POWs threatened with court-martial by the Hero Colonel after “Operation Homecoming” told me that his attitude was, when it was his job to fly missions and drop bombs, that’s what he did; as a POW he believed his job was to survive and go home, in other words, live to fight another day. Since every POW signed a confession sooner or later, why kill yourself making it later? So Perlstein is wrong about ex-POWs being pressured for antiwar sentiments. My belief (having served a combat tour in Vietnam) is that relatively few USAF officers had strong feelings either for or against the war. Like my POW friend said, it was a job we had signed up to do.

And about bombing the dikes: I spent a couple of months working in “Blue Chip,” the 7th Air Force command post in Saigon during mid-1972, early in the Linebacker campaign. Although I wasn’t directly involved with the air strikes against North Vietnam, I had plenty of opportunity to look at the target packages. No dikes. That’s not to say that bombs never fell on dikes, because not every bomb was “smart” in those days and lots of bombs were jettisoned for various reasons. Of course it’s perfectly reasonable to be antiwar because of collateral damage, but the difference—however slight—between accident and intent ought to be acknowledged.

“The antiwar argument was that Vietnam should have voted in 1956 (an election put off by the U.S., terrified that Ho Chi Mihn would win), and should have negotiated a coalition government after Diem’s fall.”

He couldn’t be more correct.

But this, on the other hand this is a bit misguided.

“The interesting lesson about the fall of Vietnam is that conditions in 1963 or 1968 had changed, by 1975, so dramatically in favor of the anti-democratic, hardcore faction in the communist party because of a process of Darwinian selection…”

Roger you might want to look back over how the North Vietnamese were dealing with internal and external groups that “threatened” their power before the 60’s. By the 1960’s they were already about as hard line as you can get with thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, murdered by the state.

This war provides many parallels to the Vietnam.

In both, the US Military performed superbly.

In both, the US Civilian Leadership – or
National Command Authority – could not
clearly state what our ‘National Goals’
during the war should be.

In both, civilian opinion toward ‘support’
for the war has steadily eroded as the
conflict continued. And American casualties
increased.

South Vietnam fell to the NVA after the
US Congress decided to de-fund it’s support
of the ARVN. It is over reaching, IMHO,
to call that a ‘stab in the back’. It
is reasonable, I believe, to expect the
same sort of action being taken by a
future US Congress w/r/t Iraq.

Research for yourselves what the North
Vietnamese did to those southerners who
supported the French or Americans and
were unable to escape after the fall.
It isn’t pleasant reading.

Chances are high that once the US leaves
Iraq, which it must do eventually, those
who supported the US will be asked to
justify their actions.

I imagine that this time around, both
pro- and anti-war advocates will be
paying attention to their treatment.
This should mean that less painful
retribution will take place.

Here in the States, this time around,
both pro- and anti-war advocates seem
to be rallying around those military
personnel who actually faced combat.
And Jane Fonda hasn’t been in a staged
photograph ith an ‘insurgent’ unit.

So, just maybe, things are looking better.

But that depends upon if one sees a glass
that is half-empty or a glass that is
half-full.