Ain't It So

"It is a mind-boggling thing to me that we never learn. After every war, we scream, 'Never Again!' Only until we do it again. I don't understand it."
Movie Director Milos Forman

Milos, I agree with you. But, trust me on this, we are two voices crying in the wilderness. I don't know whether or not it is a reality that as we get older, we seem to cogitate our navels more when we think about repeating Vietnam all over in Iraq. Most Vietnam vets that I know say to me, how stupid that we are in Iraq after the debacle of Vietnam?. What thinking! In fact, one said to me recently after seeing, Rescue Dawn, a movie about the very first escape by a POW as Vietnam heated up. The Vietvet said, "I found myself being ashamed that here we were these big bad Americans whipping up on these emaciated peasants--" a little dramatic and I don't believe that's what he really means rather that somehow he didn't feel good about what we had done in Vietnam." And, the add on is that we cannot feel good about what is going on in Iraq.

Not long ago, I met an older gentleman, a world traveler, who had been in Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe, for 20 years who said to me the often repeated comment, "We have not had a terrorist attack in America because we are pursuing them in Iraq." Republican Presidential candidate, Rudoplh Giuliani, has made "no attack at home" his theme song. What they are really saying is that it is OK for people to die in other places as long as it is not in the good old U. S. of A. Now, that's an attitude.