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AP photo / Carolyn Kaster, file
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By Bill Boyarsky — I’m afraid Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are giving the game away to John McCain on the most important matter facing the country, the Iraq war. I hate to sound like one of those middle-aged jock-loving MSNBC pundits, but as I sit here on the sidelines I want to scream, “Quit playing defense.”
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Aaron Glantz — More than any other candidate for president, John McCain should know that peace talks can be stronger and smarter than bombs, that withdrawing American soldiers can be the best way to achieve stability, and that the best way to protect American troops is to bring them home from the war zone.
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By Joe Conason — Within the next two weeks, the number of American troops killed in Iraq is likely to reach 4,000, assuming that the average number of fatal casualties per day remains steady. It is an arbitrary number, given meaning by the fact that the nation may briefly take notice, but a day will come in this presidential campaign when Sen. John McCain must explain what he thinks we have gained by the sacrifice of those men and women.
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AP photo / Javier Galeano
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By Robert Scheer — The Cuban president, who is resigning after five decades in power, has caused his people suffering, but the giant to the north bears even greater responsibility for the island’s plight.
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AP photo / Charles Rex Arbogast
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By Bill Boyarsky — Since Super Tuesday produced not one but a duo of Democratic front-runners, pundits from across the political spectrum have made ominous noises about the potential dangers of a prolonged contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Here, Truthdig’s seasoned political correspondent, Bill Boyarsky, begs to differ.
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By Carol Brightman — Three new memoirs by veterans of the New Left provide nuance and complexity to a tumultuous decade whose political and cultural legacy is still contested. Bonus points to those who can answer the question: Do you still need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows?
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vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com
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It may be a few years too late, but Sen. John Kerry is going after the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, taking SBVT sympathizer T. Boone Pickens’ offer to pay $1 million to anyone who could disprove the group’s claims.
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The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years, a figure that includes interest for putting war costs on the proverbial credit card. To date, the two conflicts have cost more (adjusted for inflation) than the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
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By Chalmers Johnson — The best-selling author of “The Sorrows of Empire” takes a look at David Halberstam’s critical history of the Korean War.
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AP photo / Ron Edmonds
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By Robert Scheer — Hey, a billion here, a billion there, who’s counting? Not the State Department, which admitted this week that it can’t say “specifically what it received” for the $1.2 billion it paid DynCorp, ostensibly to train the Iraqi police—other than that somebody got an Olympic-size swimming pool out of the deal.
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AP photo / LM Otero
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James Harris and Josh Scheer —
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Philip Coyle knows a thing or two about the “staggering” amounts of money the U.S. funnels into the military-industrial complex, and why it is so difficult to stanch the profiteering.
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The former president calls BS on the Republicans for their “feigned outrage” over MoveOn’s “General Betray Us” ad: “Come on, these Republicans that are all upset about Petraeus ... these are the people that ran a television ad in Georgia with Max Cleland, who lost half his body in Vietnam, in the same ad with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. ... And the person that rode to the Senate on that ad was there voting to condemn the Democrats over the Petraeus ad.”
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worldisround.com
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The Iranian parliament has taken the I’m rubber, you’re glue approach to dealing with the U.S., labeling the United States Army and the CIA terrorist organizations, just days after Congress suggested the same designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
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By Eugene Robinson — Some might dismiss Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against CBS as an attempt to repair his legacy, but it is also a much-needed (and knowledgeable) indictment of the danger of corporate media.
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AP Photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Robert Scheer — Of course Gen. David Petraeus predicts success in the Iraq war. What wonders couldn’t generals achieve with more troops and more time? The battle is always going well until it is lost, and then they blame defeat on the politicians and the public.
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gillmor.house.gov
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Rep. Paul Gillmor, an Ohio Republican who had held his seat in the House for nearly 20 years, was found dead in his Washington apartment on Wednesday by members of his Capitol Hill staff. The cause of Gillmor’s death had not been officially announced by Wednesday afternoon. He was 68.
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By Eugene Robinson — Sex scandals aside, it’s too soon to simply let Bush’s asinine Vietnam analogy go. The team that has so often ignored history is out to rewrite it, and they must be stopped.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Bruce Willis will star in an Oliver Stone film about the My Lai massacre, perhaps the most infamous atrocity to emerge from the Vietnam War. In other Stone news, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he has “no objection, generally speaking,” to the director’s rumored desire to make a biopic about him but that Stone would need to “let me know what are the frameworks.”
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Although it feels a bit like an ‘80s thriller or an episode of “Hard Copy” gone awry, this campaign video from Mike Gravel does a handy job of countering the president’s ill-advised comparison of the wars in Iraq and Vietnam.
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AP Photo / Darko Vojinovic
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By Robert Scheer — Somehow, the Bush administration’s assertion that U.S. troops may remain in Iraq for decades to come went relatively unnoticed by Democratic hopefuls during the June 4 debate.
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www.tcf.ua.edu
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Ed Rampell and Luis I. Reyes —
On the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth, falling as it does on Memorial Day weekend, Truthdig presents two pieces connecting the hype of the celluloid “war hero” who never fought to the hard human costs of war. It was the Duke’s deadly myth, after all, that would lead young men like Ron Kovic to sacrifice life and limb in needless wars.
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Lt. Col. Paul Yingling has hit out with a withering critique of the Iraq war in the Armed Forces Journal, taking aim at American military leaders for being woefully unprepared—and hence not preparing troops—for the challenges the war has posed. What’s more, Yingling thinks it’s bound to end in defeat for the U.S.
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AP
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By Stan Goff — The Special Forces veteran and author of “Full Spectrum Disorder” explains why the media celebrate true believers such as Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich who continue to fight a war that is already lost.
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greeninstitute.net
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Roger Morris, who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, knows a thing or two about the folly of escalation. In this must-read essay, the award-winning historian reminds us that a military’s unwillingness to admit defeat and a president’s desire for victory are no excuse for the lives wasted on a futile vision of conquest.
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africawithin.com
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During the Vietnam War, Dr. King referred to our nation’s government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Now that we find ourselves mired in another senseless conflict, our soldiers in harm’s way and more and more among us suffering from the tyranny of poverty, we turn once again to the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr.
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer joins James Harris for a conversation on the Vietnamization of Iraq, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the plight of Oakland and more.
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer joins James Harris for a conversation on the Vietnamization of Iraq, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the plight of Oakland and more.
Posted on Jan 12, 2007
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By Molly Ivins — The people have already spoken out against an increase of troops in Iraq. Now it’s time to act.
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Sen. Ted Kennedy draws the striking parallels between troop “surges” during the Vietnam era and today. (Hint: Back then, the American people were always promised that the next surge would be the last. Fifty thousand U.S. dead bodies later, however .... )
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Transcripts never do justice to Jack Cafferty’s sardonic, punchy oratory, as is the case with this assault on Bush’s latest propaganda campaign: “So next week, when the president talks about sending more of your sons and daughters to die in Iraq, don’t think ‘surge.’ Recognize it for what it is.”
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cannabisculture.com
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The Selective Service System is planning to test equipment and procedures that would be used in a draft. Cryptically referred to as the Area Office Mobilization Prototype Exercise, the test would not take place until 2009, and could be canceled because of budget cuts.
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White House photograph courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library / David Hume Kennerly
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The 38th president has died after suffering a year of intermittent health problems. Ford was both the longest-living president and the only one to hold the office without being elected.
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer and contributor James Harris discuss Robert Gates, the virtues of “losing” at war, race in America and more.
Posted on Dec 23, 2006
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Composite: MediaSpin White House Photo: Eric Draper
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By Jon Wiener — A historian and contributor to The Nation uses a stark metric to evaluate the presidencies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.
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In this excerpt from the Truthdig interview, Gore Vidal speaks with Robert Scheer about the Kennedy assassination, Castro and imperialism. For the full video, go to www.truthdig.com and click on “interviews.”
Posted on Nov 24, 2006
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By Joe Conason — What may be remembered someday as one of the strangest moments of George W. Bush’s presidency took place last week in Vietnam, when he chose to mention the American defeat there in the same breath as our failing occupation of Iraq.
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AP Photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — President Bush has said many dumb things in defense of his Iraq policy. Citing the Vietnam War as a model, however, is perhaps his most ludicrous yet.
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Left and Right: AP / Center: utexas.edu
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By Robert Scheer — The dire predictions President Bush is making about “cutting and running” from Iraq are almost identical to the horrifically inaccurate ones Presidents Johnson and Nixon made about Vietnam.
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By Molly Ivins — Of course Iraq is like Vietnam. The only meaningful difference is that we haven’t yet lost 57,000 American lives.
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AP / Reed Saxon
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By Ron Kovic — The author of “Born on the Fourth of July” recounts his personal journey from a gung-ho U.S. Marine in Vietnam to an outspoken critic of that war, and how that transformation paved the way for his current activism against America’s campaign in Iraq.
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From Amazon.com
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By Sarah Stillman — The life of political scientist Bernard Fall, the first soldier-scholar to predict an inglorious end for America in Vietnam, is remembered in a new biography by his widow. She speaks with Truthdig guest interviewer Sarah Stillman about the government’s lies—in Vietnam then, and in Iraq now.
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For a dose of perspective, check out this clip of Nixon V.P. Spiro Agnew lashing out at the press after a magazine called him “the great polarizer in American politics.” Also, listen to what he has to say about anti-Vietnam War protesters.
Posted on Aug 29, 2006
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By Marie Cocco — Tempting though it may be to lump them together, Baghdad is not Saigon, and Cindy Sheehan is not Jane Fonda.
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Doan Bao Chau for The International Herald Tribune
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The author, a 27-year-old woman who was killed in 1970, wrote of “love, loneliness and death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.” It has become an Anne Frank-like sensation in Vietnam. The universal nature of her themes is an incredible reminder of the folly of war and of demonizing our enemies.
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Illustration by Blair Golson
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By Tom Hayden — The veteran social activist warns that an increasingly mainstream anti-war movement can become unwieldy, and prone to loss of focus: “We no longer are a huddling minority…. We are immersed in the gradual soul-searching currents of the mainstream, where loss of direction is a constant risk.”
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Annual war expenditures have risen from $48 billion in 2003 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, thanks to the expected largest emergency spending bill in history.
Posted on Apr 20, 2006
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From ussenate.gov
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In the N.Y. Times, the former presidential candidate calls for two deadlines: May 15 for the Iraqis to form a unity government, and a date later in the year for the U.S. to pull out.
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By Molly Ivins — There is now a three-year record of who has been right about what is happening in Iraq—Rumsfeld or the media. And the score is: Press, 1,095; Rumsfeld, 0.
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Guantanamo Prisoner’s Case Demonstrates Unfairness of Military Commissions
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