09/23/07 Vietnam lessons lost in Iraq war - UW Madison Campus Antiwar Network
Halliburton protest by WNPJ member group UW Madison Campus Antiwar Network is featured in this Sun Times column
Vietnam lessons lost in Iraq war
We shouldn't once again wait too long to admit our mistake and leave
September 23, 2007
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
In the scheme of small protests, I suppose what I did the other day qualifies. I was in one of those little catchall stores, the kind that sells candles and clothes and cheap jewelry. It was a necklace that caught my eye. A tiny peace symbol suspended from a plain pewter chain.
Oh, please, you say. How very Vietnam.
I know.
I mean, I really know.
In 1970, I was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when the National Guard descended on the campus. Their arrival followed the massacre at Kent State University in Ohio, where four students were killed and others were injured during anti-war protests.
On our campus, protests were fueled by the presence of Dow Chemical recruiting new hires among our graduating class. The demonstrators cited the company for making napalm, a devastating chemical weapon used to scorch the skin of the North Vietnamese.
I was working my part-time job at the Geology Library when guardsmen ordered me to shut it down in the face of more demonstrations. I obeyed. Locked the doors. As I walked to my apartment across the street, another guardsman slugged me with his riot stick. Just in case I was thinking of joining the demonstration, I guess.
At the time, though not a supporter of the war, I wasn't part of the protest in the streets either. The most I'd done was argue about it with a guy I briefly dated who was heading to officer training school. A pilot, his helicopter was shot down and he was killed just months later.
In 1970, many Americans knew Vietnam was a terrible mistake, but it would take five more years, the lives of nearly 60,000 of our soldiers and as many as two million Vietnamese before we summoned the courage to leave.
Now, as then, the protest is still not loud enough, our collective will still not strong enough to stop what just about everyone believes is an ill-conceived, poorly planned disaster of an Iraq war.
Two important statements were made last week that should crystallize the debate for every American. And both came out of the mouths of Republicans.
One of the most devastating was made to New York Times columnist David Brooks, who was interviewing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Brooks wrote, "I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, 'I don't know.' "
Give Secretary Gates points for not pulling a Donald Rumsfeld. Unlike his predecessor, an architect of this morass along with madman Vice President Dick Cheney, Gates actually seems stable. Still, "I don't know"?
The second jaw-dropping declaration came from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who wrote in his new memoir, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."
It would have been nice if he'd said that a little earlier.
Last week, we heard student voices raised again. This time it was a sit-in at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The target was another war profiteer, Halliburton, Cheney's old company, which has gotten a bonanza out of Iraq. Halliburton was on campus recruiting just as Dow did all those years ago.
"It started with Dow and continues now!" protesters chanted. Since we don't have a Congress that can find its voice, or an electorate that can overcome its passivity on everything from lost civil liberties to the lies told to justify the Iraq invasion, or more elder statesman like Gates and Greenspan finally leveling with us, what's left?
Maybe more people in the streets, more students sitting in.
How very Vietnam.
Vietnam lessons lost in Iraq war
We shouldn't once again wait too long to admit our mistake and leave
September 23, 2007
BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist
In the scheme of small protests, I suppose what I did the other day qualifies. I was in one of those little catchall stores, the kind that sells candles and clothes and cheap jewelry. It was a necklace that caught my eye. A tiny peace symbol suspended from a plain pewter chain.
Oh, please, you say. How very Vietnam.
I know.
I mean, I really know.
In 1970, I was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when the National Guard descended on the campus. Their arrival followed the massacre at Kent State University in Ohio, where four students were killed and others were injured during anti-war protests.
On our campus, protests were fueled by the presence of Dow Chemical recruiting new hires among our graduating class. The demonstrators cited the company for making napalm, a devastating chemical weapon used to scorch the skin of the North Vietnamese.
I was working my part-time job at the Geology Library when guardsmen ordered me to shut it down in the face of more demonstrations. I obeyed. Locked the doors. As I walked to my apartment across the street, another guardsman slugged me with his riot stick. Just in case I was thinking of joining the demonstration, I guess.
At the time, though not a supporter of the war, I wasn't part of the protest in the streets either. The most I'd done was argue about it with a guy I briefly dated who was heading to officer training school. A pilot, his helicopter was shot down and he was killed just months later.
In 1970, many Americans knew Vietnam was a terrible mistake, but it would take five more years, the lives of nearly 60,000 of our soldiers and as many as two million Vietnamese before we summoned the courage to leave.
Now, as then, the protest is still not loud enough, our collective will still not strong enough to stop what just about everyone believes is an ill-conceived, poorly planned disaster of an Iraq war.
Two important statements were made last week that should crystallize the debate for every American. And both came out of the mouths of Republicans.
One of the most devastating was made to New York Times columnist David Brooks, who was interviewing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Brooks wrote, "I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, 'I don't know.' "
Give Secretary Gates points for not pulling a Donald Rumsfeld. Unlike his predecessor, an architect of this morass along with madman Vice President Dick Cheney, Gates actually seems stable. Still, "I don't know"?
The second jaw-dropping declaration came from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who wrote in his new memoir, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."
It would have been nice if he'd said that a little earlier.
Last week, we heard student voices raised again. This time it was a sit-in at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The target was another war profiteer, Halliburton, Cheney's old company, which has gotten a bonanza out of Iraq. Halliburton was on campus recruiting just as Dow did all those years ago.
"It started with Dow and continues now!" protesters chanted. Since we don't have a Congress that can find its voice, or an electorate that can overcome its passivity on everything from lost civil liberties to the lies told to justify the Iraq invasion, or more elder statesman like Gates and Greenspan finally leveling with us, what's left?
Maybe more people in the streets, more students sitting in.
How very Vietnam.
Submitted by wnpj on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 10:41am.