Smear, sideline, marginalize - dismiss

Let's go back in the time machine and quote your humble blogg'r back in May 05 on an issue I have been writing about since '04.

Taking out their tried and true smear template, the Hollywood Left and their fellow travelers are starting out to libel today's veterans just like they did Vietnam veterans. I don't think they can help themselves.

For the sake of this post, it would be best if you have read B.G. Burkett's book Stolen Valor. If you have not read it; buy it, read it, and then donate it to your local library.

He exposes the macro lies, smears, and half truths that the anti-war/anti-military/anti-veteran slathered over the Vietnam veterans. He exposed the methods, reasons, and styles of the victim/PTSD/homeless-dirty-vet-in-a-boonie-hat hucksters exceptionally well.

The Vietnam Vet pushed by The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and the rest of that ilk does not have anything to do with the facts, demographics, or social statistics of those vets. I see that at my micro level as well. They are 180 degree opposites of the folks I served with early in my career, my Uncle, my Dad's friends, and my neighbors.

I saw this coming last year. The usual subjects and plot lines are coming out.

True to form - the NYT & Luke Mogelson plays their part.

Of course, while the murders in southern Afghanistan reflect most glaringly upon the men who committed them, the need to revisit these crimes goes beyond questions of culpability and motive in one platoon. As with Abu Ghraib and Haditha and My Lai, it’s hard not to consider how such acts also open a window onto the corroding conflicts themselves. This isn’t to suggest that military personnel are behaving similarly throughout Afghanistan as a result of the conditions there; it is only to say that 10 years into an unconventional war whose end does not appear imminent, the murder of civilians by troops that are supposed to be defending them might reveal more than the deviance of a few young soldiers in a combat zone.

I read the article twice to find a direct answer to his question. Of course, I couldn't find it - but he implies it well enough. I hear it, the reader hears it - and the Vietnam generation hears it. We've heard this story before. Have they no shame?

Luke; bite me.