Can o' Worms

"Swiftboat Veterans for Lies & Distortions" is more like it. They are pigs, scum, swine.

My opinion (not that it matters) is that the military must do lots of things that I don't want or need to know about in order to keep us safe.  It has always been that way and always will!

IMO I think if you really want to find out what is going on you need to ask the solders. I work right off Ft Capmbell in KY and 90% of my clients are solders and their families and I keep in good contact with the guys and girls I have over there. I am telling you they are giving a different opinion of the good we are doing over there; than what you guys are getting on local news and BSNBC and CNN. Just talk to a solder...

As for the Swift boat guys. You have to understand that solders (I was one so I can speak on the topic) are kind of like Policeman and when you out or tell on a policman then all the others hate you. Kerry still held and participated in anti war rallies and most veterans see him (like Jane Fonda) as traitors to our country. It is kind of like your family, you can talk about how big of a slut your sister is and how dumb she is but if someother person says it you beat them up. You just dont bad mouth the solders when they are over there fighting. It is a code that he broke... just like the dont leave a man behind code.

If your not in the military or a police you dont understand. In war time your fellow solders are all you have to rely upon for your life, if all the suddon some guy starts bad mouthing what you are doing and bring down moral, that gets people killed...

But you know Chris that code goes both ways. In my military career I never thought I would see a group of veterans attack another veteran. But I seen it happen to McCain and Kerry and the Republican party was the common denominator. Kerry may have protested the war, but his protest was most legitimate, after all he had been there. I didn't but a lot of veterans were adamantly opposed to the war when they returned. Not against their comrades but rather the bs that was causing so many good men to die. I mean really ask yourself, what were they dying for as I ask today, why are Americans dying in Iraq.

Support the troops, yes I support the troops. This bs the prez talks about , about supporting the troops and honoring their sacrifice. I never knew killing someone was the ultimate sign of supporting and honoring them. Do they serve honorably, you bet. Is their purpose askew, you bet.

Veterans can believe in different causes and be of opposing political parties but they should always put their service above that bs and stand by one another. And veterans should guard against those who would politicize their service otherwise we become one big Central America..

OK I'm alright now. Carry on.

 Russ..   I agree that the history of central american countries is full of conflicts that at one time or another have placed military dictatorships in power to the detriment of the people living in those countries.  However, these dictatorships had been placed and manupulated by foreign forces fighting their battles away from home.   

In Nicaragua for instance   Prime target of US-backed war efforts in the region. Over 6,000 counter-revolutionaries, trained and outfitted by the CIA and led by ex-Somocista national guardsmen, make forays from their bases in Honduras. 150 covert CIA agents are involved — the largest CIA operation since Vietnam.

In el Salvador Guerrilla forces were formed in the early 1970s. Farabundo Marti National Liberation Fmnt (FMLN) is a tightly-organized fighting force of an estimated 10,000. Government troops armed, trained and advised by the US, which has poured almost a billion dollars into the country during the peak of the insurgence.

In Honduras — Main base of US action against the Sandinistas and Salvadoran guerrillas. Air strips, radar stations and new troop training facilities are being built. There were more than 300 US military advisors and technicians, 125 Green Berets and 150 CIA agents in the country. Contras operate freely inside Honduras. .

in Guatemala.  Scattered guerrilla forces fought from mountain strongholds since late 1950s; peasant support and government repression have accelerated since late 1970s. The army is the largest and most sophisticated in Central America, trained in counter-insurgency techniques by US advisors. Recent military aid will help Gen. Mejia escalate the armys campaign against the guerrillas. 

I grew up in one of these countries....   I remember stepping over dead bodies in my way to school (I still remember those days, and smell the dead).   I was a boy then, but even I understood that we were just pawns in a chess board controlled by a bear and a eagle...     So you see Russ, the rise and fall of the governemtes in Latin America did not happen just because...  They had been engineered, planned and executed from far away places.....  

Thank God...   those times are over....  at least in Central America....     

They way I see it both the attacks on Kerry and McCain were the work of the cynical, win-political-power-at-any-cost mentality of the Cheny/Rove/Rumsfeld cabal. There is simply no depth to which these guys won't stoop. The sad part is that they were successful, they managed to smear the records and reputations of two genuine military heroes for the purpose of getting their puppet into the white house.

You left out Murtha.

TW

Hang on a sec. You can't point to a 30 year period and say that it's to blame for 500 years worth of politico-socio-economic dysfunction in South America.

South America's history goes back 500 years. Their history of military coups/overthrows/political instability extends further back than the entire USA history, beginning to present.

While the 1900s saw very ugly interventions/meddling by the US (and United Fruit), and the 60s/70s/80s were particularly ugly, South America has been a political and economic mess for 400 years previous, going all the way back to when Spain got its first foothold/neck choke and was killing indiginous peoples en masse. The US was used by the ruling class just as much as the ruling class was used by the US.

The US didn't create the dysfunctions found in South America.

Quick.....Blame the Spanish!

Nahh... I blame the Spanish, Portuguese, English, the greedy, the ruling elitists, the clerics, the opportunists, and the military that have always pursued their own agendas, stability be damned.

The Epic of Latin America, by John Crow. Read it.