As if if the war's purpose is clearly defined, a mother will object less to getting her son back in a coffin! In the democracy one can not use a mother's feelings on her son's dying overseas as a criterion for foreign policy. As you noted yourself, there are other considerations. And that applies to both WW, to North Korea, to both Iraq wars, etc.
Nixon had to bow to overwhelming public opinion. In that he was doing his job as elected official: serve the voters. The sum of factors was against him. But who unleashed anti-war propaganda machine? Was J.Fonda left- or -right wing? Kerry? All those humanitarian photographers, journalists and radio hosts? Who painted military as criminal killers, drug-addicted bloodthirsty napalm-spraying beasts?
Of course Vietnam war is a complex topic - it would be, with so many tangents (general strategy, political doctrine, funds, generals vs Congress, etc) - but its objectives were never murky. It was to win proxy war against USSR. That's why the useful pinkos in US universities were so against it.
Yes, I know about the blackmail and Alsop's report (only to CIA, not FBI; A. was collaborating with CIA during the war and talked to his acquaintances there. It's CIA who spread the news to FBI). "...excessive access and fraternization with the power and, thus, fossilization of a journalist's worldview" - that could be said about any noted journalist. From Hemingway (and one of his wives, her name escapes me at the moment), to Orwell, to any number of contemporaries, particularly on the Left.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2017-03-04 06:39 pm (UTC)In the democracy one can not use a mother's feelings on her son's dying overseas as a criterion for foreign policy. As you noted yourself, there are other considerations. And that applies to both WW, to North Korea, to both Iraq wars, etc.
Nixon had to bow to overwhelming public opinion. In that he was doing his job as elected official: serve the voters. The sum of factors was against him.
But who unleashed anti-war propaganda machine? Was J.Fonda left- or -right wing? Kerry? All those humanitarian photographers, journalists and radio hosts? Who painted military as criminal killers, drug-addicted bloodthirsty napalm-spraying beasts?
Of course Vietnam war is a complex topic - it would be, with so many tangents (general strategy, political doctrine, funds, generals vs Congress, etc) - but its objectives were never murky. It was to win proxy war against USSR. That's why the useful pinkos in US universities were so against it.
Yes, I know about the blackmail and Alsop's report (only to CIA, not FBI; A. was collaborating with CIA during the war and talked to his acquaintances there. It's CIA who spread the news to FBI).
"...excessive access and fraternization with the power and, thus, fossilization of a journalist's worldview" - that could be said about any noted journalist. From Hemingway (and one of his wives, her name escapes me at the moment), to Orwell, to any number of contemporaries, particularly on the Left.