[BREAK] Politics has become much more savvy, both media wise and in psychological terms, to allow what they now consider a major mistake to occur again. The granting of any credit to war protesters for bringing eventual sense to a nation whose people swallowed whole easily refutable lies ended with the Vietnam War. Even today, much is written about how the protests had little or no real effect on ending the war, with hawks saying the American public just "lost its will" or "ran out of patience." We dinosaurs who lived during the period, and, most especially, we who had the soil of Vietnam on our boots and jungle rot . . . in odd places, know better. We left Vietnam for, at least, two reasons, one military and one civilian. The lack of morale was often spoken of by the military leadership in the latter 1960's, and the protests had much to do with that. Not any spitting on returning troops or other horror stories. But the points the protests highlighted. Between moments of Hell, there were times of boredom. During those times, troops read. The read letters, newspapers and books. In Vietnam, we read about the protests, and heard facts we were never taught in Basic, AIT or OCS. There were too many "facts" to list here, but they pointed to reasons we might be fighting, how much money was being generated by the blood of our dead friends and the foibles of the politicians who, even then, lied of gifting "liberty" but led us, and the Vietnamese, down a primrose path to perdition. The protesters had no "gifts" of "liberty" to promise anyone, but the knowledge they highlighted led many of us serving in Vietnam to realize that while patriotism and/or a Draft might place your ass in Vietnam, the reasons for fighting and chancing death and mutilation might have been rather flimsy. And when doubt, especially doubt based on fact, creeps under your tent, your leaders soon realize that its getting to be time to leave. Back home, the protests educated the parents of the protesters. They highlighted the deaths of our relatives, friends and neighbors. While the media had not yet surrendered to the forces of Corporatism, and therefore was reporting much more info on Vietnam than we get today on Iraq, the protests fanned the sparks of outrage that were flaring all over America. And those fires put so much heat on the once war-happy politicians (Republican AND Democratic), that support for the war collapsed. Once enough politicians began marching to the drums of "War, What Is It Good For?", the Congress began cutting the funds that allowed the Vietnam War to continue long after most sane folk realized it was . . . say it with me now . . . A QUAGMIRE! So, the protests were, at minimum, a catalyst that considerably pushed up the end date for that war, saved many American and Vietnamese lives and stopped a financial drain on our treasury that could have led to a true depression. For the reasons above, today's hawks are trying to negate any acknowledgment that those who were, early on, against the illegal attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq might have been right. And that the protests had the same effect as they did in the 60's. That they educated both the troops and the American civilians/electorate of facts with which they were unaware (and that our subservient media was not about to publish.) And, I believe, that's why the pundits and politicians who have finally woken up and smelt the odor of burning American troops and Iraqi civilians in a no-win war are suddenly finding post-invasion reasons for withdrawing today. And they will either say that the early protesters were wrong and that Saddam had to go, or they'll conflate the protesters into their camp and try to make it seem as though the protests were against not the "Why?" of our unwarranted attack on a non-aggressor nation but against the "How" of the ensuing failed strategy that now has us being compared unfavorably to Saddam when it comes to torture and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. Andrew Sullivan has been a great example of these "Get out of Iraq" Johnny come lately's. He's quoted in a story titled After President Meets Reporters, Sullivan -- Once a Bush Backer -- Now Suggests He May Have 'Lost His Mind' by the staff at Editor & Publisher.

No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster. "For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it.....These people must be held accountable."

Don't let Sullivan put those who "were for it, as I was" into the same tent as those who were "against it". To place all together in a camp complaining about the failed strategy in Iraq would appear to imply that:

• 1) there was a "winning" strategy for an attack against what was a highly nationalistic AND a 3 way militantly religious country.
• 2) if we did "win" in Iraq it would have somehow made the attack legitimate and might have caused to protesters to then embrace the original illegal attack in Bush's Baghdad Blunder.

I can't, of course, speak for other protesters. But I believe that even had we sent the "several hundred thousand troops" that General Shinseki estimated we'd need to take and hold secure Iraq, we would have still needed to retain a huge (200,000?) military force in Iraq for the unseeable future, as the granting of "freedom" from Saddam's secular rule would still have allowed the same tribal/religious battles of today to begin. Unlike the dream of easy victory that Sullivan and his ilk pushed for years (and held through the 2004 election, granting us a second term of Bushies), I and many of the protesters with whom I spoke believed that attacking Iraq should have occurred only in one circumstance: Iraq launching an attack against American interests. Being down on Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush today is easy. You're now in the majority . . . and you know it. (Though, sadly, pundits predict little change in Iraq regrdless of next wee's election's outcomes.) Sullivan changed stripes years and many deaths too late. While I welcome him to the right side of the road, and hope more former Bush cheerleaders will join him, I am not about to grant some form of post-dated heroism onto the people who took so long to open their eyes. Blood is on their hands, and even calling Bush an idiot (Sullivan on Bush's current optimism in the face of stark reality: ""It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind.")and calling for Rumsfeld's resignation will not cause the stained palms to come clear. Those who helped push us into a war they now wish to disassociate from need to perform some form of penance before I allow them to peacock around as peace-loving sages, so shortly after being warmongering dunces. Let Andrew volunteer at Walter Reed. Or, better still, let him work in one of the "hospitals" the US taxpayer gave billions to Bushie corps to build in Iraq. Helping those he once pushed to kill/maim might make me want to shake Andrew's hand. For now, as crude as it may sound, I could only spit in it. And I'll be damned if I'd allow him to try and form any public coalition between his neo-con con men who used lies and deceit to push us into Iraq and those who protested early and suffered the brickbats thrown in his columns and in those of other recent-day withdrawal worshipers. Too much blood, from 19 year-old American troops and 3 year-old innocent Iraqi children cloud my windshield for me to see clearly to a place where these former cheerleaders sit in places of honor! ========== [/BREAK]

After President Meets Reporters, Sullivan -- Once a Bush Backer -- Now Suggests He May Have 'Lost His Mind' By E&P Staff Published: November 01, 2006 10:00 PM ET NEW YORK In a move that no doubt sent a shiver through several candidates in his own party, President Bush, in a special interview with wire service reporters in the White House, today guaranteed a job for his Pentagon chief for two more years, adding that both Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney "are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them." But it wasn't only endangered Republicans who have been calling for Rumsfeld's ouster who may have blanched. Andrew Sullivan, the conservative writer who was once a key media supporter for the Iraq war, denounced the latest Bush statement on CNN on Wednesday night, stating that the president is so delusional, "This is not an election anymore, it's an intervention." Sullivan said the president was "so in denial," comparing the Rumsfeld endorsement to applauding the job FEMA's Michael Brown did on Katrina: "It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster. "For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it.....These people must be held accountable." He added that today, Richard Perle, a leading neocon and Iraq war backer, had today called the administration "dysfunctional."

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