So, I wrote an article for my hometown paper, The Ledger of Lakeland, Florida
What I wanted to say was that the bloody attacks in downtown Kabul this week seem designed to discourage Americans and their allies in the same way that Tet was designed for that purpose in Vietnam in January 1968. But this aside, Vietnam in 1968 and Afghanistan today present two very different situations.
In both cases, however, we are engaged in wars which more intelligent policies could have helped us avoid. George Bush and Lyndon Johnson both seem to have had inadequate appreciation for the bloodletting that wars entail, and neither was honest to us about what each of these wars required.
I would like to see a law that requires us once again to have Congress declare war before we actually go to war. Secondly, in asking Congress to declare war, a president should be required to make a public presentation in which he or she discusses in detail the brutal and bloody deaths of innocents, including innocent children, that are inevitable in war. After the president talks about families being blown to bits by bombs in their living rooms and babies mauled by shrapnel in their cribs, assuring us that these are unavoidable aspects of every war, he or she should then turn to the public and say, "Knowing this, I nevertheless believe it is necessary to request Congress to declare war."
No more of this adolescent "Bring it on!" b.s.
In Which Loretta & Susan Bid Farewell
5 years ago
I don't recognize this country anymore. At least in Lyndon's war there was eventually a groundswell of opposition-starting with educated people on college campuses. Not much protest these days from college students or any one else. People actually like to see the conflict and violence, like seeing people blown up and hurt. War is just another reality show to most of the masses.
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