July 12, 2004

• Every morning coming in to work I listen to KCRW, which is one of L.A.'s public radio stations. The news show is called "Morning Edition" and this morning it featured a "story" on "draft jitters". Finally, the unspoken has been spoken. In my conversations with friends and co-workers, I have since the beginning of the "War In Iraq" been strident in my belief that the American Public will stick to their "patriotism" right up until the time that the draft is re-instated. As soon as this happens, the "similarities" to Vietnam will be right in front of the American Public's face, and they won't be able to deny that the similarities exist anymore. (Denial Statements from the Press are like this: "That was a jungle war. This is a desert war.") Right now the military "enjoys" a volunteer force, in which all the soldiers signed up on their own. In 1971, I wasn 't so lucky. Right out of high school, I thought I was going in to Vietnam. As luck would have it, I got out of the 71 draft on a medical technicality, then was registered 1A for the 72 lottery, but no one was called in the 72 lottery, because we pulled out of Saigon that year, and the "war" was "over". The draft ended in 1973, but even today  at 18 everyone must register with the Selective Service. So the wheels are in place, they just aren't turning. (Yet) Rumsfeld and Bush keep admonishing the American Public that there won't be a draft. Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that there won't be one before the election this November. (And there won't be one if Kerry is elected, which is looking better and better) But Americans are dying (still) every day, and the situation seems no better, even with the "handover of power". I have been afraid that this situation would escalate out of control (like Vietnam) back when "we" first proposed going in to Afghanistan. I am always "brushed off" as a "liberal" (and damn proud of it too, having given up my Young Republican status around the time of Nixon's Watergate "troubles".) So this morning, on the radio, I hear talk of "draft jitters." It's in the media now. The same media that's been waving the flag blindly since Sept. 11th, 2001. How many more American Dead have to be counted before the American Public realizes that the "War in Iraq" was a mistake, and we never should have gone in there. (Well, to tell the truth, we should have just "finished the job" in 1991, but I always felt that Bush the father got Bush the son to go in and finish the job since father didn't do it when he should have.)

  
  

  The situation in the Middle East has been a mess for over two thousand years. The Islamic Extremists will continue hating "America" as long as "we" back the Israelites in the Palestinian Conflict. "We" will find, that, like Vietnam, the situation in the Middle East will just find us counting our coffins and sending more soldiers over to die in a war we simply cannot "win". The last "war" the U.S. won was WWII, in 1945. I was born in 1953, the last year of the first "confict" as the news called it, in Korea, where we still have soldiers guarding "the line". The Vietnam conflict and the Iraq conflict are not conventional wars, but the toll they take in human lives is conventionally the same. So many soldiers my age found they were "forgotten" for fighting an "unpopular war". The "war" in Iraq is not "popular" to me, but has been supported en masse by the media, which sometimes seems to be shilling for the Republican Party.

  
  

  If the Draft is re-instated, then the similarities between the "War in Vietnam" and the "War in Iraq" will be unmistakable. Many many more American lives will be lost, and to what avail? The time to start the pullout is now. They have their "soverign state" and most of them don't want us in their country. I wish the world were more tolerant, but it isn't, and this "war" is not a good one, and has been depressing me for a while now. Here is a poem I wrote on May 22 of this year

  
  

  
  

  "Another Vietnam "

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  Monday, May 22th , 2004 9:38 a.m. pdt

  
  

  Another Vietnam for America
  In the bowels of the birth of existence now
  Another excuse for democracy
  To roil with the political uncertainties of
  All else
  Another relative purpose
  Proving above all else
  That there can never be another way of life
  As the way of life is lived in my country
  My America
  And the America of countless "tired, poor" immigrants
  Who have chosen to make this their home as well

  
  

  Another event shakes up the complacency
  Another trial pointing fingers to inconstencies
  False reports, and true reports mixed
  As a salad of surrender or salaciousness
  No one is right
  No one is wrong
  All are guilty
  And all are innocent

  
  

  What right does man have to quarrel?
  He has been quarreling since the
  Cutting of his umbilical with God.

  
  

  What right does man have to fight?
  He has been fighting since he
  Was thrown out of the same Garden
  Upon the banks of the Tigris
  Where his troubles flay at him again.

  
  

  I cannot blame the idea of democracy
  For the cataclysms which occur as our
  County rightly tries to establish right.

  
  

  I cannot blame the plights of the enemy
  At our hands for our seeming insensitivity
  In the eyes of the enemy when we still
  Seek answers for cataclysms which
  Occurred on our own soil not too long ago.

  
  

  I am saddened that the world is at grief
  I am saddened by the rabblerousing and the
  Death and the tears.

  
  

  I read the news at lunch and almost lose the lunch.

  
  

  Another Vietnam for America
  In the sandy pit of a once proud city
  Another faultless perogative in the dirt
  Another Watergate of unheeded expectations.

  
  

  All matter of conflict in the world
  Stems from ironclad fists procalaiming the right
  To cut down their enemies with whom they do not agree.
  America, born of a purpose to
  Realize humankind's foibles, and to
  Recognize the fallible duality of this purpose,
  Crafted a Constitution which still stands proud,
  And which still offers us, Americans, my brethren,
  A chance to quarrel without prejuduce.

  
  

  The right to swing one's arms ends with the face of our brother,
  And though we quarrel, and some hit that brother's face
  Eventually they will be caught, and punished.
  For the great thing about democracy
  American democracy,
  Is that no matter what happens, no matter what calamity ensues,
  The Idea Stands Strong, and the duality of mankind is served.

  
  

  We shall disagree, and the punishable minority shall still kill
  But by and large we shall prosper and hold true to the
  Established doctrines inherent in our Country's birth.

  
  

  Another Vietnam might cause us pain,
  But it was begun, as was the first,
  with the Good Intentions of American Democracy,
  To smite the enemy, and to gain information,
  So that we might stand tall,
  And never again see our towers fall
  While looking out from our own front porch.

  
  

   

  • 9:30 am
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