His father and grandfather were both admirals. He wasn’t worried about the draft, or confused about what the military was doing. He was an aristocrat following a designated career path.
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Neither did the Soviet Union or China. Nobody makes the argument that they were wrong because they were on the winning side. No one argues that the Soviet Union was right and should have won the war in Afghanistan or that the Mujihadin I.e. The precursor to the Taliban and ISIS were right in their fight and defends either. Your position is very naive with that interpretation of history and isn’t able to see both sides. Often times history is remembered by winners and losers. Atrocities are rarely not committed on both sides.
Ya, you shouldn’t make veterans experience any more miserable. You should blame the politicians, not the soldiers who were drafted or signed up because they failed out of college. Blaming the soldiers at this point in time benefits no one and is sic.
But remember that I’m not out to make their experience more miserable. I’m saying they shouldn’t be praised as heroes. If that makes them more miserable, then I’m sorry, but I’ve explained my priorities.
I’m not blaming them, but praising them for “serving” sends the wrong signal.
I can blame the politicians without blaming the soldiers.
But I cannot celebrate the soldiers as heroes without giving the politicians carte blanche.
My grandfather was a veteran, too.
He was drafted, he had no choice. It would have made no sense for me to thank him for being drafted, after all he had no choice. Should I have thanked him for fighting bravely? Or should I have thanked him for not fighting too bravely? Because the world might have been a lot worse off if my grandfather and his brothers in arms had managed to win.
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… and yet it seriously irks me how “patriot” is being used instead of “good person”.
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I’m not sure he was someone I’d describe as a “good” person, but I do believe that he generally did what he felt was right for his country (even if I adamantly disagreed with his assessment of same).
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I’m on board with this POV.
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Or maybe a “well-meaning” person?
It’s just a European thing that the implication that being a “patriot” is what counts sounds toxically nationalistic to me, so never mind…
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Ironically the American politician spouting the most nationalistic jingo is the one who conspired with a foreign power to undermine the American election system.
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It’s kind of hard for us Europeans to tell the difference, even reasonable decent Americans tend to quickly cross into “I can’t tell the difference any more” territory as far as overt displays of patriotism are concerned. I’ve learned to tolerate it for the most part. Luckily, Trump is offensive in other ways, too, so I don’t really need to be able to tell the difference.
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I am the zathras, I speak for the Europeans.
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Or maybe I should just go to bed already. After all, while I might not speak for all Europeans, I am speaking from Europe, and it’s definitely past my bedtime here. Good night 
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Even then…
(TLDR: McCain’s opposition to torture existed more in rhetoric than reality)
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Many seem to assume that people at the time knew what we know now. It took Ellsberg to properly expose what was taking place there, and then many years to properly piece it all together once material became declassified.
Whether or not he followed a career path, he still served his country. Im not sure which is worse, a North Vietnamese POW camp or the Senate… Either way, he served.
Once again, they were fighting off an invasion. We had no reason to be there. None. It was a foolish, wasteful, and destructive war that wasted lives, including several years of McCains.
You’re pretty much just spouting the American-nationalist view of this war.
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But, but, Communism!
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Scary, I know! But, just maybe, if we had supported independence for Vietnam way back in the interwar period and lived up to our ideals of national self-determination (Wilsonianism really only seemed to be for white people), Vietnam’s embrace of communism might have not happened in the first place… But of course, we can’t depend on counterfactuals.
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@anon61221983 IS seeing both sides, and is faulting both sides. As for “winners and losers” in the Vietnam War, all I see (as she also pointed out) are losers. Everyone lost.
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