It's not the gaming of his service in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago. That's understandable under the circumstances. It's not the fact that he participated in unAmerican activities, or that he helped to create a vacuum in Southeast Asia that led directly to the Cambodian genocide, not to mention the subjugation of the Vietnamese people by a Marxist hive mind. We all make mistakes. We grow out of them. And it's not the fact that he labelled his brothers-in-arms no better than mass-murderers, or threw away his medals (or ribbons, depending on how you parse those things). An apology and explanation is in order, but once that's done it's done.
Nope, it's not any of that stuff. It's the fact that the details of this grotesque narrative, as related by VDH DON'T SEEM TO PISS HIM OFF! I mean, what the heck does it take? The key graf:
Some insist that this war is only against a few "crazy" extremists and that it cannot be won by force. That is half true. In fact, millions of young Middle Easterners are watching Islamic fascists to learn whether to applaud or condemn them — and that decision in places like Najaf, Fallujah, Kandahar, Madrid, Grozny, and Ramallah sadly hinges as much on resolute force as it does on "sensitive" understanding. There are millions we must help, but there are also thousands of wannabe Osama bin Ladens and Mohammed Attas who have neither minds nor hearts that anyone would want to win over.Posted by Demosophist at September 10, 2004 10:47 PM | TrackBack