quotes

Some interesting quotes to think about...

From Vietnam and Other American Fantasies by H. Bruce Franklin:
1. “While the war was going on, Reagan unambiguously defined what he meant by victory… ‘It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.’”
2.After the Tet Offensive the US became desperate: ‘It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.’ 'Better dead than Red.'

From The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
1. “Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha’s gray eyes gazing back at him. He understood. It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. He almost nodded at her, but didn’t.”

From Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not To Learn From The Past edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young
1.“(Basically McNamara’s project sends young recruits (who would normally not be accepted into the military) to the war when they were in need of more men) Project 100,000 was touted as a liberal effort to uplift ‘the subterranean poor’ who had ‘not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this nation’s abundance.’… despite the high-minded rhetoric, Project 100,000 merely served to send many poor, terribly confused, and woefully uneducated boys to Vietnam, where their death rate was twice as high as it was for American forces as a whole. This was a Great Society program that was quite literally shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam.” (Appy 138-39)
2.“Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2003 is not 1975 or 1968. Saddam Hussein was driven out of power and his regime collapsed last spring. The is no independent sanctuary named ‘North Iraq’ for his Baath Party henchmen to fight from, no Soviet Union to keep them supplied with arms and fuel, no equivalent of Laos or Cambodia in the Middle East for whole divisions of his loyalists to hide in, no Ho Chi Minh trail that suicide bombers can use to drive to Baghdad. Nor is there an allied Iraqi government yet, elected or otherwise.” Craig Whitney, New York Times (Elliott 21)
3.“Convincing peasants that the United States was on their side was one aspect of counterinsurgency, and counterinsurgency greatly interested Kennedy and his advisors. Proud of their knowledge of how the enemy operated— not necessarily the Vietnamese, but any enemy— they quoted Mao: the guerrilla is a fish swimming in the ocean of the people. Dry up the ocean and the problem is solved. No one paused for very long over the metaphor: what, after all, would it mean to dry up the ocean?” (Young 217)

On an entirely different note (and tone and mindset), is it weird that I am actually rather excited for my 20 hour flight across the world? I can just sit on my butt for almost an entire day and no one can give me crap about it. I also get lots of "free" food (with the option of Asian OR Western), in-flight entertainment, attractive stewards, good books, diphenhydramine, a blow-up neck pillow...