A Failed History Lesson

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  So goes the famous quote attributed to Sir Winston Churchill.

This quote came to life for me again in the past week, after watching parts of two different, public television documentaries on the Vietnam War.   The main one was a new, 10-part series called The Vietnam War from Ken Burns.  The other was from a couple of years ago called Dick Cavett’s Vietnam.

I was only in the single-digits old during the Vietnam War, so I didn’t understand then what was happening, either in Southeast Asia or in America.  I only have a few real recollections of it.  One was a day around 1970, when my family was watching a television scroll of calendar days next to numbers.  (I didn’t realized this until many years later, but they were looking at the draft lottery, and probably wondering if a randomly drawn number would send a loved one to the war.)  Another memory was the day the war informally ended, in April 1975, watching TV reports of the last people being lifted by helicopter from the U.S. embassy roof in Saigon.

So, watching parts of these documentaries was new information for me.  It’s hard to understand even now how much of a dumb, tactical, human failure it was for the U.S.  Tremendous, unnecessary sacrifice and loss of life, just to keep a small, remote territory from becoming Communist.  But that’s the way it was then, Communism was our enemy, and we were blind to our limits to contain it.

What really struck me, however, is how similar things were to the (current) U.S. 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They also started out as something that would be quickly managed, and with a fair amount of support after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  But again, we were blind to our limits to defeat an idea (terrorism), and the length of the wars and their eventual human cost, which turned American attitudes against it.

Not only are there general similarities, but as the Cavett documentary showed, there are fascinating similarities with the personalities involved then and now.   I thought of a number of them within a few minutes as I was watching:

Lyndon Johnson = George W. Bush

Robert McNamara = Donald Rumsfeld

Dick Cavett = Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert

Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda = George Clooney (and Jane Fonda?)

Muhammad Ali = ?  Unfortunately, no contemporary famous athlete compares to him, and no contemporary athlete suffered like him.

It’s was 40 years between the Vietnam War and the Iraq / Afghanistan conflicts.  Did we learn anything from history?  Now it’s been 50 years since the Vietnam War.  Have we learned anything yet?

Iowa Election Handicapping 2014

We've got an open (non-incumbent) U.S. congressperson election going on in central Iowa, as well as an open U.S. senatorial seat and a gubernatorial race.  Time to opine on the candidates.

Congress:  Staci Appel (D) vs David Young (R)
When 'friend of John Boehner' and incumbent Tom Latham (R) unexpectedly retired to open this district seat, the major political parties were obviously unprepared.  How else do you explain these two poor candidates?  Appel is an uninspiring former state senator with an image problem, and Young is a boring, no-name protege of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.  Good lord, is it too late for me to start a write-in campaign?  I think Young wins this, because voters will prefer a boring nobody with some national political experience over a boring nobody with no such experience.

Senate:  Bruce Braley (D) vs Joni Ernst (R)
This race reminds me a lot of eight years ago, when then-Congressman Jim Nussle ran against state politician Chet Culver for governor of Iowa.  It should have been no contest -- Culver was a buffoon.  But the anti-Republican fervor was too much that year (George W. Bush was mismanaging Iraq and Afghanistan) and Nussle didn't try hard enough.  Culver won, and proved his buffoonery by being Iowa's worst-ever governor.  Here, Braley = Nussle, Ernst = Culver, and Obama = Bush.  Braley is the better candidate, but it isn't looking so good for him right now.  He needs to hope that Ernst -- a National Guard member but also someone who clearly isn't the sharpest tool in the shed -- makes another mistake to sway independents, like reminding people that Sarah Palin endorsed her.

Governor:  Jack Hatch (D) vs Terry Branstad (R)
Multi-decade governor and certified grumpy old man Branstad will win this easily.  Make no mistake, it won't be because he's so beloved, it'll be because Iowans would rather dance with the devil they know than with the devil they don't know.  Hatch isn't well-known outside of Des Moines, and frankly, he isn't that well known inside of Des Moines if you aren't a real estate developer.  I might vote for Hatch just as a silent protest to Branstad's stance on medicinal marijuana.

Hikers Deserve Scorn Not Sympathy

We have a new leader in the clubhouse for the title of "Person Currently Getting Our Sympathy Who Really Deserves Our Scorn."

One of the top news stories in the past week was about Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans arrested last year while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Iran finally released her, and now she's doing the U.S. media ciruit talking about her captivity and urging the release of the other two male hikers (her fiancee and their friend).

Here's the thing: When asked why they were hiking so close to an unmarked border in such a dangerous part of the world, she acts like it was no big deal. They'd been staying in Syria, and were looking for a place to hike, and other people hiked around there, and they meant no harm, it was just a simple navagational mistake for which they were imprisoned.

Really!?

First off, people deserve what they get when they willfully choose to go hiking in one of the most volitile and lawless places in the world. It doesn't matter if you weren't spying. Frankly, it doesn't matter what you were doing. A lot of people there want to kill Americans, pure and simple. And don't you think maybe, just maybe, if there were people hiking there, they were locals who knew what they were doing and where they were going?

Next, to make matters worse, our Sarah met with the Iranian President - and International Madman - Ahmadinejad while he was in New York City this week on a United Nations visit. Nothing like giving that idiot more publicity by asking him to release the others. And this was right after that douchbag gave a speech suggesting the U.S. orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attcks. Note to Sarah - again, that A-hole wants to kill as many Americans as possible. We shouldn't even allow him in the country to speak to the United Nations, a liberty no other country would give him.

Finally, has Sarah or anyone else thought about the huge amounts of taxpayers dollars that have indirectly gone to freeing them? You're welcome, Sarah, you immature loser. Why doesn't she mention this when she's talking about all of the hardships faced because of her own stupidity?

Since she was reportedly living in Syria because she was "fascinated by the region" I wish she would just go back over there and stop sucking up any more resources from America. And after she gets a lucrative and very undeserved book deal, I'm sure she will! Oh, and I'm sure she'll use that money to pay back us taxpayers.

Sarah, this scorn is for you!