Sad news, though. I feel my generation is getting to see the spectre of its own “Vietnam” loom larger, except this time, few care.

So Xeni, does this mean you’re going to change your middle username to “Walker”?

from Anonymous #14

“vietnam combat deaths were around 50k. iraq is around 4k.”

wow – spoken like a true war pig

Currently the civilian death count stands at somewhere around 100,000 in Iraq.

Or do the Iraqi people not count?

I’ll take that bet. Let’s see what you have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyJMufGx7fo

However, there are of course similarities. A lengthy conflict. A guerrilla war. A populace that is ambivalent to NATO/US presence. Corrupt local officials. The drug trade. Enemies who retreat into neighboring countries.

In the end it may be the similarities are more important. However if the U.S. is interested in doing the responsible thing and cleaning up it’s messes then it should finish off the Taliban and Al Qaeda much as it did with Sadam Hussein. Sadam was useful to them for a while and then he turned on the U.S.

The electorate it seems couldn’t be sold on the real reason for the wars, that after years of arming goons in the region and mucking about in the politics of the middle east the West needed to try to re-establish some semblance of control, make an example or two and clean house. It’s a grim dirty reality.

It may be that the West will decide it’s easier to retreat to it’s own version of guerrilla warfare: air strikes.

On a side note: although it’s an anti war song, I’d bet its on the ipods of a lot of soldiers.

Good point. Previous generations got to actually *SEE* what Vietnam looked like every night on the evening news.

The U.S. government has censored war coverage since the ’91 Gulf War, because they learned their lesson after Vietnam. If the American people could witness what the hell the war in Iraq and Afghanistan actually looks like – on a daily level – including the massive civilian “casualties” – then there would be an anti-war movement mobilized in the States again, as there was during Vietnam.

BTW, Thanks Xeni for posting this vid. Very timely, unfortunately.

However, I’d like to add that Rob Zombie does some excellent stuff in his La Sexorsisto: Devil Music Vol. 1. Totally life-changing albums.

Don’t forget that other countries’ soldiers have been dying in Afghanistan the whole time that the US was involved in the truly unjust war in Iraq. It’s time to reap what you sew.

vietnam combat deaths were around 50k. iraq is around 4k.

just a hunch, but i bet the rates represented by that 4k number aren’t all that much more than casualty rates the military has historically seen during peacetime.

of course war is bad and soldiers’ lives aren’t expendable, but really, the idea that we’re living through something like vietnam, but people just don’t care because they’re stupid/distracted/shallow/fat/whatever is just plain wrong.

By the way, is it me or does it totally blow your mind to think about the high quality and original music that came from the 70′s?

no

BOINGBOING YOU ARE THE BEST. :D

And you haters can just suck it.