Reply #11: All of my adult life (I came of age during the 1980s) [View All]

[ikojo]

all I heard was how poorly treated the returning Viet Nam vets were. Of course this is primarily a myth created out of whole cloth. The mantra during Persian Gulf War I was SUPPORT THE TROOPS, SUPPORT THE TROOPS...even in the so called anti war movement, the TROOPS were not to be questioned (would these same folks have avoided questioning the SS?) but supported. We were encouraged not to disparage the TROOPS at all.

So, now those who were initially against the war were said not to be SUPPORTING THE TROOPS.

I think this is where people experience cognitive dissonance. Those who came of age well after the Viet Nam war associated opposing war with not supporting troops and with being "anti American." We were supposed to line up behind the president (fuhrer) and not ask any questions as long as an American was somewhere putting his/her life on the line..

When some of the troops do things such as were done at Abu Ghraib and is being done in Guantanamo, they do not deserve support. Torturers, whether American or Germans of 60 years ago, are not deserving of pity. To question these acts is not to be anti troops or anti American.