STOP CONDEMNING POLITICIANS WHO DIDN'T FIGHT IN VIETNAM

Robert Fisk is only the most recent columnist to condemn George Bush for not fighting in Vietnam. In a recent column for The Independent, referring to Bush's not attending funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, he wrote:

"...But of course President Bush, our hero in the "war on terror", won't be attending their funerals. The man who declined to serve his nation in Vietnam but has sent 146,000 young Americans into the biggest rat's nest in the Middle East doesn't do funerals."

Now look, I like Fisk as much as I like most progressive columnists, and usually agree with him--or he agrees with me.

But let's get over using Vietnam against assholes like Bush.

I have friends who fought in Vietnam, and whom I respect. I had friends who died there. And I had friends who were brutalized by fighting there and were never the same.

But I have many more friends who like myself did not and would not fight that unholy war, and we have no regrets. For many of us, it was the more honorable thing to do--to reject this false war. For some of us, it was--and still is--good enough to have said no way. Whether it was out of pacifism, deep conscience, social or political protest, or just a common recognition that this wasn't WW2 and no way was I gonna die in a jungle for no apparent reason, all were honorable choices.

It was NOT dishonorable to avoid the draft, to do everything in one's power to not end up as cannon fodder for the McNamaras, the Johnsons, the Nixons, and the other fomentors of that atrocity. It doesn't necessarily make one a hero for resisting or avoiding--George Bush is a perfect example--but it's disgraceful and disgusting in 2003 to criticize anyone who chose that path.

And we do not accept responsibility for the fact that, as talking heads on TV seem fond of posing to candidates who did not serve, "others died in your place, how do you feel about that?" (you dirty draft dodger) That's a disgusting trap, that question. How do we feel? Of course we feel awful that over 50,000 kids died in combat, and maybe almost as many afterwards by suicide, OD, or related disease, abandoned by the government that caused their pain. Every sentient being does.

But how dare anyone try to make that our fault, we who did as much as we could to end that shameful war--and finally did. Those who are responsible are the ones who conned these innocent kids into thinking they were serving their country, and upholding the ideals of democracy. Those who are responsible are the ones asking those ignorant questions.

So let's stop using fighting in Vietnam as a litmus test. George Bush is still a scumbag, a liar and a hypocrite, but not because he didn't fight in Vietnam.