Day: November 28, 2003

If you should let sleeping dogs lie, should dogs who are awake be compelled to tell the truth?

PAD

As aggressive as mankind is about not learning from his mistakes, there is at least one valuable lesson that’s been learned insofar as shameful behavior by Americans go.

When soldiers returned from Vietnam, they were treated like each and every one was a war criminal. Remember? “Baby killers!” people would shout at them. Many soldiers who come back from wars have to deal with the difficult readjustment, but it was far tougher for the Vietnam vets because they returned to such a hostile environment. It was disgraceful.

Now, no matter how unpopular the war in Iraq may get (and that’s what we have, make no mistake), it seems that one theme is justly recurring: Support the troops. At least now there’s an understanding that these guys are just trying to do an impossible job under impossible conditions. Although there may be strident disagreement as to why we’re in Iraq and whether we should be or not, let’s be thankful that at least there’s–as near as I can tell–a total lack of condemnation of the people who are over there and consistent support for them when they return.

And if Bush was going to visit them, as he did, certainly the manner in which he did was the eminently smart way to go about it. In general I’m not a big fan of the press being lied to, but in this instance, advertising his dropping into a war zone would have been madness.

PAD