The "Hanoi Hilton" revisited - and making plans for the new Baghdad Hilton
too
By Jane Stillwater
Created Jul 8 2008 - 5:07pm
(To see photos of the new Hanoi Hilton, John McCain trying to sneak in the
back door of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco in order to avoid
demonstrators, and McCain trying to get me killed by giving me false intel
about safety conditions in the streets of Baghdad, go to my blog [1].)
****
John McCain used to be a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and, according
to
the 1973 U.S. News and World Re****t version of his experiences there, he
was
held in "a small area of Hoala Prison which was built by the French in
1945.
It was known as the 'Hanoi Hilton' to Americans." And, ironically,
approximately 35 years later there really IS a Hilton hotel in Hanoi --
only
this one is actually owned and run by the real Hilton hotel chain. I bet
you
that even Paris Hilton goes there now -- and brings her chihuahua too.
Once the war in Vietnam ended, things in Hanoi changed a lot.
But not much has changed in Iraq since Bush and Cheney coerced us into
slogging into that "WMD" quagmire back in 2003. That "war" has taken on a
life of its own and just keeps going on and on and on. But, hey, let's be
optimistic. Maybe someday another Presidential candidate will also emerge
out of the POW camps in Iraq as well. Oops, my bad. Thanks to the Bush
mafia's example of condoning the torture and murder of Iraqi POWs, Iraqi
insurgents appear to have followed suit and, as a result, there are
currently only three American POWs being held prisoner by Iraqi
insurgents.
However, those three POWs surely look like Presidential material to me!
Hang
in there, Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie, Pvt. Byron W. Fouty and Spc. Alex R.
Jimenez. I'll vote for you in 2012.
So. What's my point? That torturing and killing Iraqi POWs is a good way
to
keep the American POW population down? Hardly! That's something Bush or
Cheney would think up, not me. MY point is that there are two particular
similarities between the Iraq war and the war in Vietnam that I would like
to bring up right now, just in case you might have missed noticing them
yourself -- which is not likely because they stick out like a sore thumb.
First, there is the civil war similarity. "If we leave Iraq now while it
is
in the midst of a civil war, there will be slaughter and chaos," we are
told
again and again. This has become one of the main justifications for
continuing the occupation of Iraq. But weren't we told the same thing as a
justification for occupying Vietnam? If memory serves correctly, there
used
to be a huge civil war going on in Vietnam 35 years ago -- and Johnson and
Nixon kept telling us that if America pulled out of Vietnam, whole bunches
of Vietnamese would be slaughtered as a result and that country would fall
into chaos forever. Yeah, well, the civil war in Vietnam ended as soon as
American troops left, and the entire country is now governed by the rule
of
law.
Second, there is the "Domino Theory" similarity. "If we leave Iraq now,
the
entire Middle East will fall into Islamofascism". Nixon and Johnson also
kept telling us that if America pulled out of Vietnam, all of Southeast
Asia
would go Communist. Wrong again. Regarding the threat of all of Southeast
Asia going Communist, that didn't happen either. Not only does cor****atism
now have a major foothold in Vietnam but none of the other Southeast Asian
countries fell to Communism either. You can now find American-run
sweatshops
all over Southeast Asia -- and there are now Hilton hotels located in
Indonesia, Thailand, Singa****e, Vietnam and even China. Heck, even China
has
fallen to cor****atism these days.
There was no major slaughter and chaos after Nixon pulled out of Vietnam
--
and Southeast Asia didn't turn Commie either. So I guess that both of
those
theories were wrong. And I'll bet that they will prove wrong in Iraq as
well.
There's a moral here, guys. Here it is. "If American troops pull out of
Iraq
right now, by the year 2038 we could have Hilton hotels open for business
in
Baghdad, Fallugah, Basra AND Mosul." So. WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR!
PS: Here is an excerpt from a forthcoming book by a political commentator
and former active-duty Marine who won a Purple Heart in Vietnam. Sewart
Nusbaumer's book is tenatively entitled "Campaign Addict" and describes
his
harrowing adventures on the 2008 presidential primary campaign trail and
at
various "Flying J" truck-stops along the way. And while in Chcago,
Nusbaumer
interviewed one Chicago Gold Star mother who had lost her son in Iraq:
"This war is going to be like Vietnam, in vain," said Barbara. As she
looks
out onto Halstead Street, cars drive by, a woman and her young son pass
us.
But I doubt she sees them. "You ask people 15 years down the road and they
won't know anything about this war. Like Vietnam. Are Americans really
that
unappreciative of the lives that keep them free?"
I'm jolted!
Her son's death had nothing to do with Americans being free -- she knows
this. Jonathan died in Iraq as those who died in Vietnam, not for freedom,
but in vain. I say in a low voice, shaking my head slowly, "I don't know
the
American people anymore." And I wonder how could the majority of Americans
believe Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 when there was not a shred of
evidence? How could Americans sup****t an invasion and occupation of Iraq
without proof of weapons of mass destruction? How could Americans allow
Jonathan to be killed when Iraq was not an imminent threat to America? I
don't know Americans anymore.
It's all as if Vietnam never happened. As if Americans never learned that
they cannot trust their government to tell them the truth. As if they
never
learned that they cannot trust their government with their sons' lives.
Maybe there never was a Vietnam, for the majority of Americans.
_______
Jane Stillwater
--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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