Newsgroup: it.sport.formula1
Titolo: Message To America's Students: The War, The Draft, Your Future

We have been down this road before. 
U.S. troops sent to war half a world away. American foreign policy
controlled by an arrogant elite, bent on projecting military power
around the globe. A public misled into supporting an unconstitutional
war founded on deceit and fabrications. 
As the death toll mounts, we hear claims that the war is nearly won,
that victory is just around the corner. But victory never arrives. 
As the public loses confidence in the government, the government
questions the patriotism of any who express doubt about the war. 
When a presidential election arrives, both the Democrat and Republican
nominees embrace the policy of continued war. 
The military draft comes to dominate the lives of America's young, and
vast numbers who believe the war to be a senseless blunder are faced
with fighting a war they do not believe in, or facing exile or prison. 
The year was 1968. Because voters had no choice that November, the
Vietnam War continued for another six years. Hundreds of thousands of
Americans like you died, were maimed, or suffered from diseases like
malaria. A far greater number of Vietnamese died. 
Today, the war is in the quicksands and alleys of Iraq. Once again,
under the pressure of a determined resistance, we see an American war
policy being slowly torn apart at the seams, while the candidates urge
us to "stay the course" in this tragic misadventure. Today's
Presidential candidates are not Nixon and Humphrey, they are now Bush
and Kerry. 
Once again, there is one overriding truth: If war is the only choice in
this election, then war we will have. 
Today enlistments in the Reserves and National Guard are declining. The
Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards,
as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is
being quietly put into place. 
Young Americans need to know that a train is coming, and it could run
over their generation in the same way that the Vietnam War devastated
the lives of those who came of age in the sixties. 
I am running for President, and have been against this war from the
beginning. We must not waste lives in order to control and waste more
oil. Stand with us and we may yet salvage your future and Americas'
future from this looming disaster. 
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
HTTP://WWW.VOTENADER.ORG
--
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti,
Gloria Steinem and Barbara Kingsolver.  Hollywood icons (and many more
has-beens) like Danny Glover, Jessica Lange, Tyne Daly, Martin Sheen and Ed
Harris have also signed or endorsed the statement. NION organizes marches
and other protest activities in its support.
However, Not In Our Name is deeper than the latest academic babblers and
limosuine liberals. NION professes peace, yet it is involved - directly as
well as indirectly - with terrorist organizations and anti-American
propaganda campaigns headed by fanatical Communist and Muslim groups. NION
has cemented alliances with bona fide radical organizations like the
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom and the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Not In Our Name:  What is IFCO?
Not In Our Name (NION) requests donations on its website, yet on this site
donors are asked to make checks payable to NION/IFCO. IFCO is the acronym
for the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization. NION states
that the " Interreligous Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). is
our fiscal sponsor." Fiscal sponsorship by IFCO means Not In Our Name
receives dona

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 mother.
According to the Army's Center for Military History, the Vietnam War began
on December 11, 1961, when two air cavalry units consisting of 400 soldiers
arrived in Vietnam to Americanize the war against the North. From 1962 to
1964, according to Reuters, America incurred 392 fatalities in that war.
Since 1964 American technology has vastly improved the survivability of
combat. Kevlar body armor, improved surgical techniques and facilities,
improved armored vehicles, improved night vision and improved tactics all
help keep fatalities down. But even with this technological edge that the
modern-day Army enjoys over its 1960s counterpart, American casualties in
Iraq now exceed those in Vietnam's early days.
George Paine - 
warblogging.com

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Yes it is true that during the first 3 years of the Vietnam war only a
few hundred men died.  But you would be lying by omission, or were
misled yourself, if you left the statement at just that:
The number of US military personnel in Vietnam prior to 1965 - a scant
23,300 - is a very relevant statistic.  And nearly every US 'soldier'
stationed in Vietnam prior to 1965 operated solely in the capacity of
military advisor - meaning very few soldiers saw any active combat
prior to 1965.
My Copy/Paste Rebuttal (found in the same article you quoted):
"Vietnam casualties, which amounted to 25 deaths from 1956 through
1961, climbed to 53 in 1962, 123 in 1963 and 216 in 1964, Pentagon
statistics show.  At the time, the U.S. presence in Vietnam consisted
mainly of military advisers. President John F. Kennedy increased their
number from about 960 in 1961 to show Washington's commitment to
containing communism.  But not until 1965, after Congress had approved
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, did Washington begin its massive
escalation of the war effort. With a huge influx of soldiers,
casualties in Vietnam soared to 1,926 in 1965 and peaked at 16,869 in
1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, data show." (Reuters)
If you compare the casualty rate in Vietnam during 1965 - the first
year where US military strength reached a level commensurate to
current day Iraq - you will find that it is more than 3 times the rate
of current day Iraq.  You should also note that during the Vietnam war
the US had the assistance of a South Vietnamese army (1964: 243,000,
1971: 1,110,000) - the US military has no such assistance in Iraq. 
Finally, you should note that the South Vietnamese military casualty
rate was generally 2 to 5 times higher than the US military rate
during the same year.
Maybe next time you will put more thought and effort into your post.
Copy and paste is pretty weak.

 wrote:

I was under the impression that this was a cue sports related newsgroup, but
I'll bite anyway. Is comparing the conflict in Iraq to Vietnam even fair?
There were as many people killed last year in Chicago as there have been
thus far in Iraq. In case you have forgotten your elementary school history
classes, you live in a nation that freed itself from tyrant rulers through
an uprising (read that as war). The Iraqi people did not even have the
opportunity to free themselves. What happened if they did try to uprise
against their leader? He just killed 100,000 of his own people in gas
chambers and firing squads. Can you say H-I-T-L-E-R??
If those of you on the left would actually put the information you receive
in context, instead of just blabbing out the latest headline you get from
the media, maybe you'd come to your senses and actually realize what's going
on in Iraq. 
Here is an excerpt from an email I received yesterday. Sums things up pretty
well.
 
Robin William's plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!)
 
 I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for
peace. So, here's one plan.
 
 1.) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in
their  affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega,
 Milosevic and the rest of those 'good ole boys,' We will never  "interfere"
 again.
 
 2.) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting
with  Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there.
We  would  station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in
the
 fence.
 
 3.) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and
leave.
 We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will
be  gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they
are.   France would welcome them.
 
 4.) All  future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to
90 days  unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would
be  allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't
hide  here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any
more cab  drivers or 7-11 cashiers.
 
 5.) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the
bombers. If  they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home
baby.
 
 6.) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient
energy  wise.   This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy
but will
require  a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou
will  have  to cope for a while.
 
 7.) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a
barrel for  their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They
can go
 somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells
filling  up the storage sites would be enough.)
 
 8.) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world,
we  will   not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds,
rain,  cement  or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is
stolen
or  given  to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if
anything.
 
 9.) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island some place. We
don't  need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building
would   make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.
 
 10.) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no
one  can  call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is
 ENGLISH.....learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a
plan.
 
 "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor, your
tired,   your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling,
'You want a piece of me?'"
-- Mathew Hilton
onepocket@charter(dot)net