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Let's Be Fair To Trump, by Clancy Sigal

LET’S BE FAIR TO TRUMP WHO IS GETTING BEATEN UP FOR EVADING THE VIETNAM WAR…LIKE THOUSANDS OF OTHER YOUNG AMERICANS AT THE TIME
 
Tomorrow is an anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s fake “Tonkin Bay” incident that licensed him to escalate
the Vietnam war. 
 
Johnson lied.  There was NO attack on our Navy from the Communists on 4 Aug ’64 that the US govt used
as an excuse to fight a war that killed millions of Asians and 58,000 Americans.
 
A Navy pilot flying overhead that night was commander James Stockdale, later held as a POW by the North Vietnamese.
 
 “I had the best seat in the house to watch that event,” recalled Stockdale, “and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets — there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American firepower.”
 
Trump has screwed the pooch by denouncing  Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, a soldier who died in Iraq.  Bad cess on him. 
 
But there’s an unholy smell coming out of the Khan incident and the Democratic convention.  All this militaristic, patriotic talk of “sacrifice” – as if there’s a competition who can die the most in a war – puts a gloss on what should be a big debate on whether war is a good thing. 
 
It really doesn’t help when liberal Democrats scream “USA! USA!” at Sanderistas who at least want to raise the question and get squelched by Hillary’s praetorian guard.
 
Let’s be extremely careful not to use Trump’s current insanity as an excuse to make future wars acceptable to us.  And remember that Hillary’s instincts are “liberal intervention” wherever evil raises its ugly head.
 
We got lied into Vietnam and into Iraq.  In the drive to undermine Trump let’s not put lipstick on the pig of more unnecessary wars.
 
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