Make-Believe Maverick. "A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty."
posted by homunculus on Oct 4, 2008 - 120 comments

The Wars of John McCain. "John McCain believes the Vietnam War was winnable. Now he argues that an Obama administration would accept defeat in Iraq, with grave costs to American honor and national security. Is McCain’s quest for victory a reflection of an antiquated pre-Vietnam mind-set? Or of a commitment to principles we abandon at our peril? Is there any war McCain thinks can’t be won?"
posted by homunculus on Sep 26, 2008 - 93 comments

Wednesday morning plane pr0n.
posted by saladin on Dec 19, 2007 - 46 comments

For young deserters, refuge is hard to find It seemed like a drastic but simple solution: a step over the border into a country that had offered sanctuary before to Americans fleeing their homeland. Instead, the growing band of US soldiers who have sought political refuge in Canada after defying orders to serve in Iraq have found themselves in a political limbo.
posted by Postroad on Apr 25, 2005 - 83 comments

The argument I make in my book is that what I describe as the new American militarism arises as an unintended consequence of the reaction to the Vietnam War and more broadly, to the sixties... If some people think that the sixties constituted a revolution, that revolution produced a counterrevolution, launched by a variety of groups that had one thing in common: they saw revival of American military power, institutions, and values as the antidote to everything that in their minds had gone wrong. None of these groups — the neoconservatives, large numbers of Protestant evangelicals, politicians like Ronald Reagan, the so-called defense intellectuals, and the officer corps — set out saying, “Militarism is a good idea.” But I argue that this is what we’ve ended up with: a sense of what military power can do, a sort of deference to the military, and an attribution of virtue to the men and women who serve in uniform. Together this constitutes such a pernicious and distorted attitude toward military affairs that it qualifies as militarism.
An interview with Andrew Bacevich, international relations professor and former Army colonel, and author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War--and here is a review. Recently by Bacevich: We Aren't Fighting to Win Anymore - U.S. troops in Iraq are only trying to buy time.
posted by y2karl on Feb 21, 2005 - 37 comments

George Bushes's Military record: a critical analysis This pdf file is about as definitive a look as we are likely to get on the Bush military record. Clearly most post4ers/readers of Metafilter do not support Bush, but having some clear-cut evidence at hand to use in arguments against those who attack the Kerry militaryrecord, this will give the Bushites reason to move on to other topics
posted by Postroad on Sep 8, 2004 - 64 comments

Back to the Street without Joy: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam and Other Small Wars (PDF format) See also Collapsed Countries, Casualty Dread, and the New American Way of War. See also Planning for Conflict Termination and Post-Conflict Success. See also The Risk of Optimism in the Conduct of War. Parameters is a treasure trove.
posted by y2karl on Jul 22, 2004 - 10 comments

MIA Facts Site

Prisoners of Hope: Exploiting the POW-MIA Myth in America.

Let's Sell The Bones : The Marketing of America's Missing In Action              (More Inside)
posted by y2karl on Mar 15, 2003 - 37 comments

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it. Platoon. Full Metal Jacket. The opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. It's surprising that anyone volunteers for the armed forces after a steady diet of Hollywood depictions of the horrors of war. In "Jarhead" Gulf War sniper Anthony Swafford contends that these"...Vietnam War films are all pro-war, regardless of what... Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man." Does the terrible beauty of Apocalypse Now actually help military recruitment?
posted by spotmeter on Mar 3, 2003 - 44 comments

US Soldiers' dogtags are sold on the streets of Vietnam. An American backpacker bought as many as she could find and is now trying to find their owners. Interesting story.
posted by tomplus2 on Nov 11, 2002 - 6 comments

Speaking of Veterans Day, here in Chicago we have the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum. Art by Vets about the War. Most pieces are on-line with a short essay. The Above and Beyond memorial is impressive to say the least.
posted by skallas on Nov 11, 2001 - 2 comments