Oh! SteeleRedux, you gave me the laugh of the week with a few words "Perhaps you are taking Viagra for your gout" Appealed to my sense of humor, still laughing.

A look at history.

http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411534.htm

I cannot see where o sung wu is attempting to justify the Vietnam War.

He is drawing a comparison between the treatment of servicemen, young Aussies who could not vote but were conscripted to put their lives on the line, with the hero-worship now being accorded to Hicks, whose own boasting, arrogant claims identified him as a despicable traitor.

It should be noted from the outset that very few people would find anything about Hicks himself or what he did, good or praiseworthy. Any dispute centers on how governments should represent citizens apparently down on their luck abroad. Both sides of government do not have the best record in that regard (see my earlier post about the Gillard+Greens government and Julian Assange).

Someone has posted a link that has a photo of demonstrators at a moratorium against the Vietnam War. It is true that police removed badges to assault and grope demonstrators as they arrested them, and worse. There is video footage.

It is also true that anti-Vietnam war demonstrators while largely ordinary citizens (mainly students), there were scattered among them some very nasty activists indeed trying to foment anarchist and communist mayhem. The (usually student) organisers who had an interest in peaceful protest and applied for march permits, constantly strived to ensure that protests were peaceful and obeyed the law as much as was possible.

to be continued..

contd..

There was a chasm of difference of Bungonia (Gorge) proportions between the thousands of peaceful demonstrators and the left extremists, serial nuisances all - who hated everything about Australian democracy, the US, the military, the police etc etc and still do. The latter were and still are the grubs who sledged those young conscripts, and it was NOT, NEVER, the mainstream of the protest movement or the civil population doing it.

What men like o sung wu who did their duty (and were damaged in the process and harmed again on return by successive governments who preferred to forget them) need to understand and be assured of, is that the general population - all of the decent, respectable people who are the population mainstream - know the truth and thank them for their duty done, their sacrifice and yes, emphatically YES!, we are very sorry for their lost youth and for a lifetime of nightmares to be lived as well.

To conclude, Australian forces were fighting communist takeover of the south by communists from the north, the fragile nationalist movement having been routed by the communists in the first Vietnam War. Whether the eventual outcome of the second Vietnam War was good for the South Vietnamese, others can judge.

Whether Australia should have been there or not is irrelevant to the OP. It was not canvassed. It is even more irrelevant though because as a conscript o sung wu could not even vote of the subject. That is what much of the mainstream protest was about of course, conscription, and for a war where the issues were poorly understood then and now.

'afternoon to you Poirot...

I'm very sorry to have disappointed you 'personally' POIROT. Sorry for employing language of a kind that neither suits yours, or others, who's Socialist agenda or prescription for the future of this great country, has been sullied in any way.

But my greatest regret is reserved for you personally POIROT. It's evident that my obvious character deficiencies are so absolutely abhorrent to you, that you feel the need to aggressively draw my attention to those flaws.

Over time I've enjoyed our light jousting and banter on so many topics, as I've always believed you're a lady of considerable intellect, both you and FOXY together ! To offend either of you so badly, gives me sufficient pause as to whether it's worth continuing with both OLO and the Forum per se.

Dear O Sung Wu,

You did not offend me.
You misunderstood me - mistakenly thinking
my earlier comments on another thread were
directed at you. As I explained, they were not
and I apologised for having caused you any
stress.

As for your questioning your further contributions
to this forum. We all have done that at various
times, especially when the personal attacks
get particularly nasty from various sources.
We're only human after all - and words do hurt.

Freedom of speech is probably one of the most misunderstood
of our rights. We don't have the absolute right to say
whatever we want, whenever we want to whomever we want
on any topic. Not if it harms another person.

Anyway, I hope that you will continue to contribute to
this forum and that we shall continue to inter-act
with each other.