You see them flying over the doors at hotels, in front of post office is and other government offices, as stickers on cars. The POW/MIA flag is everywhere. But what it represent is complete fiction: the idea that there are still prisoners of war languishing in Vietnam nearly 50 years after the end of hostilities. There’s no evidence whatsoever that that’s the case. But even a progressive like Elizabeth Warren supports this ridiculous myth.
Even Elizabeth Warren Supports the Bizarre Myth That Vietnam Still Has Our POWs
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Perhaps those US «progressives» who consider Ms Warren a credible alternative to Mr Sanders might want to reconsider….
Henri
Militarism is one of the three avidly worshipped pillars of American “soft” totalitarianism, along with religion and corporatism.
The last congressional Democrat (Kucinich) to make any attempt to confront the militarism was summarily drummed out of congress, the Dem party & public life by the Dems/DNC with a crucial assist by that high fraud of a Nobel Peace Price winner, B.H. Obumma.
Warren makes a weaker case against corporatism than does Sanders but neither offer a mildly-substantial, ideological case against the American perpetual genocide machine. The
mind-deadening & democracy-killing effect of religion will not be remotely acknowledged, if noticed at all, by US electoral candidates, from the infamous dog catcher all the way to “the top.”
I may be wrong, falco – after all, I only know what I read on the internet – but I suspect a Sanders/Gabbard ticket would, in fact, set the cat among the Pentagon pigeons and the rest of the MIC. But of course, you don’t have the chance of a snowball in Hell of getting one….
Henri
Hi Henri,
If the DNC can’t, in its felonious ways, prevent the ticket you propose (… and that I might even support***), then other actors & methods would be employed, NOT excluding (double) assassination if it were deemed necessary.
At this point, there is needed not a single cat set upon the Pentagon pigeons but rather an equivalent of all felines, over 5 kilos, extant on the globe, in, say, 1492.
————–
*** I WAS more than mildly perplexed to find that Reb Gabbard has temporarily suspended her campaign to perform her annual National Guard active duty … in Indonesia?!?
« I WAS more than mildly perplexed to find that Reb Gabbard has temporarily suspended her campaign to perform her annual National Guard active duty … in Indonesia?!?» I have no doubt that those charming chaps from Kopassus will be more than willing to teach here about so-called «counter-terrorism»….
Henri
In “Spock’s Brain,” considered one of the worst episodes of the franchise, the aforementioned brain is stolen by a space alien. Uhura is the one to ask the best question. “Why did they steal it?” What purpose does stealing his brain serve?
In the same vein, honeydipper jammed into my head, I adjust my miniskirt and beehive hairdo and all, “What purpose is served by holding these POWs for all this time?”
You’re exactly what I want in a friend!
Muriel Hykes
In all my years, I have never heard anyone question this canard! It never occurred to me to question it. In retrospect, of course this whole MIA thing was false. Thank you for opening my eyes.
One useful approach is to consider playing this thing out.
Let’s say Vietnam still had US POWs ten years after signing the peace accords. Acknowledging them would require admitting they had violated international law. They would almost certainly have killed them at that point. There is no sensical scenario that has them still alive after all this time.
While we are asking questions …
Set up: we claim to have killed 3 million Viet Namese when their population (N+S?) was 40-45 miliion.
Question: If country came half-way around the world, engaged us in a war for ~10 years and killed ~25 million Americans … what would we do with their POW/MIAs at the end of festivities?
@falco
We don’t need a hypothetical to answer this question.
We have actual history to refer to.
The US would put their POW/MIAs in Guantanamo without a trial, call them too dangerous to release, and let them whither away in solitary confinement for the rest of their miserable lives.
Elizabeth Warren still professes the belief that the US was the wronged party in its prosecution “self-defense” by a “police action” against the Vietnamese people’s evil intent to topple the US empire.
And this is what passes for a progressive Democrat.
It seems that Warren was also unable to come up with a convincing argument to discourage her son from enlisting to fight in George W. Bush’s illegal fraudulent undeclared war of aggression in Iraq.
Of what use is a woman president (or was a Black president) that will support imperial wars as avidly an any White Power Patriarch?
To Glenn,
Apparently in this episode Warren is trying to convince the ruling profiteers in mass death and destruction that she, despite her gender, is as mindlessly and viciously depraved as 1) any current or former male warmonger, and, more pertinent, as 2) recent, ground-breaking, female presidential candidate, certified-psychpath HRC, herself, credibly rated in the 1st-percentile of historic US pernicious, purveyors of perpetual war.
Are we to expect more, and more strident, titillation of the manly militarist gun-barrel, as it were?
It may not be a myth. It’s a fact that many French prisoners were not repatriated after the IndoChinese War in Vietnam. This is well documented. I suspect the same holds true for American POWs who were not repatriated after the Vietnam War. Prove me wrong with FACTS.
Disprove your suspicions? Pass
Prove that many French prisoners were not repatriated after the IndoChinese War in Vietnam.
Not that it matters.
Thieves, even imperial thieves, get caught and sent to prison for their crimes.
When will the organizers of imperial wars of aggression go to prison?
Perhaps those who fraudulently manipulate soldiers into fighting their wars of aggression should offer themselves in exchange for the freedom of these alleged prisoners.
Boy, you sure are mad. Why so much hate and negativity?
Yes, I am mad. Cruelty and greed and corruption evoke anger and negativity.
«Yes, I am mad. Cruelty and greed and corruption evoke anger and negativity.» And should, at least according to Aristoteles. And who are we to question him (when, in any event, it doesn’t come to the «proper motion» of things) ?…
Henri
«I suspect the same holds true for American POWs who were not repatriated after the Vietnam War. Prove me wrong with FACTS.» Rather, «b_robb@sbcglobal.net», the burden of proof lies on you – i e, to show evidence for your suspicion. If you cannot do so, there is no reason for you or anyone else to entertain it….
Henri
It is a rule of logic and rhetoric that those who make an allegation that differs from a widely-accepted narrative face the burden of proof.
It’s likely that a credulous person’s opinion of the “well documented” suffers the influence of his credulity.
Bo Gritz (see Wikipedia), whom I have met personally and believe to be honest, if somewhat imaginative, went to Indochina commando-style in the 1980s to look for the alleged POWs. Later, he said that he repeatedly heard stories about apparently American prisoners (or at least residents) but did not actually encounter any. So there is evidence, but it is ambiguous. Later, after the semi-normalization of relations, thousands of Americans went to Indochina and did not meet or observe any such people. The flag business is indeed curious; what was certainly lost in Vietnam, besides POWs, MIAs, and KIAs, was America’s ‘Mandate of Heaven’, and I guess the flag is a sort of helpless prayer that it might be returned. Fat chance. Since the flag is black and white and has an oval in the center, some people attribute it to the Islamic State.
Alex Haley did something similar. He went to Africa looking for oral history of Kunta Kinte. He spoke to so many people about Kunta that eventually the story came back to him from someone who heard it from a source several times removed who heard it from Haley. (Haley’s confirmation source for the orange history of Kunta Kinte is not considered legit.) Much of Haley’s book is, factually, unreliable. It’s a good read, and it helps to make the suffering of slavery really human. But no one ran it through a factchecker. I’m sure Gritz heard stories too. And I’m sure he believes them, just like Haley.
As I recall, Gritz has been involved for a long time in the prepper sovereign citizen Christian militant movement. Am I saying Gritz is a conman out to swindle people? No. But there was a lot of easy pickings back at the beginning–people who bought the whole info package about declaring yourself a natural created sovereign citizen and not needing a driver’s license–and the people doing the selling had a tendency to demand gold in payment, not money. Can anyone confirm Gritz actually went to Vietnam, and not, say the Phillipines or wherever the hell they shoot Rambo and all the other folks that take place in Vietnam?
Glad Ted brought up “Burden of Proof” – but here’s some FACTS as requested.
An 18 y/o who served in 1972 would be 65 today. He would have survived 47 years of … what? Prison, torture, and forced labor?
But that’s only if he started at the latest possible date, if he served in 1965, he’d be 72 after 54 years of forced labor.
Then again, if he was blinded and he was also Rutger Hauer, he might be living in the US today, chopping up bad guys with his sword cane. (It’s Movie Trivia Night! 10 points to whoever can Name That Film w/o Google)
Buy POW/MIA flags, made in China.
Rendered with as much sincerity as a red blooded capitalist patriot can muster.
https://www.made-in-china.com/productdirectory.do?word=pow+mia+Flag&subaction=hunt&style=b&mode=and&code=0&comProvince=nolimit&order=0&isOpenCorrection=1
re: “No evidence” – bottom of third panel.
There is no documented evidence that protesters ever spit on vets. (uhhh, yeah, some skinny little hippy spitting on a big, bad, marine? I don’t think so.)
But calling ’em “baby killers” … yeah, I’m pretty sure I remember that happening.
Some did gleefully kill children. Others went along with “seemed like a good idea at the time” due to the crazy stresses they’d endured. Some big, dumb, farm boys (my brother among them) really, truly, did believe that they were fighting for our freedom. Born during McCarthyism, raised in the cold war, practicing “duck and cover” and touring bomb shelters, yeah, they had reason to fear the USSR. (the USSR had ample reason to fear the US as well – but that didn’t filter down to the masses so much.)
There really never was a reason to fear “Communism” or the “Domino Theory” but they didn’t realize that. They’d been propaganda-ized to the point where they did believe it.
And then they were sent off to die for no good reason.
My Point? Supporting the troops is not the same thing as supporting the war. The majority of the vets didn’t deserve the scorn heaped upon them. The civilians who called them ‘baby-killers’ were blaming the wrong people.
I’ve still got my brother’s jacket from ‘nam. It’s embroidered, “When I die I’ll go to heaven, because I’ve spent my time in hell.” He died a broken man, perhaps there is a heaven, and perhaps he wound up there, but he most certainly did do his tour of hell.
This former sailor and a shipmate were spit upon by some drunken wackos leaning out of a second floor apartment window on Tennessee Street in Vallejo Ca while walking back to the Mare Island Shipyard after attending a movie in August of 1968. They were also yelling insults at us, but we did not stay around long enough to ask them to clarify their statements. We did get the general gist that they hated sailors.
OK, so not at an airport, but it was spitting directed specifically at us because we were in the military.
I apologize to CrazyH for stepping on his post – I’m new here and put this in the wrong place.
A thought occurs.
What if the “POWs” are real but not POWs?
Some black guy, sent to Vietnam, realizes exactly what it’s going to be like when he returns: Whitey giving him shit, back to second-class citizenship. Some white guy from Minnesota, whose single sexual experience was from paging through the Sears catalog, sees his tour coming to an end and realizes that means back to about and ice and Jesus the times a day and no more heroin, and just can’t face it.
Maybe Vietnam was better, so “go native.”