Even worse a betrayal...

Hugh Hewitt posts a good letter:

Congressman Murtha,
PO Box 780
Johnstown, PA 15907-0780

As a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam Era and the father of two sons, one a 6 year Army Veteran and the other a 13 year active duty soldier preparing for his 3rd tour in Iraq, I want you to know that I, and they, feel you have abandoned them today. We have great respect for your honorable service but your past service makes it even worse a betrayal of those who fight today!

My oldest son said it best after 9/11 when I told him “well the American people are behind you now”. His response was “yeah Dad….for how long?” It didn’t take the Democratic Party very long to abandon them. It took you a little longer but the betrayal is complete. We are winning this war everywhere except at home. You have forgotten what it felt like to be a soldier spit on by your fellow citizens. You join the ranks of those who want to drive military recruiters out of the schools. You sir, should be ashamed.

I suspect what's driving liberal Democrats, especially of my generation, crazy, is not that they fear Iraq will become a Vietnam, but that they are terrified that it won't. Their peace of mind is based on denying the reality of their ghastly betrayal of South Vietnam, which probably killed more Asians than the war did, and left a brutal tyranny that endures to this day.

And denying their betrayal of America of course. It's a commonplace of psychology that people resent, even come to hate, someone they have injured. I think that a lot of the obsessive anti-Americanism of leftists stems from the knowledge that they have harmed their country terribly.

If our forces persist through great difficulties and help Iraq achieve freedom and prosperity, it will contrast glaringly with South Vietnam, which might today be happily similar to Taiwan or South Korea, but instead is a Communist hell-hole. And will shine a cruel spotlight on the fraudulence and evil of the "anti-war" movement and the fake-pacifists.

Posted by John Weidner at November 19, 2005 4:06 PM