Vying for the Naughty List

I've had occasion to mention "Talking in Circles" on my bloghopping reports.

It's a blog by a left-of-center atheist, like Kele's Journey except he doesn't take such extended vacations.

Unfortunately, it has started to look like the blog belongs on the Naughty List after all. I had first accorded respect to the blog since the host apparently welcomed dissenting opinions in the comments. My recent experiences there suggest that might no longer be the case.

Just failing to post my inimitable commentary doesn't qualify a blog as bad, of course. Bad blogs spread bad information by censoring the truth from their commentary section while continuing to broadcast patently false or misleading data.

Like this, for example:

Bush misunderstands Vietnam

01Dec06

What are the lessons we can learn from Vietnam, and how does it relate to the current war in Iraq? According to the President, what he took away from his visit to Vietnam was:

“We’ll succeed unless we quit.”

Yup. He said that.

My response:

This post seems designed to promulgate the notion that President Bush's notion that Vietnam was winnable is an inarguable falsehood. That's a common idea among Americans in general--not just those on the left. It's just not true, however.

I composed a rather lengthy reply pointing out that the Tet offensive had the odd dual effect of leaving the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies broken (they suffered staggering casualties) as well as the will of the U.S. to continue the fight--perhaps a suitable analog to Iraq today (winnable fight, no will to win it).
I also commented on one of the comments to the original blog post, since one of the regulars at the site had offered the opinion that getting out of S. Vietnam was a great idea. The truth is that millions lost their freedom resulting in death, torture, and a pathetic economy that has only begun to recover when the nation began to inplement capitalistic reforms. Yippee?
Defeat North Vietnam and how much faster do we get those capitalistic reforms, kids?

Alas, my comments haven't been published, though I know they were registered because I tried to publish again just to make sure it had registered. Sure enough, I got a message assuring me that I had already posted the information.

Is it a good thing to forget how many died and suffered because of the U.S. pullout (and failure to sustain promised support for S. Vietnam)?

Convince me.