Your tax dollars at work

(CNSNews.com) - The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has so far awarded $1.44 million in federal funds to a project that, among other things, is estimating the size of the population and examining the “social milieu” of male prostitutes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

“In Study 1, formative ethnography will be used to describe the settings, venues, and overall social milieu in which male sex work is being situated,” says the NIH abstract for the grant. “In Study 2, we will conduct a Capture-Recapture Survey to estimate the size of the male sex worker population in each city.”

The grant project began in July 2008 and is scheduled to run through March 2012. In fiscal year 2008, the NIH awarded the project $534,201 in federal funds. In fiscal year 2009, the NIH awarded the project $465,974; and in fiscal year 2010, the NIH awarded the project $442,340. So far, a total of $1,442,515 in federal funds have been awarded to the project.

The NIH abstract for the grant says the study of HIV infections in Vietnam has only recently begun to pay attention to “men who have sex with men.”

“This study seeks to address an important public health question: what is the impact of male sex work on the growing HIV epidemics in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam?” says the NIH abstract. “HIV rates in Vietnam are rapidly increasing, and yet there are limited data on the role that different populations play in this increase. Existing data are based on the assumption that HIV is found primarily in injection drug users and female sex workers, with only recent attention being paid to men who have sex with men.”

Oliver North corrects the record on America's longest war

The U.S. Army’s campaigns against Geronimo, Cochise and other Apache leaders in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas went on continuously for nearly 40 years. Though Afghanistan has surpassed Vietnam in duration, it isn’t even our longest foreign military engagement. That distinction belongs to U.S. military operations during the Philippine Insurrection that began concurrently with the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and lasted until 1913. Notably, the total U.S. casualties suffered in the Philippines – more than 7,100 – approximate U.S. casualties to date in Afghanistan.

All of this begs the question: why all the false comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan? The short answer – mainstream-media ignorance – is too easy. The stark differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam – how they started, the nature of our enemies, and how they were, and are, being fought ought to be obvious to anyone.

In Vietnam we went to war to support a beleaguered ally that was being over-run by a foreign-directed insurgency and an invading army that was directly supported by two super-powers, the Soviet Union and Communist China. The military force we sent to fight in Southeast Asia was largely conscripted and eventually disheartened by dissention at home. During the war more than 58,200 U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Guardsmen and Marines were killed and another 153,000 were wounded. Nearly 2,500 remain missing in action.

We went to war in Afghanistan because radical Islamic terrorists who launched from there killed 3,000 innocents on U.S. soil on 9-11-01. The enemy we face there today is an opium-financed insurgency that obtains support from elements in Pakistan and Iran – but nothing on the scale of what our enemies received in Vietnam. The all-volunteer U.S. military deployed in the shadows of the Hindu Kush is the best educated, most technologically advanced and now, the most combat-experienced fighting force the world has ever seen. To date over 1,080 Americans have been killed in action, more than 6,200 have been wounded and we have one MIA.

... there are few parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. The only real similarity is in the possible outcome. We had better pray they are not the same – for the disaster wrought in Vietnam nearly wrecked our military.

Connecticut A. G. gives false testimony about serving in Vietnam

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

Alexander Haig was a warrior

It's easy to poke fun at soldiers-turned-politicians, but it's more useful to look at what they did as soldiers.

Here, from the Ace of Spades, is a reminder of Alexander Haig in his first life:

"When two of his companies were engaged by a large hostile force, Colonel Haig landed amid a hail of fire, personally took charge of the units, called for artillery and air fire support and succeeded in soundly defeating the insurgent force...the next day a barrage of 400 rounds was fired by the Viet Cong, but it was ineffective because of the warning and preparations by Colonel Haig. As the barrage subsided, a force three times larger than his began a series of human wave assaults on the camp. Heedless of the danger himself, Colonel Haig repeatedly braved intense hostile fire to survey the battlefield. His personal courage and determination, and his skillful employment of every defense and support tactic possible, inspired his men to fight with previously unimagined power. Although his force was outnumbered three to one, Colonel Haig succeeded in inflicting 592 casualties on the Viet Cong... (HQ US Army, Vietnam, General Orders No. 2318 (May 22, 1967)"