Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion

We lost in Iraq, didn’t you hear?  Everybody knows it – but no one will just come out and say it.  After nine years of fighting, billions and billions of dollars spent, and too many Americans dead –  US combat troops will pull out of the country next month.  Non-combat personnel will stay another year in a war we couldn’t have won, because there was nothing for the US to win.

When will America ditch this “US-Freedom Police of the World ” crap?   Didn’t we learn anything in Vietnam?  The head of Iraq’s military said it would take ANOTHER 10-years of US military support before the country could defend itself against insurgents.  Good luck, buddy.

We have the best-trained military troops in the world (with the possible exception of Israel).  We also have the best high tech hardware available and smart people who know how to employ it.

And it can’t compete against some religious, illiterate lunatic – wearing explosives –  who thinks he’s going to shake hands with Allah and ball
72 virgins as soon as he blows up a few “infidels”.  We never could compete.

“Mission Accomplished” Bush, Jr!  And Obama – you have even more blood on your hands.  Better start rehearsing spin and flag-waving speeches.  The practice will do you good when we lose in Afghanistan.

At 9:00 am on October 4, 1969, Diane Linkletter jumped from her sixth floor kitchen window and died about an hour and a half later from “traumatic injuries” according to the L.A. Medical Examiner. No evidence of drugs was found in the toxicology report.

Yet within days, Art Linkletter blamed his daughter’s death on LSD and, since there were  no drugs found in her body, he specifically referred to an “LSD Flashback” as the cause of Diane’s death.  Because of his fame as an on-air entertainer, Linkletter’s message of “see what happens when you do LSD, kids?” shot through the country like rays of sunshine (which do not cause blindness if stared at intently).  And the reality of “flashbacks” is controversial to this day.

Now why would a family blame a daughter’s suicide on taking drugs?  Because it’s an easier explanation than admitting she was a desperately unhappy woman whom no one in her family could reach.  Plus, her older sister’s husband, 33, had shot himself in the head just three months before!  For many people, even today, suicides are family disgraces.

Although Ms. Linkletter’s death is tragic and Art Linkletter’s crusade was noble from his perspective, controlling peoples’ behavior through rumors, lies and exaggeration is rarely effective.  I remember hearing of Dianne’s LSD suicide in my college dorm – and watching everyone make jokes about it.  For years “they” told us smoking pot would make us impotent and insane – and we knew that was bullshit.  There was no reason to believe the official line here …. or in Vietnam.