Regular readers might have noticed that last week I linked to a debate between John Kerry and John O'Neill.

Let's see....

It was right here in Philadephia, in 1971.

Subject was Vietnam. The two served in the same unit, and neither one has forgotten the issues. Then or (as Glenn Reynolds highlighted) now.

Let's start with then.

Here's John O'Neill, 1971:

I suggest this is a very fine country. If we precipitously withdraw from Vietnam, if we pull out of there leaving our prisoners of war behind, we will leave the heart and soul of this country there also.

All we do by precipitous withdrawal is to get a date to negotiate for the last 10 years, during which this country has been racked by hatred and distrust.

It seems to me we have had enough rhetoric on this issue. We have withdrawn one-half of the troops from Southeast Asia, and the President's promise is complete withdrawal on release of the prisoners of war.

Vietnamization has done more than all the rhetoric and demonstrations for the past 10 years.

I am proud personally of having been in Vietnam. So are most Vietnam veterans I've met in every town in this country. We didn't start this war but, under difficult circumstances, we brought it close to conclusion.

I suggest if you polled 2.5 million people all over the United States, instead of reading about 75 or 1,000 you find they are in favor of the President's Vietnam program.

Most of the Vietnam veterans have never been to Washington. They have jobs to work at, schools to attend, or maybe they are still in the armed services. I think they demonstrate each and every day throughout this country, demonstrate their love of this country, by participating in ordinary day-to-day affairs. I think this demonstration is the greatest unwritten story of our time.

And here's Kerry at the same event:

the killing could end tomorrow if we were only willing to set a date, if we were only willing to state that we will not fire unless fired on, and to bring our troops home.

The Hanoi regime has said it will return its prisoners providing we set that date. Ambassador David Bruce has made it clear that the prisoner of war question must be settled. But, you see, the problem goes well beyond that now because there is kind of an obscenity in the United States talking about winding down a war and using American lives to do it when that winding down simply means that we are going to permit the Vietnamese to kill Vietnamese for years to come, and that it is going to require support on the part of the United States in bombers, in helicopters and in troops that we simply cannot afford.

Now, if we set a date, then we can still bolster the regime in South Vietnam if that is what the people want. But the important thing is that more American men will not have to go over there and become drug addicts to survive. More American men will not have to lose their limbs and have their lives unalterably changed for what is now so clearly a mistake, for something that is now so clearly illegal, that is based on so much deception.

Who was right? Historians can argue the point, but I have a problem with abandoning allies. Equating the South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese governments by calling both "regimes," asking whether bolstering the regime is "what the people want" and talking in terms of whether we should "permit" an ally to defend itself -- these phrases suggest that Kerry had little regard for South Vietnam, or those who had died trying to preserve what freedom they still had. I can't say he supported North Vietnam because I have no way of knowing. I doubt he'd admit it if he did.

I don't mean to be stuck in 1971. Forgive me. I was a Marxist at the time, and I really didn't think things through, because I just didn't understand then how much Communism sucks. (After all, North Vietnam had never attacked us, they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, and well, they only killed and tortured class enemies.....)

I'm just a little concerned that history may be repeating itself. Hope I'm not being paranoid.

But fast forward to 2004. Here's O'Neill, in the Wall Street Journal:

Vietnam was a long time ago. Why does it matter today? Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander's loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his "Band of Brothers," as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry's breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.

John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate? (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

It's tempting to ask whether anything has been learned in all those years.

This time, whether he will admit it or not, Kerry would place himself in the historical role of Richard Nixon, who sincerely wanted peace with honor, and felt the best way to do that was to hand over the war to the South Vietnamese, who (Nixon believed) could defend themselves with our support.

It's tough to pin him down, but I think it's fair to say that Kerry wants to hand Iraq over to the U.N.:

....[A]n international High Commissioner should be authorized by the UN Security Council to organize the political transition to Iraqi sovereignty and the reconstruction of Iraq in conjunction with the new Iraqi government. Kerry said the Commissioner should be an individual who is highly regarded by the international community and who has the credibility and capacity to talk to all the Iraqi people.

It sounds like a far cry even from Nixon's peace with honor.

And it's obvious how Kerry felt about that, so I doubt his bragging about Vietnam will lead us to closure.

Now or then.

UPDATE: Quite predictably, John O'Neill is being attacked as a "Republican shill." (Via Glenn Reynolds.) Unfortunately, that word is listed only as an adjective in my Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Second Edition, 1957), and not at all in C.T. Onions' "Dictionary of English Etymology, so I have to rely on the Internet. The following is, I guess, as good as any:

Noun 1. shill - a decoy who acts as an enthusiastic customer in order to stimulate the participation of others -- decoy, steerer - a beguiler who leads someone into danger (usually as part of a plot)

Verb 1. shill - act as a shill; "The shill bid for the expensive carpet during the auction in order to drive the price up" -- cozen, deceive, delude, lead on - be false to; be dishonest with

Was O'Neill a "shill" in 1971 too? I am sure some people would say so (as some have), because he was supporting the president's Vietnamization program, and opposing Kerry's demand for an immediate ceasefire and pullout.

But if the definition has any meaning, you can only be a shill if you support something by means of deception. Otherwise, anyone you disagree with becomes a "shill," which makes no sense....

Unless, of course, it's meant as an ad hominem attack.

Pretending to support that which you secretly oppose (or pretending to oppose what you secretly support) is being a shill. Thus, if someone like Fred Phelps were found to be secretly against the moral conservatism he claims to endorse, he would be a shill. From what I can see of O'Neill, he has favored "the concept of military loyalty" consistently, whether as a Democrat in 1971 or as a Republican today (assuming he is that). If he supports Bush's war strategy, that does not make him a shill for Bush, any more than it makes an antiwar activist working for Kerry a shill for Kerry.

Try as I might, I cannot see how stating what you think makes one a shill.

As to party affiliation, I am uncomfortable with both parties, and I have switched my registration back and forth more times than I'd care to count. With the exception of 1976 (when I voted Libertarian), I voted Democratic in every election from 1972 through 1992, and since then it's been a mixed bag. I registered Republican in this area because the primaries are "closed" and I fear the growth of radical fundamentalism in the Republican Party. That would appear to make me a shill for the liberal agenda in the Republican Party, although doubtless if I switched back to the Democratic Party and kvetched about my problems with Kerry, I'd be called a "DINO" or a "shill" for the Republicans. Yet I am really not concealing anything; I try to think what I think.

What concerns me here is whether O'Neill believes what he says, and I see no reason to doubt that he does.