The who's-a-war-hero-and-who-isn't argument playing out before America's voting public was bound to happen in this election cycle with the War on Terror the centerpiece of the White House agenda. The right-wing establishment claimed that Kerry brought upon himself questions involving his service when he raised this as his noble feat at the Democratic convention. But that is disingenuous. The discussion of military service had started long before that. In this election cycle, it was initially raised by Howard Dean and Republicans when Dean was the frontrunner in the Democratic primaries. The yammering on both sides about who did what during Vietnam has been within the scope of discussion for quite sometime. No one should need reminding of John McCain's crucifixion on his military record by the Bush campaign in the 2000 primaries. Before that, of course, was Republican outting of Clinton's rather dishonourable behaviour during Vietnam. No, the issue of service in Vietnam has been on the political radar screen for sometime, sitting, waiting for a Rovian heat-seeking missile of innuedo should a chink in the military record be found or manufactured.

And none of this is terribly germaine to the election and, given that, what is truly astounding on the part of the Bush campaign is, knowing Bush's record of spotty service, they chose to raise as an issue Kerry's Vietnam service at all. Are they really that confident in America's love of Bush? Are they that confident in their ability to suppress coverage and classify documents (and they certainly have done a lot of that). Bush was a known and admitted shirker (he admitted that he did not want to go to Vietnam although this isn't much of an admission, really--who did want to go?). After the first salvo of attacks on Bush's National Guard service some months ago, it might have been expected that the Republican campaign machine would be diffident about entering that ring again. But Karl Rove knows no bounds and the confidence he appears to display in his long-successful campaign strategy--blitzkreigs of falsehoods and defammations against even other Republicans--seems unshakable. And for good reason. Clinton himself has admitted the successes: they do it because it works. It matters not to Rove nor any of the complicit Republican body that years of this technique has mired American politics in such feculence, the voting public is practically reduced, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, to making political decisions based on which camp of negativity they believe the least.

That questions of service have become an issue was an unknown situation for politicians until this particular time in America. The Vietnam War was a rancorous, conflicted time and created a terribly pernicious polarisation in American society. Many men of the day avoided fighting the war and the elites of society most certainly had their ways of doing so. Bush and Cheney are excellent examples of this. These men are now the ranking politicians of today. Some served, many did not. This period in American history is unprecendented in this regard. Previously, military service was an expected part of one's participation in society's upper echelon; expected especially by the elites themselves. Vietnam ushered in a new era and indicated that this expectation was no longer a valid one. In a very short time, the stature of military service dropped significantly from the realm of pagent, pomp and nobility to that of a muggy, menacing jungle hell. No one wanted to be there. At least, no one sane.

The men who went to Vietnam, either voluntarily because some shriveling part of America still saw honour in service, or through conscription, suffered for that war. And not just in the war itself. The general treatment they received upon returning stateside was something unknown to soldiers of previous generations. A hostile civilian population and a newly corporatised bureaucracy humiliated and debased their service, denied them veteran's benefits when possible and roughened their reentry into society. Years later, Americans began to recognise that it was not the soldiers who had ensnarled America in that war and that the treatment many vets received is now universally held in disrepute. Vietnam vets now seem to have, if not an exalted status, a certainly esteemed one. And we are witnessing now this esteem, so long denied, coming into play in this election cycle. That military service is such a contentious issue in this election is not an admirable feature of the regnant realpolitik. It is even less so that those who chose not to serve have deemed it an appropriate political strategy to malign the military service of their opponents.

GOP strategists first began the assault on Kerry's service record with the Swiftboad Veterans for Truth campaign. When those false claims and the group's clear ties to the Bush's campaign were exposed, the attack then refocused onto Kerry's post-Vietnam anti-war protest activity; asserting that Kerry was dishonouring veterans with claims of war crimes in the Vietnamese jungles. Of course, what Kerry had reported at the time is now known to be true. War crimes were being committed (the Mei Lei massacre being but one example) and Kerry spoke out against this as anyone with a moral conscience would be compelled to do. For years, Kerry's stance in the Senate hearings of 1973 would be viewed as a vanguard of his political and moral conviction. But not now. In fact, Republicans have gone so far to claim Kerry's short tour and subsequent protest activity, including his Senate hearing appearances, were all part of a grand political ploy, something he would play upon when he eventually ran for president. Such a claim bears the threshold of imagining a more cynical perspective. Let's not trouble with the notion that military service in Vietnam could be part of some presidential track when being killed there was somewhat less than unlikely. And while it may be viewed as "fashionable" now, testifying before Congress about military misfeasance in Vietnam was hardly a ticket to the White House and no one with such political aspirations would have adventured in such activity. With this bizarre claim, Republicans merely display their own cynicism and an obvious lack of historical memory. Rove and his forces are clearly showing that they cannot possibly imagine volunteering for Vietnam and then protesting that war without political aspirations festooning such actions. Because they have none, honourable military service can only be seen to serve one purpose to Bush campaign operatives and that is to further a political agenda. It makes no matter now that both serving in Vietnam and then speaking out against it were physically unsafe and politcally unwise. After all, Bush did neither and look where he is today.

Despite these senseless claims, the real calamity of all this dreadful bickering is that it works. It performs the two vital functions it is designed for: bury and discredit the opponent and distract the media and the public from the issues which should be the focus of the political campaign. Awash in a sea of military service caterwauling are the real, meaningful issues which desperately need serious attention and they are not getting it. We as a society should be deeply chagrined that this is so. Americans must demand better of their politics; that the politics and politicians rise to address our best aspirations instead of sinking to play upon our basest aversions.