These people saying Vietnam could have been "won" are beyond the pale!

In their desperate attempt to spread the "cut and run" BS, some history challenged idiots keep implying "victory" could have been possible in Vietnam. Really? How? Over three million deaths were not enough?
I suppose we could have just nuked everything and killed everybody.
Is that the kind of "victory" these homicidal maniacs are talking about??
:shrug:


<snip>
While most studies of the war in Southeast Asia acknowledge that 4 times the tonnage of bombs was dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos than that used by the US in all theaters of operation during World War II, only a few, such as James William Gibson's The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam, analyze the full extent of such bombing. Not only were thousands of villages in Vietnam totally destroyed, but massive civilian deaths, numbering close to 3 million, resulted in large part from such indiscriminate bombing. <snip>
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=6217

---------------
Most estimates put American casualties at about 58,000

The warmongers wouldn't have been content until we'd created another "Lost Generation" a la Europe post-World War I.

A texan on viet nam: "Inside of every one of 'em gooks is a democrat waitin' ta get out."
Its just cuz they's afraid of all them red communist russians and chinese, is all....

I mean, the mentality behind those who would justify it, is childish, racist and
suprisingly alive given how criminal its roots are.

perhaps worse than ever

Except the war years. :wtf:

The fake texas that they make on the movie sets for connecticut yankees.

:-)

and GW Bush. Actually I've visited Texas on four different occasions and have good friends there.

Truth be told. I see a lot of commonality in the thinking that he used to
"stay" in viet nam and not "run"... and the same irrationality now emerging
from the brush-free, crawford, pig ranch.

And on driving across texas several times, attending university there and
having friends and lovers live there, it has become a paradox, mostly for
the extremes i've enouc.

I love big-bend-texas, panhandle texas where the land is desert, empty and
massive.. "west texas"... stunning. The flat east is a different taste.
There, the legacy since the civil war looks the same as the rest of the south,
with leftover segregated black areas, obviously in much more poverty, and
massive churches like i ain't seen nowhere else 'cept them big TV cathederals
in california... or the big stadium ones towards atlanta... well, texas gottem
right big... and i found it spooky, to sit in a southern baptist church with
5000 people in a worship service. So i found jesus christ in texas, in some
people a lucid aura of living in christ; and in others, the very darkness that
christ would warn us about.

Amidst the greatest beauty, some very dark snakes as well, cottonmouths
and their human cousins. Texas nationalism struck me as quaint, yet the darker
side of it, i had mates in university who took rifles to the rio grande and
shot towards people trying to cross from mexico, to scare them off.

ZZ TOP texas rocks. Nonviolent liberal austin texas rocks. Huntsville's
death record does not rock. Delay's corruption does not rock. What then is
texas but a 2-state machine, one state vibrant intelligent and alive, and
another thuggish repressive and all too "southern-man" ish. The racism of
prarie view and texas a&m's segregated campuses is the most shocking thing to
see in our "modern" times, really "red ass" that. ;-)

How many centuries before one would travel that area and NOT know that
one race was once terribly supressed by another. So I speak in coded
metaphors to discuss these themes of stereotypes, good texans, bad ones,
connecticut ones. But if a man ain't from texas, its little use blamin' texas.
But he lives there and draws succor from something, and that's
a more deliberate genetic colonization.

And whatever that is, i hear LBJ talking again about not leaving viet nam,
like he has come out of the grave and occupied bush's body!!

By the way, don't fuck with Connecticut, we're not all rich.

by a fucking ignorant conservative moron (sorry for the redundancy) whined about the end of the Vietnam war. It was almost a nostalgic look back. And yes, the fact that "only" 58K americans were slaughtered was shared in the wack job letter. He urged us to stay in Iraq. Yes we need to stay the course, kill, kill, kill - its the christian thing to do. And please Christians if you don't like my posts, then fucking do something about it, like stopping your fellow travelers from getting more of our kids killed by enabling bush to keep stoking the fires of war. Obviously "christians" don't give one flying dog fuck about our dead kids, because "christians" continue to support the monster in the white house

These people make me sick. They are like the former Army guy I work with who was was gloating about how Tookie Williams was "fried."
God help us all.

:hi: Happy Holidays BOSSHOG! It is cold here. We had an ice storm on Monday. Brrr. The ice has melted but it's going to rain again tomorrow night and be about 34 degrees. I hate this weather.

I'm looking forward to the Winter Solstice. The local Unitarian Church is having a Winter Solstice singing which I'm going to attend. I went to the Santa Lucia day event at the church last week and ate lots of incredible Swedish food!

people on their own soil since WWII. Sadly, it seems we have been willing to kill the number of millions of people necessary to stop the spread of ungodly communism: to boot the US has toppled countless numbers of regimes since WWII whose politics were not far enough to the right to suit us and in the process have killed countless number of people in this holy quest to rid the world of the spread of the evil, ungodly communism. :cry:

it a lot lately too.

Nutbag Pat Buchanan was on Tweety's show, practically apoplectic, ranting about how the Vietnam War was lost because Democrats "cut and run", that it would have been "won" (yeah, 15 yrs, 58k Americans and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians - were just the beginning of victory) if the Repubs had been allowed to continue it. I don't know how anyone can listen to that Premium, Grade A, BULLSHIT with a straight face.

I have heard this before, from others here and there, I have never heard anyone but the absolute freaks (see Buchanan above) stake any credibility on it.

Remember when they were blaming Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat) a few months ago for causing the loss of the Vietnam War because he brought down Nixon?

These people are seriously deranged.

I've heard it with my own ears.

Run! Run for your lives!

How do you hide your incredulity when they spout such fairy tales???

They really DID love us!

They were there to throw flowers at their liberators.

it is only a matter of time before the same happens in that Billion dollar US Embassy in the GZ in Baghdad.

It just goes to show that there was no legitimate military objective. :shrug:

Either the war in Iraq is worth fighting or it isn't. Now, of course, I'm on the "not" side of that question. But let's say that it is worth fighting. Why isn't this administration serious about fighting the war, then?

For evidence that they're not serious, I point to the fact that the military is making do with more and more low-aptitude recruits and meeting their recruitment quotas by dropping the bar lower and lower. If this war is worth fighting, why aren't we getting the best and the brightest recruits? Folks who can learn the finer points of waging war and apply them?

If the Bushistas were serious about fighting this war in Iraq, they'd bring back the draft. George W. Bush wouldn't let a day go by without mentioning in a speech or a public appearance or a photo op just how much the United States is depending on everyone not just to get behind the war in Iraq, but to sacrifice for it. Pungle up some more tax dollars. Get your sons and your daughters into the military. Apply for jobs at the local defense plant, and work for shit wages to equip the American wehrmacht.

Instead, George does nothing of the sort. Nobody's been asked to sacrifice jack shit for the cause of Iraq. Nobody's taxes have been raised (though a lot of budget items have been cut). George isn't taking Jenna and Bar Jr. down to the recruiting office to get them signed up. And every military officer allowed to speak on the subject talks in terms of years when timetables are mentioned. That is, if they don't skedaddle out of the room like they have a bad case of the green apple quickstep.

Folks getting antsy to "win" the war in Iraq? Then demand it from your elected representatives. Who's on record as introducing draft legislation? Who's sent their own kids over to Iraq? Who makes speeches urging other people's kids to go into the military? And who is sending their kids into the service? Nearly 60 million people allegedly voted for George W. Bush just a little over a year ago. Let's see some of them and their family members on troop transports headed for Iraq.

No? Nobody wants to do any of that? Sacrifice is for other people? Then shut up about "winning" a war that you don't support.

Tragically, the Texas Air National Guard was prevented at the last minute from sending their best pilot, Lt George W Bush Jr. on a secret bombing run to Hanoi. Blame falls on LBJ and the Democrats in Congress.

:sarcasm:

(yes, I just pulled that entire story out of my ass. But don't be surprised if Drudge or NewsHax runs with something very similar within a matter of days.)

had been allowed to show his bravery.
:puke:

..once the vietcong caught a glimpse of his codpiece they would have laid down their arms and worshipped him as God.

And won with very few American lives. If we had nuked the north it would have all come to an end quickly. Now it might have provoked a war with Russia or China, but that was not the question.

Seriously if we would have fought a "total war" like we did against Japan (burning down all the NV cities) then we could have "won".

However it would have been evil.

the Vietnam war was stupid in many ways. First we did not want to "win" the war - as defined as invading the other nation's land, killing their armies and making sure they were never again a threat. We just didn't want SV to lose. That sort of folly cost millions of lives.

The island-by-island strategy cut off their raw material (especially rubber) supplies. The bombing was superfluous and brutal.

The same thing with Europe: The US wanted to 'precision' bomb factories in cities, which wasted a lot of money and lives (because the bombings weren't so precise and because Germans were good at rebuilding broken machinery). The British wanted to bomb the roads and train tracks, which made it impossible for Germans to ship around their raw materials and the produce.

After Germany surrendered, John Kenneth Galbraith participated in a study which -- to the great consternation of the Wall Street, who wanted to see the build-up and of large, expensive air force --- found that the factory bombings did little to limit Germany's industrial productivity (they were operating at such low levels of productivity, they actually INCREASED production each year of the war) and that it was the British strategy of bombing roads which hurt the Germans the most.

In Japan, they found something similar. It wasn't the aerial bombings of Japan that won the war, but it was the Navy and the Marines' Pacific war that defeated the Japanese.

Vietnam was the same story. Nixon reduced the troops to from around 400K down to around 120K and stepped up the bombings, but the bombings, expensive and profitable for Wall Street as they were, did nothing to end the war.

Sy Hersh says that the same strategy is happening in Iraq. He says we drop and unbelievable number of bombs on Iraq, and the Republican plan will be to reduce troops, but step up aerial bombings. Expect the same results...

bet the neoCONs won't let us lose another one, eh?

peace

By killing everyone?

Interesting bit in the referred article:
"Of course, it is not only reactionary elements in US society who try to use the flag as a cover to the brutal impact of imperial policy, whether in Vietnam or Iraq. The deeply embedded belief that the US is on a providential mission is not new to George W. Bush and his crackpot neo-con policymakers. The liberal Madeline Albright insisted that the US was the "indispensable" nation. This allowed her and the Clinton Administration to rationalize the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the sanctions during the 1990's. Until there is a full recounting of the loss of lives from such imperial policies and a commitment by a mobilized and outraged population to end the pursuit of a US empire, there will be an ugly persistence of the denial or minimization of atrocities."

And here is a direct quote from Madeline Albright-Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" US Ambassador at the United Nations (soon to become Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." CBS - "60 Minutes", May 12, 1996

that is too bad. I was also very dissapponted in his support for the "School of the Americas" (now the WHISC)

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0120-03.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 20, 2004
1:22 PM
CONTACT: School of the Americas Watch
Hendrik Voss


General Wesley Clark on Defensive on School of the Americas (SOA/WHISC), Once Under His Command

WASHINGTON - January 20 - From June 1996 to July 1997, General Clark served as Commander of the US Southern Command, where he was responsible for US military activities concerning Latin America, including the School of the Americas (SOA), now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). On Sept. 20, 1996, Pentagon officials admitted that SOA manuals used from 1982 to 1991 advocated the use of torture, extortion, and extrajudical executions against dissidents in Latin America. The New York Times wrote "an institution so clearly out of tune with American values should be shut down without further delay."

On December 16, 1996, a few months after the Pentagon admission of the torture manuals, Clark visited the SOA, not to demand accountability but to give a commencement speech at an SOA graduation ceremony. Six years later and still, no one has been held accountable for the use of the torture manuals at the SOA. The SOA trained death squad leaders, assassins and military dictators. Its graduates were found responsible for some of the worst human rights atrocities in Latin America, including the El Mozote massacre of more than 900 civilians in El Salvador in 1980, the murder of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998 and of Colombian Archbishop Isaías Duarte in 2002.

At almost every campaign stop, Gen. Clark is facing critical questions concerning his connection to the SOA and his continued unpopular support of the school. Asked about his continued support of the SOA during an event in Manchester, NH, on Dec. 19, 2003, Clark responded, " I’m not going to have been in charge of a school that I can’t be proud of." In reaction to a question asked in Concord, NH, about the torture manuals Clark stated: "We're teaching police procedures and human rights . . . never taught torture." Despite cosmetic changes, the SOA remains a combat training school that teaches Latin American soldiers commando tactics, psychological operations, sniper and other military skills. Its graduates continue to be linked to massacres and other crimes. A few examples:

· In April 2002, the Venezuelan Army Commander-in-Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda -- both graduates of the SOA -- were key players in an attempted coup against the democratically elected Venezuelan government. In total, the school has produced at least eleven military dictators.

· In October 2003 it became public through documents released by the Mexican Secretary of Defense that SOA-trained ex-soldiers are now working as highly trained hired assassins for the Gulf Drug Cartel. SOA graduates comprise over a third of 31 renegade soldiers who were previously part of an elite counter-drug division of the Mexican Army.

· In December 2003, the Colombian prosecutor general's office ordered the dismissal of SOA graduate Oscar Eduardo Saavedra Calixto for failing to prevent a 2001 massacre of 27 civilians in the village of Chengue. human rights Reports consistently cite SOA-trained Colombian officers for collaboration with paramilitaries.

In 2001 the SOA changed its name at a time when SOA opponents were poised to win a congressional vote that would have closed the school. The vote lost by 204-214 and even though the school renamed, Amnesty International joins other human rights groups in calling for its closure. A broad movement of human rights groups, churches and temples, students, veterans and others maintain that the underlying purpose of the school remains the same: to control the economic and political systems of Latin America by aiding and influencing Latin American militaries. New legislation to close the school was introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass) and has been co-sponsored by 102 Members of Congress. Opponents of the SOA/WHISC are preparing for a large-scale Lobby Day in DC on March 30th. 28 people are scheduled for trial on Jan. 26, facing 6 months for civil disobedience when 10,000 people demonstrated at Ft. Benning, home of the SOA.


###

and we are going to get a reminder of that when Iraq is "declared" a "victory"

Spin the history you want to have!

If it wasn't all such a tragedy, I'd be laughing.

Well said. Sad, very sad. But true.

To rejoice in victory is to delight in killing;
to delight in killing is to have no self-being.

The conduct of war is that of a funeral;
when people are killed, it is a time of mourning.

Lao Tzu
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttcstan3.htm#2

Thanks!

because you're going to hear it about Iraq for the rest of your life. Republicans, despite their rep for being bad for the environment love to recycle (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz). All the old arguments and accusations about Vietnam will be similarly recycled.

We won every battle
The Iraqis wouldn't stand and fight
The will of the home front gave out right when we were turning the corner
and this one...People (liberals) spit on our servicemen when they returned (this will happen if Karl Rove has to wear Groucho glasses and do it himself).

are fighting against. We were at war with the North vietnamese and yet we were not allowed to place soldiers in their country. Funny way to fight a war.....We had no intention of winning any war..all we were doing was trying to prevent a country from becoming overrun by another country and we decided that was too tough to do so we cut and ran..

correct?
That the Chinese didn't 'place soldiers' in America and America did not 'place soldiers' in China, was no doubt a lucky thing! This was two large military powers backing opposite sides of a civil war.

And you must be aware that Ho Chi Min (sp?) was a Vietnamese who opposed the French occupation/colonization of his country, not Chinese.
His came to believe that communism was best for Vietnam.

We were engaged in combat against the forth largest Army of the time, the country of North Vietnam but we were not allowed to have troops enter into their country, we bombed them a bit but had no "known" forces enter North Vietnam. Beomg engaged against a conventional force (NVA)but not allowed to attack them in their home territory sort of gives them a free pass. Hell of a way to fight a way.

Obviously I'm in a bit over my head in certain aspects of this discussion. 30 years ago I read a number of books. I still read articles occasionally that touch on the subject.
I am mainly aware of the unacceptable death and tragedy that were the results of that conflict. I have friends who were very much hurt by it.
It has always been there at the periphery of my life as I registered as a conscientious objector and have been a peace activist ever since. This is my generation.

My conviction is that in conflicts of this nature there is no winning only loss.
If a genocide had been stopped, instead of being fueled and perpetuated I might have a different opinion. Instead millions died, for what?

You're correct about us not invading them. We should also have concentrated our troop strength on the borders of South Vietnam, especially the Ho Chi Minh trail, and denied them access.

to do anything but hide their heads for 73 days and the minute some relief came they Di Di mowed (cut and ran) Did the same at Mai Loc (Ashaui Valley)but they did not have the same support as the US Army so I don't blame them but am always amused when they start bragging about how they single handedly destroyed the NVA. Like this fellow here now..

If we had "won"? It would probably still be divided into two countries, and I doubt that the Vietnamese would have liked us any better than they do right now.

:shrug:

Do you think my post #23 is at all accurate? Do you see that war as being a civil war?

"French Indochina" (a colony) fought on the side of the Allies in the Pacific, alongside both the US and China, in WW2. The French, thrown out by the Japanese, attempted to reestablish a colonial hold in Viet Nam after WW2 and were finally repelled at Dien Bien Phu. Ho Chi Minh's communist ideologies were an outgrowth of a socialist posture combined with the opposition of the US (whom he admired) in alliance with France. It's really hard to regard the South Vietnamese government as being much more than colonial puppets - the wannabe inheritors of French privatization of Viet Nam's natural resources. The North Vietnamese historically never had warm relations with China. The ethnic Chinese in Viet Nam were treated like Jews were treated in Eastern Europe. French-educated Ho Chi Minh, however, maintained supportive relations with both China and the Soviet Union, carefully balancing their influence. (China actually invaded Viet Nam in the late 70's.) I consider the process to be more like a 50-year Revolution (throwing the colonialists out) than a Civil War. I tend to think Ho Chi Minh was driven further into communist ideologies as a reaction to American global predation.

I always think it's a mistake to do too much "cookie-cutter" labeling of the political upheavals in various parts of the world. Viet Nam is unique - and only deceptively similar to Korea and other country's experiences, on the surface. I doubt Viet Nam will ever resemble North Korea - it's just not consistent with their culture(s). Over time, they'll probably be more and more like a socialist republic than a strongly centralized communist state (certainly not Stalinist or Maoist).

This is very helpful. Most of what you say rings a bell as I did some reading on this long ago. I remember now how Ho Chi Minh was a great admirer of the US and it's revolution. I seem to remember him being educated abroad.
Thanks for pointing out the mistake of applying simplistic, cookie cutter labels to complex histories.
You did a wonderful job of explaining this. I very much appreciate your help. I knew you had a better understanding of this from previous discussions here. I am a bit embarrassed about my poor grasp of this history. We could all benefit from learning more about Vietnam.
It is a fascinating history at that.

thanks!
:toast:

... complex and difficult (for me) to cogently unravel. It's made more difficult because virtually every resource has a strong bias ... and I'm nowhere nearly dedicated enough in my scholarship to wade through it. Thus, I'm just as much of a hack as almost anyone -- except for the fact that I refuse to describe such things in the typically static "good guy v. bad guy" superficialities. People are prone to say such inane things like "the reason we lost ..." or "the reason we were in Viet Nam ..." when such motives and activities were very complex, constantly evolving, and flawed at the outset in the presumption that there was any unified thinking whatsoever. Nothing about Viet Nam can be truthfully reduced to fortune cookie brevity. I was deeply agonized over the massive numbers of "boat people" and have no illusions that anyone wore a white hat in Viet Nam, least of all the U.S. Even as a liberal, I still regard Jane Fonda's actions as self-serving, hypocritical, and ethically appalling, especially when compared, for example, to Joan Baez's. Every perspective I have regarding Viet Nam and its people is infused with a very strong ambivalence. One core impression remains, however, and that is regarding a degree of social/cultural integrity and personal honor among the ordinary (lower class) Vietnamese that makes an average American seem like a political simpleton and social fool in comparison. When I consider this, it's not surprising to me that westerners underestimated the difficulty of achieving their (alleged) goals in Southeast Asia. And I can barely scratch the surface of comprehending that.

I'll tell you how it is.

BTW, I agree with you that the war was more to kick out the outsiders/colonialists than a communist v. capitalist battle. The Vietnamese have a rather strong sense of ethnic Independence. Remember they defeated the Mongols. Three times. I don't think anyone else can claim that.

Over the years, I've entertained the notion of going back for a visit. It was an awesomely beautiful country.

The way people view Viet Nam seems to be very heavily dependent on their own interests and proclivities, even beyond the usual. Rarely do I read a perspective that attempts to offer a balanced view from the Vietnamese perspectives. I sometimes doubt it's very well understood.

I share the view by some that talk of "another Viet Nam" is often ridiculous. If all one comprehends about Viet Nam is how it felt while in elementary school, then any claim of a repeat of that experience has virtually nothing to do with Viet Nam. If said from the point of view of some myopic, anti-Red-Menace global capitalist/corporatist, then anything that reprises a resistance to privateering, plunder, and colonial exploitation will do, I suppose. After all, the 'experience' of hammering a nail is similar to splitting a skull with a hatchet. The feel of the handle is the same, right? (Absent any empathy, only the feel of the handle would count.)

The super-rich who control our country make a lot of money when war rages.

Even better for them because they are not the ones dying!

They spend billions on propaganda because it works!

They want neverending war.

They must be brought down.

would've left an artficially divided and highly militarized Vietnam just like Korea.

Who knows? Decades of US pressure and isolation might've made North Vietnam seek nuclear weapons and ensured it a place on the Axis of Evil.

Those who say
we could have won in Vietnam never mention the fact that both China and Russia were on the side of the North and if we would have used nuclear weapons we may have ignited WWIII.

It is so easy to take history out of context to make a point. I was there and it was not a war we should have "won." After 10 years of fighting there was really no good reason to prolong the killing. What came about is that now we have diplomatic relations with Vietnam. We could have had that in 1946 without the wars with France and the US.

There was nothing to win in Vietnam just as there is nothing to win in Iraq. It is only the in ending the killing and finding ways to solve out problems peacefully do we actually win.

The war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam were and are wars started by people in power who profit off of the suffering and dying of innocent people. We should not get caught up in the idea of winning or losing but rather in the idea of what kind of world do we want to live in. I choose to live in a world where peace is rated more highly than "winning" a war.

beautiful post!

http://www.thecie.org/gene/index.asp?s=POEMS

Poems by Eugene McCarthy


MY LAI CONVERSATION

How old are you, small Vietnamese boy?
Six fingers. Six years.
Why did you carry water to the wounded soldier, now dead?
Your father.
Your father was enemy of free world.
You also now are enemy of free world.
Who told you to carry water to your father?
Your mother!
Your mother is also enemy of free world.
You go into ditch with your mother.
American politician has said,
"It is better to kill you as a boy in the elephant grass of Vietnam
Than to have to kill you as a man in the rye grass in the USA."
You understand.
It is easier to die
Where you know the names of the birds, the trees, and the grass
Than in a stranger country.
You will be number 128 in the body count for today.
High body count will make the Commander-in-Chief of free world much encouraged.
Good-bye, small six-year-old Vietnamese boy, enemy of free world.

~~

VIETNAM MESSAGE

We will take our corrugated steel
out of the land of thatched huts.


We will take our tanks
out of the land of the water buffalo.


We will take our napalm and flame throwers
out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches.


We will take our helicopters
out of the land of colored birds and butterflies.


We will give back your villages and fields
your small and willing women.


We will leave you your small joys
and smaller troubles.


We will trust you to your gods,
some blind, some many-handed

The entire premise of the "unwinnability" of the Vietnam war is ludicrous. A military superpower can defeat a country of 25 million. It's simply a matter of having the will to win. It might have taken 700,000 troops and a better strategy.

The Marines "clear and hold" strategy would have worked, but the Marines weren't running the show. Westmoreland favored "search and destroy" over "clear and hold". Westmoreland refused to allow the Marines to expand the Combined Action Program, which was the "hold" component of "clear and hold". The "clear" component was carried out by large infantry units. Westmoreland wouldn't allocate troops to the Combined Action Program. Westmoreland told the Marines they would have to cannibalize their infantry units to man the CAP units. The Marines went all the way to president Johnson trying to get permission and wherewithal to expand the program. Johnson nixed it, thereby, IMO, sealing his fate.

I was there. I served in the Combined Action Program. I saw it work. A CAP platoon consisted of 8-11 Marines, a Navy Corpsman, and 25-40 Vietnamese Popular Forces who were usually recruited from the village the CAP was assigned to protect. Each CAP defended one village, and lived in the village 24/7. If the Communists wanted to come into the village, they had to sneak in by two's and three's or come in force. If they came in force, they risked a high probability of suffering very high casualties. Even if they wiped the CAP out they could not hold the village. A Marine reactionary force would come in and drive them out (the "clear" component). The CAP would be reconstituted and would be back in operation within a week. The Communists were militarily incapable of taking and holding a CAP village.

Attacking CAP villages was a losing proposition for the Communists. My CAP, 2-9-1, was probably one of the more successful ones at making the Communists pay a heavy price for intrusions. My CAP alone killed literally hundreds of NVA regulars and VC with very light losses. CAP's were small units, no more than platoon strength, but they were intimately familiar with their villages, had them "wired", and the villagers were with the CAP's and against the Communists. When Communists came into my village at night, the place would light up like a christmas tree as villagers lighted candles and placed them in small apertures in their houses where we could see them. The villagers also kept up a steady influx of intelligence about Communist presence and activities in the area.

CAP villages were "no fire" zones. Air and artillery strikes were forbidden in CAP territory unless authorized by the CAC HQ. No such strikes would be authorized except in the direst of circumstances. Each family in a CAP village was required by law to have a family bunker built to specifications. Even if artillery or gunship strikes had been required within the village, most of the villagers would have survived in their bunkers. Any battle damage to CAP villages was quickly repaired. The quality of life for CAP villagers was vastly better than in Communist-controlled villages.

The ultimate goal of a CAP was to train up the PF's to the point where they could defend the village on their own, freeing up the Marines to move on to another village. This was the least successful aspect of the program. It turned out that the villagers, once they became accustomed to the Marines living in their villages, didn't want the Marines to leave. They came to view the CAP Marines as neighbors and a source of strength and security. The PF's thus had no incentive to achieve independence. However, PF independence was not an absolute requirement. A greater comittment of troops would have made it possible to maintain a squad of Marines in each CAP village.

The VC and NVA could not have maintained themselves without the ability to use undefended vilages as sources of food, conscripts, and hiding places. Due to manpower constraints, probably no more than 15% of villages in I Corps were defended by CAPS. If 50% of the larger villages had been so defended, the VC and NVA would have been seriously compressed, isolated, and hungry, making them easy targets for Westmorland's "search and destroy" tactics. One North Vietnamese general who had fought in Vietnam was asked if he was aware of the CAP's. He said he was aware of them, and avoided them if possible. He said he had been told that the CAP Marines had won the villagers hearts, and suggested that if more South Vietnamese hearts had been so won, the NVA would have found operations in South Vietnam "difficult". An understatement, IMO. I can think of one NVA battalion which found life both brutal and short, thanks to CAP 2-9-1 and their own ignorant commander (who was later found hiding in the village with a stomach wound). I can also think of one isolated NVA regiment near our village which found itself on the wrong end of a 5th Marines "sweep and block" operation. You can read about their fate, if you wish, in James Webb's novel, "Fields of Fire". I can vouch for the accuracy of Webb's account of that battle. I heard about it first-hand from the Vietnamese.

Here's the bottom line. None of the posts I've read in this thread were written by anyone who knows anything about the Vietnam war, or war in general. In fact, the content and tenor of the posts I've read indicate negative knowledge. That's knowing less than nothing due to the confluence of extreme ignorance and disinformation. One thing I can tell you: the ignorant, the uninformed, the dogmatized, and the inexperienced need not apply as military strategists. I know more about the Vietnam war than all of you combined, having served 4 months in an infantry platoon and 7 months in a CAP village surrounded by hundreds of Vietnamese who considered me one of their own. I'm familiar with the nature of the war and the character of the Vietnamese people. I know what we did right, and I know what we did wrong. In fact, knowing what we were doing wrong was what prompted me to volunteer for the Combined Action Program, where, I was told, my ass would be quickly "blown away". Well, I'm still here, after spending 7 months in a Vietnamese village only a couple of miles from Arizona Territory, a notorious NVA staging area.

before you. extreme ignorance?

Your input is certainly welcome, but why insult anybody?

The one you called "beautiful".

"Ignorant" is only an insult if it isn't true. If it's true it's just factual observation. I don't know what else to call it. Naive realism, perhaps? I've had conversations with a number of Vietnam vets. Frankly, I find the majority of Vietnam vets to be ignorant. Most of them never had a meaningful conversation with a Vietnamese, and I say this as one who did time in the infantry. I'm well aware of the kinds of interactions which took place between infantrymen and Vietnamese:

"VC a dau? Sung a dau?"
"Khong biec. Khong ca sung",

and I've been treated to a number of their crackpot theories on the war, why it was fought, and how it should have been fought or not fought. All in all, a good argument against the draft, or perhaps a good argument against college deferments.

The Vietnam war was fought pursuant to a very simple strategy. For the same reason the Korean war was fought. For the same reason the CIA intervened against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Containment.

The containment strategy held that Communist expansionism would eventually collapse if it's spread could be contained. Two of the three above-mentioned actions succeeded in stopping Communist expansion. Two out of three ain't bad, and was certainly enough to give pause to starry-eyed Communist dreams of world domination. All the Communists "got" out of those three attempts was South Vietnam, one of the poorest countries on earth. And it turned out that North Vietnam was only using the Soviet Union and China. The Vietnamese Communists wanted nothing to do with either of them after they got South Vietnam, and actually fought China over Cambodia.

It was also believed by strategists that the Soviet Union would eventually collapse if it couldn't expand and loot other countries, due to it's ridiculous command economy and it's demoralized peoples. Afghanistan turned out to be the straw which broke the Soviet back, as predicted decades before, in Reader's Digest.

So altogether, I'd say the containment strategy worked. Vietnam was just one campaign in the "twilight struggle", and the "defeat" in Vietnam has been blown out of proportion to the larger picture, and has been used by America-haters the world over as a recurring boogeyman and a defeatist rallying cry. Every conflict or potential conflict since Vietnam has been threatened to be "another Vietnam".

The "another Vietnam" cry lurches through the posts in this thread like a zombie which won't fall down because it's already dead.

...but I did it for myself.

If you've been around long enough, you may remember how it was back then. Defeatism was as prevalent then as it is now. Lots of people told me they believed Communism was unstoppable. I couldn't stand the thought of it. I'd have preferred death.

I had Friends among the people there, too. It hurt leaving them. The war was not unwinnable, but some of our tactics were wrong. As you know, we had many of the same problems then as now, as in Rumsfeld allowing Wolfowitz to scoff at General Shinseki's estimates of troop strength needed for the occupation.

...part of '68 and part of '69. You didn't do two tours, did you? That would be above and beyond the call. Plus, two tours tended to make people a little wierd, if they weren't already.

I agree that more troops are needed in Iraq, but I think they need to be Iraq1 troops, not Americans. House-to-house searches for insurgents are best carried out by Iraqis. It's not like Vietnam. We're not fighting an army in Iraq, just a smallish group of mad bombers.

General Zinni had estimated ~300,000 troops for the initial attack and occupation when he did his plans in the run up to the war. Here's his reasoning:

"How many troops did Zinni’s plan call for? “We were much in line with Gen. Shinseki's view,” says Zinni. “We were talking about, you know, 300,000, in that neighborhood.”
What difference would it have made if 300,000 troops had been sent in, instead of 180,000?
“I think it's critical in the aftermath, if you're gonna go to resolve a conflict through the use of force, and then to rebuild the country,” says Zinni."

He says he'd have freezed the situation, and provided security. Bands or gangs would not have been roaming in the streets looting. He'd also kept many of the Baathists in charge, and kept the Army together.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

But if American troop presence is feeding the insurgency as many claim, then more American troops would have fed it more. But perhaps would have suppressed it at the same time. So we might have ended up with a large, hostile, but suppressed insurgency lying low, waiting for us to pull out before attacking the "puppet" Iraqi government.

But on the other hand, the insurgency consists largely of Ba'athists longing to return to power. So keeping the Iraqi army together might have had a calming effect on them. But a Ba'athist army? I dunno, dude. Seems mighty risky to me. We pull out, the Ba'athists use the army to pull a coup. Back to square one. Saddam back in the saddle. Riding hard.

They'd just better think about it long and hard before doing something rash. Because if we have to go back over there again...it's not going to be pretty next time. No matter who's prez. Even Hillary wouldn't stand still for a Ba'athist comeback. Especially Hillary, come to think of it. They sure don't want to get Hillary pissed. And as Billary said, "The cost of action might be great, but the cost of inaction might well be greater..." I'm sure you know the rest. "...he will develop weapons of mass destruction, and if he has them he will use them sooner or later..."

Or something like that.

and continued to hunt Osama. Because of Bush Iraq's fubar with an increasingly violent civil war. If it isn't another Iran in a few years it will be a miracle.

Is it "increasingly violent"? Reports from the front have it that incidents have been decreasing the past couple of months. And the Sunnis voted this time.

What's Osama doing these days? Haven't heard from him lately. Far as I'm concerned, the fucker can spend the rest of his life in a cave. It will be good for him. Give him time to think.

Who was potentially more dangerous, a terrorist hiding in the mountains, or a hateful tyrant in control of an entire militarized nation, sitting atop a sea of crude? Hey. Grease a few palms, be a "good boy" for a while, the sanctions get lifted, Saddam goes off to his mansion in the sky, Uday The Merciless, The Wheelchair Bound, takes over...

It could get messy from there...

the various factions who're now killing us at the rate of several a day, and each other at fifty here, ten there. Do not think the Mullahs of Iran aren't gleefully chuckling beneath their robes at having manipulated the Great Satan into removing Saddam from power.
Meanwhile, Osama is quietly pulling strings. Patiently smiling, he spins the webs deftly, while we help him create the Islamic Caliphate Rumsfeld recently, and belatedly, warned us about.


Rumsfeld warns of Islamic superstate if U.S. leaves Iraq too soon
"If U.S. forces leave too soon, Iraq will become a haven for terrorists and the base of a spreading Islamic superstate that would threaten the rest of the world, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

Speaking at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Rumsfeld warned that al-Qaida leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden would seize power in the wake of an American withdrawal and turn Iraq into the kind of terrorist safe haven that Afghanistan was before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Moreover, Rumsfeld said: "Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East, and which would threaten legitimate governments in Europe, Africa and Asia. This is their plan. They have said so. We make a terrible mistake if we fail to listen and learn."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13335698.htm

After 73 days of burying their heads in the sand at Khe Sahn we were called in to relieve them. They could not get out of there quick enough. Also at Mai Loc. The marines had the worst equipment and given the worst jobs and then people wondered why they failed. You basically are describing what the Special Forces did every single day in Vietnam and yes they had some success but Villages were rarely if ever attacked in large scale by the NVA. Military LZs and Camps were hit regularly though. The NVA had a very good supply line down the Ho Chi Minh trail which they rebuilt on a daily basis. They needed very little from local villages. Some rice and vegis but little else..

...the major battle was over.

A regiment of Marines was surrounded by 15,000 NVA. You call digging in "...burying their heads in the sand..", thereby removing any doubts I might have had about your naive realism. I would call it "digging in".

What would you have done?

The infantry company I joined had recently departed from Khe Sanh. The way I heard it, the Marines continued to run patrols and maintain hilltop outposts throughout the battle.

they could get up and walk around in daylight. Three days after they had been "dug in" for 73 days without venturing out of their bunkers... don't get me wrong here I am not saying anything against the individual marine. They are every bit as American and qualified as any Army personel but I never heard of any Army unit staying hunkered down for such a long period of time. The marines IMO were being set up to fail. They were given outdated equipment and no support except a few Navy jets. I was there and I watched the Cav patch painted on the runway at Khe Sahn. I humped those boonies surrounding Khe Sahn for many weeks. I camped on the DMZ more times than I can remember. I saw up close the burnt out hulks of Russian tanks near the perimeter of Khe Sahn. Why wasn't the army called in earlier? I think a lot of lives were lost needlessly. Khe Sahn was abandoned almost immediately after the Cav relieved it and the Army never set up there. Those marines went through hell and I hold the Marine commanders responsible. When the Army finally came to their defense we brought the whole frigging world with us. Constant arc lights, spooky, puff, gunships, you name it we brought it and the only thing left for us grunts to do was count the bodies....Why didn't the marines have that same support??????

Westmoreland was theatre commander. The Marine commanders were under his command.

And who "failed" at Khe Sanh? 15,000 NVA were unable to dislodge a single, poorly supported (according to you) Marine regiment in 73 days. Seems to me it was the NVA that failed.

My understanding was that the Marines had no interest in holding the ground around Khe Sanh. Their interest was in killing as many of those 15,000 NVA as possible with bombs, pursuant to Westmoreland's attrition strategy. To that end, the Marine regiment was serving as "bait".

Being "bait" was nothing unusual for Marine combat units. To engage in attrition, you first have to find the enemy. Every small patrol was essentially bait. Hey, I've been bait myself. In fact, my CAP was a tripwire, positioned on an approach to the 5th Marines regimental base in the An Hoa valley. The 5th Marines destroyed an entire NVA regiment within 2 miles of us. I don't know exactly why that NVA regiment was in that particular place, on the wrong side of the river, but it seems safe to assume they were up to no good. Actually, their propaganda team had earlier threatened to overrun my CAP, and I told them, through a PF interpreter on a bullhorn, that they would all die if they didn't surrender. It was just a general, statistically-based prediction. I had no idea it would come to pass so dramatically. But that's another story.

If the Ho Chi Minh trail was working so well, perhaps you can explain why an NVA Chieu Hoi I was sent to pick up at CAP 2-9-2's day pos was skin and bones and suffering from malaria. When I arrived, the NVA was being fed a hot meal, probably the first decent meal he'd had in months.

Don't kid yourself that they didn't need the villages. They needed the villages badly. They were hanging on by their fingernails in I Corps. All we needed to do was pry a few more fingernails loose.

The Vietnam war was not a military defeat for the U.S. It was a political defeat, and it happened inside our borders.

I was one of those people you consider a little off because I did more than one tour. My second tour I was with a helecopter unit that worked solely with 5th Special Forces and we worked the Ho Chi Minh Trail every single day. We would blow up bridges across a river and the very next day it would be rebuilt. The trail was extremely well used and it was amazing how much those fellows could/would pack. 5th SF had teams along the trail most of the time and never once was there a cold extraction.

...but there weren't nearly enough of you. Same with the CAP's. I know it wouldn't have been a simple matter, but the Communist supply lines into the South should have been cut. It might have taken 40,000 troops on the ground to do it, maybe more. But if you're going to fight a war, you fight to win.

Hanoi should have been bombed from day 1. Haiphong should have been blockaded from day 1. Every bridge on every road connecting China and North Vietnam should have been bombed from day 1.

Look at the history of WWII. Everything the Axis powers had was bombed as soon as sufficient numbers of aircraft could be gotten into range to bomb. It was no accident we won that one. It should have been no accident in Vietnam, either.

At Long Binh, we were attacked on our southern perimeter by an augmented battalion of NVA on February 23, 1969. The next day, I happened to wander through where two of them were being treated and interrogated. I saw the C-rat can-openers on key-chains around their necks. They were teen-agers - about 15 years old. They were given not quite enough rations to make it down the HCM Trail - even with what they could get along the way. They were hungry. They were told that they could get our stockpile of C-rats and eat. They were told that our perimeter was guarded by WACs and clerks, and that we went to sleep around 2am. They were told that it'd be a "walk-on." It wasn't, of course. They walked right into the teeth of mini-guns mounted on platforms disguised as water towers. They got chewed up bad. I was told that three actually got through the wires (10-15 yards of concertina and tanglefoot, reinforced with claymores).

And every sack of rice we deprived them of probably starved one of them. And every sack of rice they had to hump down the HCM trail was one less box of ammo they could hump.

We didn't put nearly as much pressure on them as we should have, and could have. We should have squeezed them like a 30 foot anaconda. To hell with college deferments. Get it the fuck over with, then everybody gets a free college education.

I was registered as a conscientious objector.
I am that person who you probably dismiss as an unrealistic idealist.
I never had a desire to study military strategy.
You can't morally win in a violation against humanity.
The war was a con game run by liars, politicians and sociopaths.

I am glad you checked in, I hope you are allowed to stay.
At least you take the time to explain yourself and you are obviously an intelligent person. You might shed a little of the condescending language.
We may be from different planets but I welcome you offering your opinions if done respectfully.

...is currently being defended by an increasingly thin green line. If not for the green line defending you and your forbears, you would find your little world quite different, and not in a "good" way. Except for the fact that you wouldn't exist.

History turns on a dime. Torpedo 9 turned it your way at Midway, though they failed to score a hit on the Japanese carriers, and all but one died.

you have said anything that I haven't heard a thousand times before.

The argument is very old, tired.. worn. It has not done much more than escalate destruction, violence and misery in this world and darken the futures of the world's children.
The human race cannot survive very far into this next millennium and entertain the fantasy that war is a viable option. If we don't turn the page on primitive patterns we will perish.

You are like the carpenter with only a hammer. Every problem looks like a nail to you.

Or a nail. Or a saw. You gonna talk those nails into that wood?

I'd be happy to see you have the opportunity to talk some sense into Osama, al Zarkawi, Kim Jong-il, or anyone else you'd like to sit down with. Just don't kid yourself that your approach hasn't been tried. You're not treading any new ground here.

for that mission. But I can tell you that it is the warmakers that get a place at the table, not the peacemakers. Where are the peace chiefs?

On quoting MLK I realized he says it all better than I ever could. Reread the passages if you want know my answer.

Of course this particular peacemaker was taken away from us. They killed him. Read MLK's "Beyond Vietnam" for a unflinching view of America and Vietnam. Really check it out! Many websites haven an audio version.

peace

NOTHING.

Only repuke moles and shills believe such bullshit.

Nice try at revisionist history.

I count 3 declarative statements. Wow. That's really convincing.

http://www.tinyvital.com/BlogArchives/000354.html

Don't tell me, let me guess. This is "revisionist" history, because...don't tell me, let me guess...it differs from your version. The one you bought at the local Leftist Ideology Mall.

If only you had been in charge! At least now we have a President
who has "the will to win", eh? I'm sure this one will turn out a lot
better than Vietnam did. Or at least no worse. Good luck on your
stay here, however long it may be.

I'm far too blunt for this crowd. And I've seen people banned from here for little or no reason except a lack of herd instinct.

BTW, the Combined Action Program wasn't my idea. I only worked there, and reported my observations. Oh, and BTW, we'll see if "clear and hold" works or not. A version of it is being pursued in Iraq. It's still in it's infancy there, but I did notice about 11 million Iraqis voting on thursday without much trouble.

If so, it could be short, indeed.

I was banned from Hannity's forum on a trumped up charge of being two people posting from the same computer. I know for a fact nobody else posts on this computer, so I know by inference that I was actually banned for ideological reasons. The same reason I expect to be banned from here.

Oh, and just for your enlightenment, admins can detect sock puppets here too. Hasta la vista, baby.

Do I really show up as a "sock puppet"? If so, I'll want to check with my internet provider.

BTW, what exactly is a "sock puppet"?

Just in case you're planning something similar here. And in case you're wondering, yeah, I'm more inclined to believe the hannity.com admins than you. (Wow, I never thought I'd say such a thing.)

Nobody but me uses this computer. I've also posted on other forums for long periods without any such complaint.

I know this guy who had a guy living in his attic who
he didn't know about and who used his computer while the
first guy snoozed. If you have an attic, I'd get a flashlight
and a ladder and check it out.

I did some checking after Hannity's perfunctory banning. I did come up with one possible explanation having to do with floating I.P.'s or something like that, I don't recall the terminology now.

The "other" can always find a place to hide from us.

I had concluded it wasn't right-wingedness, but atheism that got me banned from Hannity, and they just needed a plausible excuse. But now that I'm getting the same complaint here...

Well, it could still be just a plausible excuse. But maybe I'll check with my provider and see if something's making me look like two people posting from the same computer.

...but I ain't no two people posting from the same computer.

Is there an Ettico there now? I can't check myself. They won't let me in.

Confirms most of my suspicions about you.

So, do you support torture, too?

What about LYING US INTO THIS ILLEGAL WAR OF CHOICE?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

stray slightly from the subject of 'military strategy' in which you are a self proclaimed expert and you reveal quite a lot which frankly should put in question everything else you have said.

Since when do facts need your assessment to be facts?

one) According to the Nuremberg tribunals, "no grievances or policies will
justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced
and condemned as an instrument of policy."

Statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson
Chief U.S. Prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals

August 12, 1945
on War Trials Agreement; August 12, 1945

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm

~~
two) we were not lied into the war?

Look up the definition of lying, if you can't grasp the concept of lying then the issue is not worth discussing.
It wouldn't even be amusing to hear whatever belabored contortions you would go through to attempt to explain to us poor clueless people how the Admin. didn't lie us into war. Don't bother.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


three) So you really think the Iraq war is all about fighting al Qa eda?
Another 'talking point' that has no factual basis. The actual percentage of the "insurgents" with even the slimmest connection to al Qa-eda is very small. But don't let facts get in your way.


In all, I think we have been pretty generous to let you hang out here and preach at us.

Booted off both DU and hannity.com. What a guy.

...but I've yet to go flat-footed on any of their religious pontifications, either.

The Vietnamese understood this. The Americans never did, and still don't.

The Vietnamese used bombs every chance they got. Perhaps you meant to say "Wars aren't won with bombs alone."?

post.

then i read your last paragraph and it sort of invalidated all your good effort.

causing inflation at home (because when the military buys up a lot of raw materials and takes away labor to fight in the army, it drives up the price of goods and the cost of labor). The war you describe would have been very expensive, and it would have caused even more economic problems for the US than the one we had. That would have raised an even more serious question about costs and benefits. We might have turned ourselves into a banana republic in order to defeat a rice republic.

Also, what do you do once you've invaded a country with an army of 700,000? I would think that Vietnam (and China and Russia and other countries) rolling over for us would be one of the least likely of possibilities. You know how we talk so much about Iraqi security forces taking over Iraq, and you know how, in the Philippines, we tried so hard to make Filipinos the face of the occupying forces? It's because we know that if the US is the face of the occupying force, it increases resistance.

even with all you said, wouldn't we have had to have occupied some of North Vietnam to win the war?

Successfully defending our own land but allowing the enemy free sanctuary in his own just allows him to rest and come at us again for as long as he wants to.

Doesn't he have to lose something of his own before he throws in the towell?

If I'd been in Johnson's position, I'd have taken a far greater interest in the Communist supply lines into South Vietnam than Johnson did. Cutting them off would have been a top priority.

I certainly would not have respected North Vietnam's borders or Cambodia's borders in pursuit of cutting off the North's supply lines. Why should I? North Vietnam never respected South Vietnam's or Cambodia's borders. They were using Cambodia as a safe haven.

Frankly, I don't think Johnson had much military smarts. Supply is crucial for an army. Much if not most of North Vietnam's army was in Cambodia and South Vietnam. I'd have starved those bastards, no matter what it took.

I don't know who sold Johnson on attrition as a strategy, but wars have seldom been won by attrition alone. Wars are won by crippling the enemy's ability to project military force.

Johnson reminded me of a hound dog with his head stuck in a badger hole. Halfway in, halfway out. Scared to go all the way in, but unwilling to back out. We didn't need a hound dog running that war. We needed a grizzly bear with a poor opinion of badgers.

He was in Nam for over 4 YEARS - Airforce.

But go ahead anyway - it's entertaining like watching a train wreck.

And why should we believe a new poster that hides his profile and spews rightwing propaganda?

SURE you served!

Sorry, I don't buy that either.

What, besides being stationed at an Air Force base for 4 years, qualifies him to make that assessment?

would have actually enlisted to fight.

And lies are still being spread about Jane Fonda as though they were literal fact. I have family members who quote things from this stupid-ass right wing email, even after I have sent them replies that prove most of their points are a lie.

They don't care! They are happier with the lie!

what did we lose by losing in Viet Nam? We have normalized relations with them and they are a Communist government last I heard AND they ain't threatening us one bit. So, if we had "won" what would we have won?

As I said, it was about "containment". If you don't understand what "containment" in Souteaast Asia would have meant, read up on Pol Pot's little purge in Cambodia, for starters.

Killing millions of innocent people is nothing new to America. I'm wondering if the 'war on terror' will be the final straw that breaks the camel's back? How many more atrocities do we need to commit before America has a political purge?

The pitiful part is, your claim is actually believable. But does nothing for your position. That's precisely why the policy of containment was being pursued against Communism, which killed an indeterminate number of people, probably well over 100,000,000.

However, I believe you're wrong about the ability, if not the willingness of the North Vietnamese Communists to sacrifice the entire population of North Vietnam. Long before that happened, the country would have collapsed.

I guess we truly do need a sarcasm emoticon. :eyes:

What the fuck were we doing defending a goddamned colony? We promised Vietnam to the Vietnamese during WWII, and then gave it back to France. That's ridiculous. We should let people run their own damned governments.

We just weren't willing to let The Soviet Union and China, or North Vietnam run everyones' governments.

on some completely ancillary tangent about just that very subject, while trying to defend the capital expenditures of the irag war being funneled through the pentagon; being loosely thee predominate factor as to the ability to WIN any said war; vietnam as his example.

i mean, where did this come from!?!? are these jackals prepared to re-write virtually every historical factoid to avoid being made, or soon to be forced to admit they were utterly wrong?

Of course, he found ways to stay out of vietnam, IIRC.

Instead, after Ho Chi Minh (who had been working with the CIA to fight the Japanese in Vietnam) declared an Indepentent Vietnam, quoting the US Declaration of Independence, we sold him down the river by returning to France- you know, France whose ass we had just saved from the Nazis- their "colonial property". Us white folks gotta stick together, you know. But, since France didn't have their shit together just yet, we let the Japanese- same Japanese Ho Chi Minh had helped us fight, 'administer' the country until the French could get back.

Yeah, we could have "won" it, by preventing it in the first place- or later on, we might not have gotten involved we had even understood what the fuck it was about.

You'd have seen the hole card in 1945? You'd have dumped France in favor of Ho Chi Minh?

I have to admit, that would have been cool. But do you do more than look back? Hell, I can look back myself. I can see as far back as you can. But what I'd really like to know is, what do you see ahead? Do you look ahead as accurately as you look back?

Go ahead. Make some predictions. If you do more than talk, you could be famous.

And paid for it later.

But, clearly, if we had bothered to undertake the most basic understanding of the situation, we wouldn't have gotten involved later on, either.

What do I see ahead? I see that wars based on lies, and occupations of countries where the population clearly doesn't want us there are bloody, wasteful, morally repugnant, and doomed to failure.

Oh, and welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

Edit: Gone so soon? Wow. What a shocker. Bye Bye, asshole.

A lot of our fellow citizens actually are sick pukes who think that genocide is just peachy keen.