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Actually, Truman went to war in Korea. JFK led the war charge into Vietnam. LBJ continued the JFK legacy in Vietnam. Nixon got us out. Bill Clinton pushed hard for the Iraq Liberal Act and endorsed "W"/s war (So did Hillary) into Iraq. Obama invaded Pakistan via drones and overthrew the gov. of Libya. Obama tried to put the MB into power in Egypt but lost that one. Now he wants the Muslim terrorists to take over Syria so they will attack Israel. He will lose that one too.
In defense of Truman, US forces were attacked by North Korean forces in August 1950. We were pushed 140 miles south of the 38th parallel to the port city of Pusan. Had Truman not acted, 140,000 troops would have been pushed into the sea.
On the other hand, had Truman not given the French $80 billion in WW II military surplus to aid their efforts in Veitnam, then Eisenhower would not have had to send military advisers, and JFK would not have ramped up the number of troops from 2,000 to 20,000 in just three years, and LBJ would not have faked the Gulf of Tonkin attack in order to ramp up the number of troops in Vietnam to 512,000 by 1968.
Nevertheless, Truman did the right thing in his decision to support our troops in South Korea. Truman could have unified the Korean peninsula, had he been willing to stand up against the Chinese. However, he decided to revert to the original 38th parallel and "hold the line." This became known as "The Truman Doctrine", or the policy of "containment." Were we no longer fight to win, but only to "hold the line." That policy is what ultimately led to Vietnam. We where never in Vietnam to win, only to "hold the line."
The UN comes back and says, yes we found evidence of sarin gas. Now what?
3 hundred plus people died, that does not mean we get to kill thousands in retaliation for an attack that had nothing to do with US. If the UN came back and said yes, we found the stash used by the rebels and they tell us Saudi Arabia gave them the chemicals and can prove it. Does that mean we attack Saudi Arabia? Hell no, this is about making the case to destroy Syria so we can get to Iran.
Thank you Putin! and Thank you China for standing in the way.
It was Obama's pressure to attack that came to terms with the Chemical weapons agreement. Not Putin or China. And Obama needs to continue with the pressure or this agreement will be as useless as throwing bread to pigeons.
You fail to mention the UN suspect its the rebels not the syrian government
The latest report indirectly confirms that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against it's own people. The United States intelligence services, Israeli intelligence services, European Intelligence ( Especially Germany's new contribution to satellite imagery), The Human Rights Watch,ect are all on the same page that the Syrian government used chemical weapons. They all confirm that satellite imagery shows that rockets were launched from government controlled territory to rebel controlled territory.
Precisely because obama doesn't want to go to war with Syria!
He wants to lob some rockets in country in a place where they will do no harm and call the red line threat he made and then said he didn't make, an item for his resume to demonstrate his prowess.
He doesn't want regime change.
He doesn't want to hit the gas storage facilities for fear of causing more harm than good.
Who in their right mind would follow a commander in chief who gave an order, then claimed he never gave that order?????????????????????????
Obama is not a leader and everyone knows it except his rabid supporters who got free obamaphones, exemptions from obamacare and food stamps.
How is egypt intevention working out?
Iraq is now a satellite of Iran.
AQ, one flavor of islamic terrorism is alive and well.
Libya is the crown jewel where Obama pulled a fast and furious act to arm the bad guys with our best armaments.
Maybe Iceland or Norway will work out. Oh wait, Iceland wanted to give shelter to Snowden.
In defense of Truman, US forces were attacked by North Korean forces in August 1950. We were pushed 140 miles south of the 38th parallel to the port city of Pusan. Had Truman not acted, 140,000 troops would have been pushed into the sea.
On the other hand, had Truman not given the French $80 billion in WW II military surplus to aid their efforts in Veitnam, then Eisenhower would not have had to send military advisers, and JFK would not have ramped up the number of troops from 2,000 to 20,000 in just three years, and LBJ would not have faked the Gulf of Tonkin attack in order to ramp up the number of troops in Vietnam to 512,000 by 1968.
Nevertheless, Truman did the right thing in his decision to support our troops in South Korea. Truman could have unified the Korean peninsula, had he been willing to stand up against the Chinese. However, he decided to revert to the original 38th parallel and "hold the line." This became known as "The Truman Doctrine", or the policy of "containment." Were we no longer fight to win, but only to "hold the line." That policy is what ultimately led to Vietnam. We where never in Vietnam to win, only to "hold the line."
Truman's State Dept. released a document in 1949/50 before the war started showing South Korea outside our area of defense and concern. Wham...North Korea attacked. Prior to the war 46-50, Truman tried to do away with the USMC and really downsized the military to almost nothing. He has a lot of blood on his hands by sending our troops into the war that were barely able to shoot straight let alone go to war. Had we pulled out of Korea and let it fall to the Communists might not have been a good thing, but still, some 30,000 dead GI's was a bad thing too.
Why did we support France in Vietnam is tied to trying to get the French onboard with Nato. But the French being the French we never should have trusted them. They earned their defeat in Vietnam.
Ike kept Vietnam at arms distance and had no desire to send more than the 500 advisers he had there. A smart move on his part.
JFK went "big" into Vietnam trying to act tough against the Communists after he got his ass handed to him with his failed Cuba invasion. Which is odd since he visited South Vietnam in the early 1950's and was against the war at that time. But his ego got the best of him. His second biggest mistake was to give the green light to kill President Diem. That doomed the fate of South Vietnam.
LBJ was a thug that always thought he could bully or deal his way though life. He followed the JFK Doctrine in Vietnam and went even bigger. Of course, he kept JFK's advisers which was a huge mistake for him.
There is discussion that we won in Vietnam by 73. The Viet Cong were pretty well beaten but we allowed the North to keep forces in the South. Big mistake. Nixon/Kissinger/America wanted out but still I think we should have pushed for a poison pill fall back position. "If the North invades after we leave the North will be banned from doing any business, exchange, etc...with the USA for 100 years. It would not have stopped the invasion, but would have prevented any trade with Vietnam like we now see. Not a big deal, but still a stick in the eye of the Communists.
During the early 1980's I was in the Navy and we picked up about 1100 boat people from South Vietnam. Many were former officers in the ARVN and civil servants, teachers, doctors etc... They had some interesting first hand accounts what happened in 1975-1981 before they escaped. Mass executions, prison, beatings etc...of former ARVN, Civil servants, teachers, police etc....too bad Hollywood never made a movie about that!
In a way we have continued with JFK's Doctrine for 50 some years. It is too bad we have not moved away from it and towards a "Swiss or Japanese" style foreign policy.
What I find most destructive is that Obama keeps arming these rogue groups, even though they answer to Al-Qaeda and are exterminating Christians in Syria. Meanwhile the Syrian government was destroying these terrorist links that Obama is accommodating.
Who are "the good guys" in Syria? These terrorists are not moderate and I wouldn't call them rebels any more than the 9/11 hijackers or Timothy McVeigh or Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are rebels.
No it's not. There is no clear good guy in the Syrian Civil War. Assad is a tyrant, but he has also been very tolerant of the Christian minority probably because the Alawite branch of Shia Islam is also a theological minority in Syria. The evidence against Assad's government regarding the chemical weapons attack is very shady and there is a probability that it was someone with the rebels who armed that weapon.
What I find most destructive is that Obama keeps arming these rogue groups, even though they answer to Al-Qaeda and are exterminating Christians in Syria. Meanwhile the Syrian government was destroying these terrorist links that Obama is accommodating.
Who are "the good guys" in Syria? These terrorists are not moderate and I wouldn't call them rebels any more than the 9/11 hijackers or Timothy McVeigh or Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are rebels.
The rebels being armed by the administration are the Free Syrian army. The Free Syrian Army is composed of secular, moderate Syrians who deserted from the Syrian Army and civilians who want Assad out after 43 years of dictatorship. The ISIS, which is the Al Qaeda rebels, declared open warfare on the Free Syrian Army on Sept. 13th, 2013, so there is no cooperation between the two.
The United States has not supplied weapons now or in the past to Al Qaeda forces in Syria. The United States has no intention of supplying arms to any rebels affiliated with Al Qaeda in the future.
Thought I'd nip this recurring piece of right wing dis-information in the bud. It seems to be the chief talking point for the right wing tea party, Obama haters lately concerning the overwhelming victory the president achieved in regards to Syrian Chemical Weapons.
In addition, it was Al Nusra, an Al Qaeda terrorist group who committed the acts in Maaloula.
The rebels who took over the city are associated with the al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-associated Islamist group. .
Truman's State Dept. released a document in 1949/50 before the war started showing South Korea outside our area of defense and concern. Wham...North Korea attacked. Prior to the war 46-50, Truman tried to do away with the USMC and really downsized the military to almost nothing. He has a lot of blood on his hands by sending our troops into the war that were barely able to shoot straight let alone go to war. Had we pulled out of Korea and let it fall to the Communists might not have been a good thing, but still, some 30,000 dead GI's was a bad thing too.
Considering that by the end of WWII the US military was greater than five million, I can certainly understand the need to downsize the military. Even if it was just reduced to today's standards that would be a 75% reduction. I can also understand that some might find that to be "almost nothing." However, the American people had made a great many sacrifices to ensure a victory as quickly as possible. The cost of a war-time federal government, spending well beyond collected revenues, could not continue.
Truman also had to contend with a Republican controlled Congress. In just two years after the end of WWII, the GOP controlled Congress showed a surplus, which lasted until 1950 and the beginning of the Korean war.
I understand that Truman did not really want US troops in Korea, but as the sponsor of the newly created UN, he had to give it some credibility. The kind of credibility that could only have been provided by the US at that time. The UN was barely two years old by the time the North Korean's attacked, and nobody saw it coming.
Once North Korea attacked US forces, it no longer matters what the President may have wanted or not wanted, the President must respond.
Despite the reduction in US forces, there were still a large number of WWII vets. It only took us five months to defeat the North Koreans. By Thanksgiving 1950 everyone was talking about being home for Christmas. That is when the Chinese got involved. Not without warning, I might add. By bombing the bridges over the Yalu River MacArthur gave the Chinese "casus belli." That changed everything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by totsuka
Why did we support France in Vietnam is tied to trying to get the French onboard with Nato. But the French being the French we never should have trusted them. They earned their defeat in Vietnam.
Ike kept Vietnam at arms distance and had no desire to send more than the 500 advisers he had there. A smart move on his part.
I do not disagree with you in regard to the French and our involvement in Vietnam, however, by 1960, the last year Eisenhower was President, there were 2,000 "military advisers" in Vietnam. Granted, JFK increased that by a factor of ten in just three years, but Eisenhower did not limit the number of advisers to just 500.
Quote:
Originally Posted by totsuka
JFK went "big" into Vietnam trying to act tough against the Communists after he got his ass handed to him with his failed Cuba invasion. Which is odd since he visited South Vietnam in the early 1950's and was against the war at that time. But his ego got the best of him. His second biggest mistake was to give the green light to kill President Diem. That doomed the fate of South Vietnam.
LBJ was a thug that always thought he could bully or deal his way though life. He followed the JFK Doctrine in Vietnam and went even bigger. Of course, he kept JFK's advisers which was a huge mistake for him.
JFK was implementing the exact same doctrine that Eisenhower followed and that Truman created, in regard to Vietnam - the policy of containment. Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ had absolutely no interest in defeating communism, just "hold the line." The US could have swept through Vietnam just as easily as it swept through Italy, France, and Germany, but the purpose for being in Vietnam was not to win. Hence the flaw in the Truman Doctrine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by totsuka
There is discussion that we won in Vietnam by 73. The Viet Cong were pretty well beaten but we allowed the North to keep forces in the South. Big mistake. Nixon/Kissinger/America wanted out but still I think we should have pushed for a poison pill fall back position. "If the North invades after we leave the North will be banned from doing any business, exchange, etc...with the USA for 100 years. It would not have stopped the invasion, but would have prevented any trade with Vietnam like we now see. Not a big deal, but still a stick in the eye of the Communists.
During the early 1980's I was in the Navy and we picked up about 1100 boat people from South Vietnam. Many were former officers in the ARVN and civil servants, teachers, doctors etc... They had some interesting first hand accounts what happened in 1975-1981 before they escaped. Mass executions, prison, beatings etc...of former ARVN, Civil servants, teachers, police etc....too bad Hollywood never made a movie about that!
In a way we have continued with JFK's Doctrine for 50 some years. It is too bad we have not moved away from it and towards a "Swiss or Japanese" style foreign policy.
I was in the Marine Corps from 1972 to 1980, and I remember those days very well. It was not a good time to be in the military, and Carter only made it worse.
Last edited by Glitch; 09-30-2013 at 04:43 PM..
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