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All of these little undeclared, half-assed wars are a disaster. War is serious business, and in my opinion, it should be engaged in no-holds-barred as if survival depended on it, or not at all.
I agree 100% and I also agree with Trump saying he will not micromanage the military.
I don't recall or believe the US military lost a singe military battle during the Vietnam war. What beat us was the inability of both the America people and the politicians in Washington to have the courage to allow the military to run the war and to win.
If the military had a free hand I believe the war would have ended after about two years with three quarters less in the lost of lives. Still not good but we did have an obligation set forth by the SEATO treaties.
You're completely wrong, and anyone who knows anything about that war knows this. Robert McNamara lied when he kept saying we would win. He admitted this. Gen. Westmoreland knew little or nothing about Vietnam when he was made supreme commander. Journalists who had been in the country for 10 years knew far more about the country and Westmoreland demonized them in the same fashion that Trump is doing it today.
America is not a military dictatorship..................yet. All our wars are controlled by politicians.
No they weren't. WWI and II were not controlled by politicians. Not until the Korea conflict was the Military ham stringed. Vietnam was a cluster f....k and the US military was not in charge.
At least in the first Iraqi invasion the Generals were given a freer hand but Bush the Elder pulled the military out before they totally destroyed Iraq's ability to come back militarily. That was the reason for the second Iraqi invasion. The military was again hand stringed by the bad rules of engagement which has prolonged that war continuing now.
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In America, military force is just one tool in the diplomatic tool box. War is just an extreme extension of diplomacy. Our constitution dictates that elected representatives of the people will decide how, where and when to conduct a war against another nation.
Unfortunately that is why wars fought with that in mind is why they last so long with a lot of unnecessary deaths.
I think the uneducated confuse war with genocide. You can commit genocide and kill every person in the country. Is that what you mean? Is that winning the war? Explain. Because I am offended by people who say that my relatives who fought and died for the past wars were just "playing around". USA doesn't do genocide.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives in places like Dresden Germany, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo Japan. But some times genocide can end war and save lives on both side as demonstrated by the A-bombs dropped in Japan.
Has there been a country we've attacked/intervened (vs retaliated) that's turned out well? Korea? Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Our batting average hasn't been that good, and our inability to predict how much money, lives, years they'll take equally poor. Suggests we regularly don't know what we're getting ourselves into...
You should stick to checkers and let the smart people play chess. If you cannot see the strategic importance in that area you should just stop.
Obviously, Trump doesn't see the strategic importance of that region, either. If he did, he never would have canceled the TPP.
TPP was a mutual trade agreement between America and 11 other Asian nations that border the Pacific Rim. With TPP they would have aligned with America over the rising tide of China. It did not include China specifically because we wanted to have economic clout in Asia with a multinational economic treaty. Now, those nations are looking to China as their big brother, instead of us.
Trump squandered away that part of the world for America just to impress a bunch of out of work coal miners in appalachia whose jobs are still, never coming back.
You're completely wrong, and anyone who knows anything about that war knows this. Robert McNamara lied when he kept saying we would win. He admitted this. Gen. Westmoreland knew little or nothing about Vietnam when he was made supreme commander. Journalists who had been in the country for 10 years knew far more about the country and Westmoreland demonized them in the same fashion that Trump is doing it today.
You believe the lies.
I was drafted during the early years of that war.
What would you think Westmoreland would say..'We can't win but lets soldier on'.
So you don't have any evidence about any military battle that the US lost in Vietnam? I thought not. You just move on to a straw man argument.
The Biggest liar of the Vietnam war was the democratic president the one and only LBJ and his Gulf of Tonkin lie.
Obviously, Trump doesn't see the strategic importance of that region, either. If he did, he never would have canceled the TPP.
TPP was a mutual trade agreement between America and 11 other Asian nations that border the Pacific Rim. With TPP they would have aligned with America over the rising tide of China. It did not include China specifically because we wanted to have economic clout in Asia with a multinational economic treaty. Now, those nations are looking to China as their big brother, instead of us.
Trump squandered away that part of the world for America just to impress a bunch of out of work coal miners in appalachia whose jobs are still, never coming back.
Yep. Pulling out of the TPP was a major mistake. Or to put it in Trumpese--a total disaster, okay?
No they weren't. WWI and II were not controlled by politicians. Not until the Korea conflict was the Military ham stringed. Vietnam was a cluster f....k and the US military was not in charge.
At least in the first Iraqi invasion the Generals were given a freer hand but Bush the Elder pulled the military out before they totally destroyed Iraq's ability to come back militarily. That was the reason for the second Iraqi invasion. The military was again hand stringed by the bad rules of engagement which has prolonged that war continuing now.
Unfortunately that is why wars fought with that in mind is why they last so long with a lot of unnecessary deaths.
What???????? A bunch of revisionist history on your part. You should study WWI a little. WWII was a multinational effort of enormous proportions. All Strategy was approved by the leaders of the nations involved. All Tactics were decided at the military command level. Same as it was in vietnam, Korea, Europe, Russia, Etc.
Do you know the difference between Strategy and Tactics? The government decides the objectives and strategy. The Military decides what tactics to use to carry out the strategy and achieve the objective of the national leadership.
With the exception of a military dictatorship, this is how it's universally done.
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