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And some people don't want to do anything but find fault with America constantly over Vietnam.
Save your "How dare you criticize America!" tripe. It's a false insinuation towards me, and it's an intellectually lazy avoidance of actually making an intelligent response.
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We learned a lot more than you might realize from Vietnam. At least the military did. I can't say as much for the civilian command structure.
So we failed in the mission, pissed away 50,000+ lives and trillions of dollars... but we got a lot of R&D and training, so you figure it was a wise endeavor?
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But the USA did not do wrong in coming to the aid of South Vietnam per se. We had a treaty obligation and... I'm sorry, but the North Vietnamese had no right to forcibly inflict communism on the South. Anymore than North Korea did when it attempted to conquer South Korea.
It's not a matter of right and wrong but a matter of national interest. Costs and benefits. That governs whether or not we fight wars, and it is absurdly naive to think otherwise (though you've certainly made a case for the effectiveness of propaganda).
The tragedy of the ill-advised mission in Vietnam is only compounded by the historical revisionists for whom it is politically incorrect to dare suggest the United States made a poor strategic decision by getting involved as it did, and who are bound and determined to ignore the lessons provided by the tragedy.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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People who fought in wars and lost friends usually can never admit that the war was wrong. I understand that, it is something for other people to admit so future mistakes aren't made. You must remember that war is great for the economy and often wars are started to help the economy and distract voters from other issues.
Because at this point it doesn't matter. All that really matters is our foreign policy has been a disaster over the past 50 years and has cost a fortune in blood and treasure. It's up to the people to stop such bad decisions from happening in the first place. Our elected "leaders" always have and always will use war as a political game. Until the people wake up to this atrocity it wont stop.
The problem with admitting defeat in Vietnam is that it would end up costing a lot of people a lot of money.
The current situation in the USA - warned about by Ike - is that we are largely run by the Military-Industrial-Complex...with the addition of a new one, the Medical complex (taking more $$ from suffering than all the MIC put together).
If our security was about true security it would be a lot different. But too much of it has to do with jobs and careers.
As to WWII, no one with any historical chops can deny that the USA "Arsenal of Democracy" won the war. We supplied the Brits, the Soviets and any others who needed to fight off the dictators. Without American arms the Soviets COULD have lost their heartland and that would have been that. It would have been likely that we'd have made peace with Hitler after that point because with Soviet resources (raw materials), he'd have been tough to beat.
While the Soviets no doubt were brave and well-led (a pistol or machine gun at the backs of charging soldiers did wonders), I really don't think they could have kept it up without help from the USA.
No - the brits and americans didn't provide the majority of stuff..or even close...but they did provide the "straws that broke the camels back" just at the right time. No student of conflict can deny that sometimes a 10% addition of armour, planes, etc. at the right time can turn the tide.
The British military lost almost as many men fighting WWII as did America, and did so coming from a much smaller population.
Actually, Vietnam was a success...once one realizes the actual political intent.
The Vietnam war was never about the Vietnamese. The political intent was to halt Soviet successes in the Third World. The so-called "Domino Theory" was never simply regarding contiguous countries, but was about the momentum of Soviet success around the world. The intent of the US was to stop the Soviet momentum, and Vietnam was where that line was drawn.
And it did work. It did stop Soviet momentum in the Third World, costing the Soviets heavily.
It can be argued whether it was worth the US blood and fortune, but it did work.
I'm sorry, but the North Vietnamese had no right to forcibly inflict communism on the South.
The U.S. had no right to back the Diem government denial of the Vietnamese people the right to decide what kind of government they wanted in free elections!
Yes, I'm sorry for leaving them out. I have visited the Allied War cemeteries in and near Kanchanaburi, Thailand; hiked down to the railroad cuts made by forced POW labor...difficult images to erase.
I could say that we learned never to trust our government, but on second thought, we've pretty much been "pissing away" the lives of our young men at a relatively steady clip, for ill-defined purposes, since Vietnam. Mostly, this has been done to burnish -- or redeem -- the reputations of our "leaders".
Our troops are currently being ordered to simultaneously fight bad guys, institute social change, and establish democratic ideals, in a variety of locations in the Islamic world -- a world which sympathizes with our enemies, has nothing but contempt for our society, and feels no interest in democratic institutions.
In the sense that this is an impossible cluster of missions, designed by cowardly and ignorant bureaucrats who know nothing of combat, Islam, or history, little has changed on the leadership level since Vietnam. No wait -- our politicians got rid of the draft. Now they can sacrifice people they don't don't know or care about. And none of their children need risk being killed or maimed.
There is one significant change since the Vietnam era, though. The politicians need not fear anti-war protestors. With no draft, the young and noisy crowd is at no risk of serving. Instead, they can concern themselves with creating safe spaces on campus and avoiding trigger words that make them anxious.
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