It doesn't sound like you ever talked to any Americans at the time who were in Vietnam during that era. May I ask how old you were in 1973? The S. Vietnamese puppet government was so corrupt and abusive it couldn't protect itself, much less the citizenry, those 'gooks' who sided more with the VC than Americans. Maybe you could list some of the democratic elections in S. Vietnam.

Given that 70% of Iraqis approve of attacks on Americans, want the US out of Iraq and Maliki's corrupt puppet government is running death squads to eliminate political and minority ethnic opposition, I see the same circumstances in Iraq.

Nixon ran for office and won on a primary campaign plank of getting the US out of Vietnam, which is contrary to your partisan statement.

Just stand back and think a little about what you are saying.

You honestly think that in 1956 this was not what the Vietnamese were desperately trying to acheive after kicking out the French?

You think the best option they had to acheive this was via an increasingly militaristic invasion of the south of Vietnam by U.S. troops who then managed to kill 1,200,000 citizens?

Again the U.S. acheived its goals in Vietnam - it completely removed for the forseeable future any possibility that Vietnam would follow its own model of development independantly of Soviet or U.S. pressure.

A resource rich country such as Vietnam developing on independant lines and using its own resources for the benefit of its own people is a dangerous thing for U.S. business interests particularly when other countries in the region are likely to follow suit.

Why do you think the U.S. currently hates Venezueala so much? My God the people their have the nerve to control their own resources, resist U.S pressure and then spend the monies on social programs for the poor. They are not supposed to do that - they are supposed to sell you guys their resources cheaply and use the profits to maintain an elite of docile American lovers to run the country.

I can see the psychological benefits to yourself of believing a world model where the U.S. strives bravely out into a troubled world and innocently tries to help other countries to the path of freedom and democracy.

Unfortunately it bears absolutely no relationship to reality.

Sure. Why not? My kid isn't dumb enough to smash them against rocks, thinking them to be canned food rations.

Haha...I managed to encapsulate most of the Lefty contributions to just about any discussion on this board into a single line of text, and I am the "stereotype"? That's rich! You slay me, Alice.

The "end [of] the fighting" is merely a side benefit of victory, but not a goal unto itself...unless you're the one getting your ass kicked and are looking to surrender, in defeat of course.

Our certain defeat (any war, any time) is only a "fact" in the America-hating leftist [semblance of a] mind.

That war could have been won relatively quickly if we got the political weenies out of the day-to-day war decisioning process, jailed some treasonous people, controlled the media properly, and bombed the living shit out of them as we had done to great effect in the past.

Of course, the whole mess could have been avoided if Truman didn't appease the French by turning away Minh in the late 1940's. Wow...French...Democrat...what a recipe for failure.

The Vietnam-Iraq correlation does not exist, no matter how much the unwashed aging hippie liberal douchebags wish for it...and have been wishing for it from [before] the start.

Nixon gave winning the war a shot before pulling out...but he was handed an absolute clusterfuck, courtesy of the previous two administrations. Still should have hung in there. Fuck Cronkite.

The only thing the Democrats got for their efforts were "Super Delegates", for which they are paying the price, now.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

Quote:
Doesn't sound like your kid is living under military occupation or threat of same slowly starving to death.

The way you revise history, view contemporary events and worship political partisanship is quite a fantasy world.

Yep. You sure seem to enjoy fulfilling the stereotype.

Oh, look, it gets even worse:


So much unpleasantness. So little grip on reality.

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"Take me back to the way life's never been."

I disagree. Communism is what tried to take over vietnam and is what is trying to take over Venezuela. You may not have notice the rioting going on there. Obvisouly the people dont want it. Yet, the govt controls the military and uses it to control the people, much like in Vietnam. All you have to do is read the quotes from the leaders, look at the human rights abuses, look at the theft of private property by the govt.

This is blatantly false. The numbers were nowhere near that, although your vietnames desperatley trying to achive democracy through re-education camps did manage to kill several hundred thousand after we left.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

You're absolutely right. Vietnamese civilian deaths, north and south, were about 2 million.

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Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

--Hunter S. Thompson

Correct. For those who don't like Vietnam War revisionist history often presented on public forums, or weren't around during that period here's a nicely done summary of Vietnam's post ww2 fight against colonialism:

The Vietnam War

That $2.6-billion the US gave France from 1945-1956 in their attempt to retain their colony by force in 2007 dollars would be:

CPI - $29-billion
As a % of GDP - $161-billion

Which of these...

A) B) C) ...is the most competent reply to what I typed before?

The correct answer is "C". At least it contains some sort of information, however trivial.

Try this on for size: How was what I stated "revisionist" or "[not based upon] reality"? I submit that those are descriptions most suited for people of the left and that your replies offered nothing substantive.

This first lesson is free.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

You think that you're clever. But, that's what you get for thinking.

Let's start with this comment:

Now, as you can see, this is just bullshit. It's just another pathetic attempt to draw out an inappropriate response. It has no basis in reality.

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"Take me back to the way life's never been."

I know of no conservatives that have declared Iraq "unwinnable". Yes, some have declared it a huge waste of time/money/lives, but those are based upon isolationist tendencies, not an ingrained loathing, distrust, and underestimation of my country. You may manage to find some spineless RINO whose tenure is in jeopardy because of the makeup of their district, so they've traded their political courage for a few more years on the Hill. They would be the exception that proves the rule.

Likewise, Vietnam. It wasn't the Young Republicans out there dropping acid and setting flags aflame with their draft cards.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

And, of course, none of this provides any evidence that the left "hates America," or that we on the left believe that "any war, any time" is unwinnable. And, of course, you seem to always insert an insult. Why can't you try to be at least a little bit civil?

And, after that, you could actually try to address the posts!




Edit:

Oh, and for the record, my hippie mom never dropped acid. She never burned her bra. She did, however, volunteer for the USO. She had many friends who were soldiers, and she lost several of them in Vietnam.

But, funny how reality destroys those gross generalizations you seem to like so much.

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"Take me back to the way life's never been."

Diagramming is fun for the whole family!

Yeah, burning flags and calling our own leaders and/or troops war criminals is the hallmark of true patriotism! Having your talking points match those of our enemy is just an expression of "tough love"!

I suppose I can see how you might read what I wrote and incorrectly interpret it.

This --> "Our certain defeat (any war, any time) is only a 'fact' in the America-hating leftist [semblance of a] mind."

Means --> "That America is certain to lose this war or any other war of which you can recall or conceive - past, present, or future - is something factual only to somebody who hates my country." + "My country is hated by a healthy portion of the left." Using the symmetric and transitive properties of stuff, in general, you arrive at my original statement.

Does not mean --> "The left (or anybody else), in general, believes no war, at any time, is 'winnable'." Only a slight percentage of the Rabid Left are delusional enough to actually subscribe to that "war/violence solves nothing" bullshit.

I would not call the left to which I am referring "rational", "responsible", or "civil". I am not compelled to be nice to them.

I did. You and your friend, there, did not. I will not reiterate for a third time the points you have not addressed.

I don't care if your mom is Phyllis Schlafly. My generalizations apply, um, in general. Nowhere did I suggest that you had to be a card carrying member of the group to which I am referring to make my point --> It wasn't the Young Republicans out there dropping acid and setting flags aflame with their draft cards.

It is quite possible object to any given war, as an entity unto itself, without hating your country and, often, cheering on defeat. The vocal left has yet to figure out a way to do this, however.

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"Compassionate Conservatism"?!?! That is a stupid phrase. Conservatism is inherently compassionate. It is liberalism that is cruel for the sake of maintaining a constituency.

Actually, all your generalizations do is demonstrate your ignorance, and your disdain for people that you don't understand.

It's too bad that some spend so much energy judging others instead of trying to understand them.

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"Take me back to the way life's never been."

You consider an attempt to assist an allied government against an insurgency to be equatable to an attempt to 'conquer Vietnam'?

How so?

And Korea had fought for independence from outside powers for at least 50 years. That didn't stop an ad hoc division of the country from ultimately transforming into a permanent arrangement.

Up until at least Diem's assassination, there was a real chance that a similar situation would take hold in Vietnam.