Posted on 01/22/2007 6:51:58 AM PST by kellynla
I always felt we were winning after Tet and it was given away by Kissinger.
They were the most pathetic, disgusting excuses for humans I had run into up to that time in my life.
sow's ear/silk purse
: )
How ya been, smooth. I've been missin' ya.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
The war on Terror will not be lost by the United States, not here not anywhere else.
Worst case is the Democrat/Socialists cause the US to leave Iraq before the time is right and not take care of Iran. But John Edwards said today that Iran is the most important issue facing the US.
But back to my point.
If they make us leave before the time is right that means that we will be attacked here at home again by the terrorists.
Then Americans will really get wacked at the Democrat/Socialists.
As they already do not really trust them on issues of our security.
So it will only mean that more Americans will die here at home and around the world before the nitwits in America wake the f up.
IMHO.
I wasn't trying to say the domino theory/reality was marginal. I was just making a point that there were other major strategic concerns with a loss in Viet Nam and that it was not just a "civil war" of reunification or local dominance of the area but had far greater ripples.
Nanster, you had better be giving your rose-colored glasses a bit of a wipe. While it is true that under the communists of the North, some SOME semblance of normal life returned to VietNam, the place is still largely one of the great hellholes of socialism; like Cuba, without the charm.
How quickly you have forgotten the many thousands still in prison, or the many hundreds of thousands marginalized and held in inferior positions literally outside of society after years in "Re-education Camps." Not to mention the 10 Million dead in Cambodia's Holocaust, a direct result of our pull-out from VietNam before the job was done. Not to mention the persecution of Christians, and the continuing murderous harassment of ethnic minorities like the Hmong.
Was there then, have been there since. Don't believe what you read in the NYT. VietNam is a harsh and primitive police state.
Americans? You mean those people who voted in Bill Clinton? Twice? Or do you mean those people who gave John Kerry 50% of their votes, after they gave Al Gore 50% of their votes? Or do you mean those people who are polling against the President in the time of a global war against Islam and it's terrorist arm?
Americans? Do you refer to those sloppy pudge-bottomed Wal-Mart shoppers who really do not seem to give a crap that there are several hundred million enemies out there who want to see them and their children dead, or at best, converted or enslaved?
So it will only mean that more Americans will die here at home and around the world before the nitwits in America wake the f up.
Where is it written that they have to wake up?
Under Eisenhower, our Advisory Group had a rather low profile, but in concert with the South Vietnamese, was having a very real impact on the Viet Cong. Kennedy upped the ante because I believe he smelled glory as an anti-communist warrior at very little cost. He escalated.
He forgot the other team could escalate as well. I think, after deploying two divisions, he was giving signs of cutting and running. I distinvtly remember his speeches in which he said that "...if the VietNamese really wanted a free and independent country, they would have to fight for it themselves!" (I paraphrase)
Kennedy, like Clinton, was not a hard-working president. He let his left-wing brain trust run his show, while he played. Left-wing sonzabitches to a man, they did more damage to the country than any other gang since Roosevelt's Soviet Agents.
We should have bombed the living daylights out of Hanoi when Jane was there.
Thanks for the ping, freema.
The piece brings back memories, mostly bad. I wonder if there could be a relation by marriage. :-)
Bomber,if you persist in attacking the sacred memory of Saint John of Massachusetts, Virgin, Martyr, War Hero, and Champion of Civil Rights, I shall most certainly have to report you to Governor Baldacci as a dangerous heretic.
Mea culpa for oversimplifying a hell-hole, as you say. And everything is a matter of perspective. Mine comes from talking with one young lady who was a refugee at 17, whose family put her on a boat with her 10 yr old sister. Both survived to come to Canada and make lives for themselves. She has returned to Vietnam since, to see her family, and she found things much, much better. But it's all a matter of comparison. If you have lost everything, and then been given even a little bit back, the world looks better. But indeed you are right -- so much hell. Extrapolate that to our present situation, and there's the argument for not pulling out.
.
Thank you for your kindness & ping.
Please see Post No. 33.
AR
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Nan, the poor girl was there as a visitor. Had she anything bad to say upon her return to the West, it would not have gone well for those relatives still in country. Had she caused any "discomfort" to officialdom while she was there, she might very well have been arrested. It has happened.
BTW, did you know that since we left, there was a short, sharp "border war" with the CHICOM, and that there is smoldering rebellion and a great deal of small-scale guerilla warfare going on along the Laotian border? A bit too much going on to call "peaceful!"
The Failure in Vietnam, by which I mean the collapse of South Vietnam, was owing to the fall of Nixon from power. The North Vietnamese won in a walk because (1) Congress cut off aid to the South and (2) the B-51s were held back when the North Vietnamese sent their armored columns into the South.
Creighton Abrams won the war; the Democrats kicked it away.
Did you read that book about Adams, "A Better War?"
I concur with you.
I'd also add that Michael Lind, despite being a liberal, wrote a pretty good book on the subject.
And in spite of the flaws in its conclusions, Bright Shining Lie is still a remarkable book because of the quality of the narrative, the compelling JP Vann biography and the fact that Sheehan himself can't deny the greater successes of the US in the later stages of the war.
I have all three in my library. (My father was also in the Army in Vietnam 70-71.
You oversimplify also. Vietnam IS much improved from its state even 10 years ago and this was well-known to both those who had been back and financiers who'd traveled the country AND philanthropists. No, it's not "Freedomland" but it's getting better and more capitalism will lead to greater political liberalization.
As for the Cambodian Holocaust, you drastically overstate the numbers. I believe there were only 8 million Cambodians at the time and 1-3 million of them were killed. That's an ENORMOUS percentage of the population, probably the highest of all time. BUT it's not 10 million. We should strive to be accurate as much as possible. Perhaps it was just a type on your part. IF so, my mistake for beating it like a rug.
It may already be to late.
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