Viet Nam revisited...
Posted By: Observer on 2007-11-27
In Reply to: Charles Ferguson is a hero! - piglet
it is almost eery. The same kinds of mistakes were made going into Viet Nam...only we were taken there by a Democrat administration and kept there by the next one, also Democrat. Viet Nam started as a "regime change" backed by the US (sound familiar?) and SVN disintegrated into chaos shortly after the President was removed and executed (sound familiar?)....we didn't learn from Viet Nam, and that means BOTH sides. Mistakes in wars have been made on both sides. And if you are into body counts, VN was a great deal higher than Iraq. Shall we keep in mind that both Dem and Repub administrations have made less than stellar decisions? And we should also remember one thing about Viet Nam...we had not been attacked by communists on our own soil, and we went into that country to "stop the spread of communism." Before invading Iraq, we WERE attacked by terrorists on our own soil in a horrific way. That certainly is a very different climate than when we went into Viet Nam. I read the Iraq War resolution, and it does not give as a reason for use of force any known link between Hussein and 9-11, so all that tells me is that 40% of American believing Hussein was linked to 9-11 have not bothered to read the resolution. It does say that members of AL Qaeda were known to be in Iraq, and that was proven, there were Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in northern Iraq. That was proven to be true after we got there. The first thing on the list is failure to comply with UN sanctions and weapons inspectors. All that being said...do I believe mistakes were made going into Iraq? Yes. Do I think more mistakes were made after we got there. Yes, serious ones. Do I believe mistakes were made going into Viet Nam? You bet I do. Do I think more were made after we got there? Yes, serious ones. The situations are very, very similar. Point being...liberals/Democrats are just as capable, and in fact have, made mistakes in war. It happens. And in terms of loss of life...Iraq is small in comparison to Viet Nam. If you hold all parties equally responsible, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and their respective administrations should be right there with Bush.
Again, I am not a Bush apologist and am not defending the man or the mistakes. What I am saying is he is not the first one to do it, it had been done before by a Democratic administration to this country and to Viet Nam. While we are holding accountable, let's hold everyone accountable.
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More than endless, Viet Nam X 100
I am an army brat. What gets me is all the rebulicans, which I chose to call "pukes", support this idiot president. They are young, stupid, and swaded easily. Army recruitment has reached an all time low. I guarantee you, when their rich sons, grandsons, nephews, what ever have to go, they will get a hint about how stupid Dubya is. The draft will have to be reinstated soon, are you stupid pukes still gonna support this so called president when your son, grandson, daughter, has to go, your money will not protect them then. Yes you can keep them in college and avoid it for awhile, but one of your loved ones will die over there. Thank you Dubya, for getting us into an more worse situation than Viet Nam. Hey American Girl - how many purple hearts does your dad have - my dad has 5.
We saw it during Nam and the Viet Cong...
admitted it. They were all but ready to give up until Americans took to the streets and Hanoi Jane paid them a personal visit. Of course it emboldens them. Whenever the group of suicide bombers, pilots, whatever starts to get low, here comes Al Qaeda to trot out the Old Hippies Day video in DC....come on...did you see the footage? I can see Al Zawahiri standing at the scree with a pointer....*THIS is why we will WIN.* And you can see why zealots and even nonzealots would buy into it. Try using a little common sense and put yourself into the other guy's shoes. Knowing what you know about them...The only sign I saw that would aggravate them was the *9-11 was an inside job* sign.
The Viet Cong and the
radical extremist terrorists are horses of a different color. You lived in the Middle East. You should know a little bit about the Arab thought process. The mind set generally is that of an Islam-based life. They live their lives according to the Koran and I would say the majority are not the least bit concerned with anything other than Allah, their families, their religion. The illiteracy rate is still quite high which factors in as well. The Viet Cong on the other hand did not believe in any God. They were fueled by communism. Two completely different motivators. The Viet Cong also were congregated in one place, not all over the globe. They also were much more disciplined and not nearly as reactionary as the Arabic people are. You may be right about what happened after the war in Vietnam. I think Iraq is a completely different scenario. And Iraq is just someplace they are fighting. The jihad can go on anywhere and it does. It is just a different ballgame all together. Our military approach to it, however, has been the same which is the reason I think the U.S. is failing in Iraq. This enemy cannot be approached in the same way that Germany or Vietnam was. Its an ideology, not a place and we need to be out of there and focus on another approach to the threat.
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