how did the vietnam war end? what would end the war in Iraq??

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: SickBeast
It wasn't a setup or bait.

It does, however, seem that the deaths you are referring to actually occured in Cambodia, and that the Vietnamese army actually invaded them to try and stop the killings.

Sorry for being overly sensitive - it's easy to step on a landmine in p&n.

I wasn't there but, in addition to the murders in Cambodia and Laos, I read that there was considerable cleansing in the former South Vietnam.

I work with someone from Laos and she says that the worst thing that ever happened to her country was the carpet-bombing by the Americans using agent orange.

She says things still won't grow there to this day.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
As I recall the South Vietnamese government existed for quite a while after the US left.

Interesting what we individuals recall. I recall that the NV were at the gates of the embassy as the last helicopter took off to the awaiting carriers and that the rest of Saigon fell within a couple of days with very little resistance. I guess I'm going to do some research.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I work with someone from Laos and she says that the worst thing that ever happened to her country was the carpet-bombing by the Americans using agent orange.

She says things still won't grow there to this day.

Damn.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I work with someone from Laos and she says that the worst thing that ever happened to her country was the carpet-bombing by the Americans using agent orange.

Not to be picky (well, I guess it is picky), carpet bombing was/is done using b52's. I don't know what was used for the chemical spraying. There are a lot of US vets suffering from the effects of agent orange - one of the great cover-ups.

I saw a b52 in flight for the first time a couple of weeks ago at an airshow. It made two passes and was gone back to its base several states away. It only came down to ~1500 feet. The noise and exhaust was almost terrifying. I can't imagine what it would be like to be on the ground during an actual bombing run. I've read that this is the only thing the vietcong were afraid of.

 

[Lemon law]

The B-52 mainly bombed from high altitude. There were a lot of Sam sites in North Vietnam that made low altitude dangerous. But in terms of the US getting aggressive, there were times we were bombing 24/7 for weeks at a time. The B-52 was called the flying dump truck and thats what they did. Just covered an area many football fields long with bombs.
It can't have been too pleasant to be under one of those when they dumped. In the end we dumped more tonnage of bombs on the North than we did in all of ww2 with all military targets combined. Well over a million civilians died, and many of those in bombings.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: luv2liv
i just saw "across the universe." never liked the Beatles till now....
anyway, im really curious what would end the war in Iraq! how did the vietnam war ended?

The Vietnam war ended when the government's ability to propagandize for the war, when the honeymoon of the public thinking it was 'defending America from communism', was worn out by the countering forces eventually winning out. Those included some courageous liberal politicians who led the way while it was still politically risky to start the opposition, it includes Walter Cronkite who went to Viet Nam and came back and took a stand, it includes John Kerry who was a leader among veterans to tell the other side of the story.

Gradually, more and more people shifted against the war; techniquest like 'body counts' to 'show progress' eventually lost their luster, while stories like My Lai built opposition.

It took a long time. It took the President not running again, and his opponent Nixon running on a phony platform to 'end the war', when actually he expanded it - and quite possibly sabotaged LBJ's peace talks by promising the South Vietnamese government a better deal if they refused to cooperate with the talks. It took Nixon's secret expansion of the war into Cambodia, it took Kissinger's playing games that the US could with draw if there was a 2 or 3 year interval before the North took over, to save face, and that's what happened.

It became possible to end the war only after all those years, when the public was finally led strongly enough to where it was politically needed to end the war, and then, with some more years to pretend the US did not lose the war, it could finally be over - along with all the blame in conventional political lines, i.e., the right-wing blaming the left wing for 'losing the war' and repeating their pet causes, e.g., the military needs to be even stronger with less oversight from the public, a freer hand in conducting war.

So what would it take to end the Iraq war? Perhaps for the anti-war leadership to get the public to the point that it's politically necessary to end it.

Coming up with some scheme like Kissinger did that saves face for the powers that are needing to defend the war.

For example, a scheme whereby the Iraqi government asks the US to leave - possibly as part of a plan where the US gives them a lot of money or other aid to do so.

Then, the US can leave saying that all along it's been about sovereignity for the Iraqis, and wash its hands of any fallout.

But as long as Bush is in power, that can't really happen, because they aren't about wanting to end the war.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: tweaker2
those of us who were preoccupied with trying to stay alive long enough to make it out of the hellhole that our politicians created there didn't much give a rat's ass about the hippies and the protests and what that silly hanoi jane was doing on any given weekend until we got shipped home. we did take notice though of how stupid it was to continuously grab some turf by day and give it all back when the sun went down. or how amazing it was that what we saw on the ground never really mattered to the white shirts that were calling all the shots unless it had anything to do with the body count. but we did our job anyway. we kicked charlie's ass whenever they came out of the holes they were hiding in. at our level, it's all that really mattered.

Translation:

You chose to be a murderer and travel thousands of miles to kill innocent people fighting for their own liberty, and risk your life, based on delusions of ideology and/or ignorance.

You were the British soldier over killing the American revolutionary for King Lyndon or Richard.

it's the politicans and their lack of worldly skills that created the vietnam experience just as it's now happening in iraq. the lack of historical continuity brought on by the near-sighted, short-term and exclusive agendas that the current administration is pursuing just makes things even worse for the nation as whole.

I'd say it's more about the narrow interests defeating the broader interests of the ignorant American public.

Lyndon Johnson needed Vietnam for shallow political reasons, as did the American right.

What was George Bush's presidency going to be about, if not war? His approval was plummeting; how was he going to get his tax cuts passed, get re-elected, without it?

The American people wearied of war after Viet Nam - for awhile, and then were ready for more.

Or as one person put it:

War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president?s popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns.

~Chaz Bufe

Or, one other quote from before our nation was created:

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

About the quote: from "The Spirit of Laws" (1748)

and hey, i do agree that in that completely different world on the home front, the protests and the negative media exposure coming out of 'nam really did have a lot of effect on the course of the war, but that didn't really matter to me until alot of us got older and a wee bit wiser.

Is that praise for the opposition?


[/quote]

 

[Craig234]

And oh, here's how the Vietnam war was ended before it started:

Because JFK, who won with 0.1% of the popular vote, refused to start it with any actual combat troops, while Nixon would have happily done so.

And here's how the Iraq war could have been ended: by having 500 people in Florida switch their vote to Gore in 2000 (or fix any of the several things that stole his votes).

Why did I post this? Because it's a reminder for people to note the effect of the elections. It's not just 'who do you want to have a beer with'. Trillions on the war alone over that vote.

 

[tweaker2]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: tweaker2
those of us who were preoccupied with trying to stay alive long enough to make it out of the hellhole that our politicians created there didn't much give a rat's ass about the hippies and the protests and what that silly hanoi jane was doing on any given weekend until we got shipped home. we did take notice though of how stupid it was to continuously grab some turf by day and give it all back when the sun went down. or how amazing it was that what we saw on the ground never really mattered to the white shirts that were calling all the shots unless it had anything to do with the body count. but we did our job anyway. we kicked charlie's ass whenever they came out of the holes they were hiding in. at our level, it's all that really mattered.

Translation:

You chose to be a murderer and travel thousands of miles to kill innocent people fighting for their own liberty, and risk your life, based on delusions of ideology and/or ignorance.

You were the British soldier over killing the American revolutionary for King Lyndon or Richard.

it's the politicans and their lack of worldly skills that created the vietnam experience just as it's now happening in iraq. the lack of historical continuity brought on by the near-sighted, short-term and exclusive agendas that the current administration is pursuing just makes things even worse for the nation as whole.

I'd say it's more about the narrow interests defeating the broader interests of the ignorant American public.

Lyndon Johnson needed Vietnam for shallow political reasons, as did the American right.

What was George Bush's presidency going to be about, if not war? His approval was plummeting; how was he going to get his tax cuts passed, get re-elected, without it?

The American people wearied of war after Viet Nam - for awhile, and then were ready for more.

Or as one person put it:

War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president?s popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns.

~Chaz Bufe

Or, one other quote from before our nation was created:

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

About the quote: from "The Spirit of Laws" (1748)

and hey, i do agree that in that completely different world on the home front, the protests and the negative media exposure coming out of 'nam really did have a lot of effect on the course of the war, but that didn't really matter to me until alot of us got older and a wee bit wiser.

Is that praise for the opposition?

[/quote]

on your first quote, i was drafted and didn't want to go to jail or canada. in my mind's eye, at that young age, i felt the right thing to do was to serve my time and get out and go to college. the way i was brought up, i, and all the friends in the neighborhood that i grew up with that got drafted along with me accepted the draft call as a fact of life and dealt with it as best we could. but yeah, i do recall some news reports of protesters screaming at returning servicemen as being child murderers and rapists and such. i can honestly say i never ever considered myself to be a murderer nor had any other person accused me of being one or thought of me as one because i served in 'nam until you just did.

but eh, water under the bridge and all that. i followed orders like a good little soldier should. i got my honorable discharge from active service and joined the reserves and then later the air guard and finally retired a few years back. each to his own eh?

i do agree with much of the rest of what you're mentioning as i look back at those years though.

on your last comment, it doesn't matter one way or the other to me if it sounds like i was praising the opposition. i was just agreeing with something i thought was factual as far as i can recall, and at my age, what with busted eardrums and tinnitus from proximate explosions and weapons firing etc., and recurring effects from shell concussion, and brain damage from a jeep accident i was in and other neat stuff like that, i don't even trust myself most of the time.

 

[SickBeast]

Why were the Viet Kongs called "Charlies"?

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I work with someone from Laos and she says that the worst thing that ever happened to her country was the carpet-bombing by the Americans using agent orange.

She says things still won't grow there to this day.

Damn.

In central Vietnam, you will be accosted by crowds of severely disfigured beggars. For me it was tough because they were so freaky looking that I blatantly stared away, making me feel awful but I just couldn't handle it. In Laos, there are houses made of old bombshells, sometimes old bombs. They are just laying around all over the place.

 

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Unfortunately, at least IMHO, its not going to be as easy to get out of Iraq as it was it was getting out of Vietnam.

Basically, both Vietnam's were way out in left field and amounted to more a proxy war struggle between the super powers of Russia and The USA. And as a domino theory strategy, the USA supposedly had to stop the spread of communism in South east Asia. And if we didn't stop it in S. Vietnam, all the rest of the neighboring countries would fall.
At the time, China was not the economic power it is now and was basically ignored. But China did set the ground rules by stating that if the US put boots on the ground to invade North Vietnam, China would come in on the side of North Vietnam. And since China had done the same in Korea, it was fresh in the military mind regarding what happened when the US went from liberating South Korea to invading North Korea. And as the USA and the UN topped the next hill in North Korea, surprise surprise, they found the entire Chinese army coming at them. An experience the USA was not willing to risk repeating in North Vietnam. But in the ground rules, it was permitted to attempt to bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age while we lost up to 300 troops per week in the South.

The gist of it is after years of making no headway, Nixon simply adopted the McGovern peace plan, renamed it peace with honor, we proclaimed yippee we won, and sailed home. The domino theory ended up being a crock of bull, Communism did not bag the lot, but it did end up destabilizing all the regional governments. And with Cambodia, the Vietnam war was one of the root causes of the killing fields of Cambodia. In the end analysis, Vietnam was a football to struggle over and the game needed the football. As soon as the game was over, no one wanted the football. And today Vietnam is still way out in left field as they struggle to join the global economy.

Iraq is not out there in left field and is coveted by everyone because of its oil. As it is, its an artificial country that never should have been because of all its ethnic divisions. And simply put together by the British after WW1 from the left over bits of the failed Ottoman empire. Iraq's Kurd's threaten the Turks, its Shias will tend to ally with Iran, and any Iraqi Iran alliance along Shia lines dangerously isolates Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia will not passively sit back and watch the Sunnis in Iraq get butchered in ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile everyone in the region hates Israel which hardly helps the USA. And after five years of Iraqi anarchy with no end in sight, no stable or predictable Iraq
seems to be emerging. As long as the US stays thereby bringing some order to the quagmire, the worse case fears of the regional governments will be held in check. The second the US leaves, every country in the region will want a piece of the corpse. And if nothing else, the motivation will be to prevent their neighbors from grabbing it first. And did I forget to mention the near by Persian Gulf? If the gets blockaded, we are talking instant world wide depression as the economy of most oil based economies will grand to a halt.

The lesson to be learned---be careful of what small man you pull out of the crowd to thrash thereby proving how tough you are. Some come from left field and others are right there in the center of thing. And some are like the main support beams in a building, cut those and everything falls down.

Can GWB pick em or what---it amounts to at least the bone head play of the century. We thrashed Iraq easily but now what? Fools went where angel fear to thread. And now we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Its going to take some very smart long term diplomacy to get out of this mess. The Condi Rice pretend Iran does not exist is not working.

Will have to wait and see if the American people have the decency to mandate the US administration for a pull out like it did in Vietnam. It is way too early to tell because the American populous have an oil addiction.

Don't be fooled by the spin doctor that the US involvement in Vietnam was to stop Communism. Oil was discovered by the French on the coast of Vietnam and test drilled (caped within months just before the fall of Saigon on Apr, 30, 1975) were done in Vung Tau, Phu Quoc, and Can Xa islands (Spratly Islands), and it was one of the many reasons that the US was involved in Vietnam.

If the US was such a great nation with honor reasoning to stop Communism and to do things for the greater good, it would have been in Cambodia (Campuchea) in the early mid 70s to stop Pol Pot from massacred several millions people in a country that had about 5.5 millions. Sad thing was that the US never own up to its responsible for destabilizes Vietnam neighbors by bombing it and encouraged civil wars.

The US would have been in Laos/Cambodia just as quick as it jump into Afghanistan/Irag if those countries have oil.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: Blueychan

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: Blueychan

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: Blueychan
The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends. All the Amercans have to do was continuously pounding the Vietcong with airtrike and that War would have ended 10 years earlies and Vietnamese would be a rich democracy country instead of 3rd world country.

Epic Fail.

Quality post. At least you got another post count.

He's right.....do you know anything about the vietnam war?

Try reading some real history books about Vietnam before posting such total BS.

Why don't you tell me what is incorrect about my statement. I am good listener.

WTF do mean we weren't aggressive enough? Do even have a fucking clue as to how many Vietnamese people died in that war or were wounded let alone US Soldiers? Here's a hint try 2.5 MILLION KILLED AND 3.5 MILLION WOUNDED on both sides! Some 60,000 US soldiers killed and 300,000 wounded.

Not to mention that that war was not even necessary at all. The "Domino Effect" was complete hyped up bullshit and the "Bay of Tonkin" was fabricated bullshit as well. There was no real reason for us to engage in that war at all. Had we of helped the Vietnamese people when Ho Chi Minh asked the US for help in removing the French from his country after WW2 there would of never of been a Communist party to begin with at all. Do you even realize that Ho Chi Minh actually looked up to US and it's ideals at one point in time? Or that he lead the Vietnamese people against the Japanese during WW2 in hopes of earning freedom for Vietnam from the French? The Vietnam war was never winnable at all as it was a war of independence against foreign occupiers in Vietnam. People like you are a true shining example of stupid being more infinite then the known universe.

 

[tweaker2]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Why were the Viet Kongs called "Charlies"?

military phonetic alphabet - alpha, bravo, charlie etc.

viet cong = vc = victor charlie - ergo, short form = "charlie"

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: tweaker2

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: tweaker2
those of us who were preoccupied with trying to stay alive long enough to make it out of the hellhole that our politicians created there didn't much give a rat's ass about the hippies and the protests and what that silly hanoi jane was doing on any given weekend until we got shipped home. we did take notice though of how stupid it was to continuously grab some turf by day and give it all back when the sun went down. or how amazing it was that what we saw on the ground never really mattered to the white shirts that were calling all the shots unless it had anything to do with the body count. but we did our job anyway. we kicked charlie's ass whenever they came out of the holes they were hiding in. at our level, it's all that really mattered.

Translation:

You chose to be a murderer and travel thousands of miles to kill innocent people fighting for their own liberty, and risk your life, based on delusions of ideology and/or ignorance.

You were the British soldier over killing the American revolutionary for King Lyndon or Richard.

it's the politicans and their lack of worldly skills that created the vietnam experience just as it's now happening in iraq. the lack of historical continuity brought on by the near-sighted, short-term and exclusive agendas that the current administration is pursuing just makes things even worse for the nation as whole.

I'd say it's more about the narrow interests defeating the broader interests of the ignorant American public.

Lyndon Johnson needed Vietnam for shallow political reasons, as did the American right.

What was George Bush's presidency going to be about, if not war? His approval was plummeting; how was he going to get his tax cuts passed, get re-elected, without it?

The American people wearied of war after Viet Nam - for awhile, and then were ready for more.

Or as one person put it:

War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president?s popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns.

~Chaz Bufe

Or, one other quote from before our nation was created:

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

About the quote: from "The Spirit of Laws" (1748)

and hey, i do agree that in that completely different world on the home front, the protests and the negative media exposure coming out of 'nam really did have a lot of effect on the course of the war, but that didn't really matter to me until alot of us got older and a wee bit wiser.

Is that praise for the opposition?

on your first quote, i was drafted and didn't want to go to jail or canada. in my mind's eye, at that young age, i felt the right thing to do was to serve my time and get out and go to college. the way i was brought up, i, and all the friends in the neighborhood that i grew up with that got drafted along with me accepted the draft call as a fact of life and dealt with it as best we could. but yeah, i do recall some news reports of protesters screaming at returning servicemen as being child murderers and rapists and such. i can honestly say i never ever considered myself to be a murderer nor had any other person accused me of being one or thought of me as one because i served in 'nam until you just did.

but eh, water under the bridge and all that. i followed orders like a good little soldier should. i got my honorable discharge from active service and joined the reserves and then later the air guard and finally retired a few years back. each to his own eh?

i do agree with much of the rest of what you're mentioning as i look back at those years though.

on your last comment, it doesn't matter one way or the other to me if it sounds like i was praising the opposition. i was just agreeing with something i thought was factual as far as i can recall, and at my age, what with busted eardrums and tinnitus from proximate explosions and weapons firing etc., and recurring effects from shell concussion, and brain damage from a jeep accident i was in and other neat stuff like that, i don't even trust myself most of the time.

Well, I appreciate the civil response, and have more sympathy than it might appear. You said well how many come to view war as ok to participate in.

There's a great book you might enjoy on the topic, by Chris Hedges, called "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning".

I stand by my characterization and think it's important to get more people to see war that way, as murder, to try to get it to happen less often, but it's not easy to overcome the socialization that says it's not only ok, but honorable, duty - and heck, sometimes it is those things, but few young men, IMO, are equipped to tell when it isn't.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

~Albert Einstein

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.

~Alexis de Tocqueville

A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.

~Benjamin Franklin