It's Over.
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Schadenfroh
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- Mar 8, 2003
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RIP to those who died trying to save the Vietnamese from the tyranny that is Communism.
To those that remain that suffer mental and physical scars, thank you for your service to freedom and humanity.
To those that remain that suffer mental and physical scars, thank you for your service to freedom and humanity.
2 million+ Vietnamese killed in the name of your insane ideology, ignorance, and the greed of colonialism.
Vietnam - won its fight for freedom, finally, from occupation by China, France, Japan, and the US and its proxies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hDjvKF_X78
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CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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Kennedy, Johnson and other idols embraced that insane ideology. May you be as harsh and unforgiving of them as you are of everyone else.
I think Craig has been fairly consistent in his despise for war, regardless of what administration is in charge.
To your childish b-b-b-but Democrats - I am.
Kennedy was wrong on Vietnam - but courageous in fighting his own government that nearly all wanted war there, much less the Republicans. He held war off.
Indeed, he laid the difficult groundwork for the option to withdraw - knowing he'd be called a 'communist appeaser' and it could destroy his second term.
LBJ wrongly gave Republicans the war they wanted in Vietnam to buy support for his Great Society at home, knowing there was no clear plan to victory.
But any discussion of the Presidents needs to include Nixon's treasonous sabotage of LBJ's peace talks in 1968, pushing South Vietnam to say no to help him get elected.
- Apr 26, 2011
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You lack the compassion and good sense to know when to keep your foolishness to yourself. This thread is not about ideology.
- Apr 26, 2011
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Thank you; but to be clear, I do not oppose all war. There are times, unfortunately, when war is needed. We just never do enough to avoid it.
No, I don't. I have the compassion to not want the loss of these lives you are so concerned about - as am I - to be repeated, unlike you.
This thread IS about ideology - ideology is what killed these people you claim you care so much about as well as the 2 million+ we killed you don't claim to care about.
- Apr 26, 2011
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- Apr 26, 2011
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I started this thread so I, not you, have a pretty good idea what the purpose of it is....
To remember what happened and to honor those that served......reguardless of ideology.
Those of us that participated, today, like most days, remember those that served, those that came back but not totally, and of course those that gave their all. We still pray for the families of those that are but a name on a wall.
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CADsortaGUY
Lifer
I agree, we can't let politicians manage wars - that's what we have Generals for. If the gov't gives the GO, they need to step back so the military can WIN the war. We've not done that - we always pussy foot around due to politics.
Londo_Jowo
Lifer
To those that served in Vietnam and gave their lives....fair winds and following seas.
To all that served in Vietnam, thanks for your service to this great nation.
For those who want to bring politics into this thread....*FUCK YOU* and the horse your road in on!!!!
To all that served in Vietnam, thanks for your service to this great nation.
For those who want to bring politics into this thread....*FUCK YOU* and the horse your road in on!!!!
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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What you say is true but incomplete. His criticism is not evenly applied, and usually accompanied with an apologetic comment. See Johnson above. On one hand he says he was wrong but because he wanted the Great Society. The Gulf of Tonkin happened on his watch. For his part Nixon is responsible for what Nixon did.
Kennedy? For his part he increased the numbers of advisors, not wanting a shooting war in VN especially considering Cuba and the USSR. He did have plans for withdrawal however the Pentagon had misrepresented the situation and he came to believe that we could leave and still have a favorable outcome. What would have happened? We'll never know because of Kennedy's assassination. McNamara and others believe he would have committed to removing our presence, however Choamsky (hardly a right wing shill) believes the opposite. All this notwithstanding, Kennedy hated the Communists and there is no indication that he seriously questioned the driving ideology, but was more concerned with the real politik of the day.
In all this we learned one thing, "question authority". We seem to have embraced the opposite philosophy these days.
Even if the contention of blood for societal reform were true, "he was wrong" pales compared to the scorn shown everyone else.
Hayabusa Rider
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Actually, what you say is incomplete, and not entirely true.
That's not the question - the question is whether it's accurate.
I don't even apply the blame for the financial crisis to Wall Street and to the irresponsible poor homebuyers, though both did wrong.
The reason is not because I'm being biased, it's because the facts demand it.
You are insinuating I'm being inaccurate, without any proof - which is your bias.
And it's accurate. It's black and white that LBJ was wrong; because the topic was raised about assigning blame, I'm not allowing the right to misrepresent the GOP role.
Nixon's behavior WAS more one-sided and more nakedly evil than LBJ's.
LBJ could still believe he was 'leading America to stand up for freedom against the communist threat', there was more gray to his behavior - while Nixon's sabotage of the peace talks was not gray, it was very one-sided for his own pursuit of power, extending the war he said he wanted to end, costing many lives and literally treasonous behavior, undermining his own country's pursuit of peace. There is no 'traded for support for programs to help millions of Americans for him.'
That's the facts - which you dishonestly imply is me being unfair.
Kennedy's leadership style was to delay decision and to try to have options.
He increased the number of advisors - which were often participants in battle - while drawing a firm line against official 'ground troops' and resisting constant Pentagon pressure and proposals for escalation. He also ordered the *reduction* of 1,000 advisors late in his presidency.
The military misrepresented a lot (and a poster above says 'let the military run wars').
Kennedy was laying plans for the option of withdrawal, but while there are credible claims he's privately committed to it, and the most knowledgable aides (with the exception of Rusk, who was not very close to Kennedy who was his own Secretary of State mostly) have said they think he probably would have withdrawn, along with the best scholars, it's not for sure, and he was keeping options open, even as he was publicly drawing a line our support would be limited to materials and advisors.
He did want to 'win' in Vietnam, however tempting it is to criticize that in hindsight, but he'd have faced problems with that and had to make hard choices.
Kennedy hated the communism of the cold war, but he understood as well that we were often blind in our opposition, to label 'freedom fighters' who had nothing to do with communism as communists also, and he was willing to pursue peace by accepting 'moderates' and 'leftists' that had been 'unacceptable' to our previous leaders, who backed to many right-wing tyrants that had terrible records of oppression.
JFK did not think the US pursuing a large land war in Asia and not winning it was going to serve the western interests in the cold war, IMO.
He had MacArthur tell him not to go to war, he had his trusted advisors (not the hawks who worked for him but people like Senate Majority Leader mike Mansfield) tell him he had to get out. He'd been more willing to aboid bad wars than most Presidents, and had avoided them everywhere except the Bay of Pigs he greatly regretted, but learned from, including not to trust the military brass.
But JFK questioned the 'experts' in the Pentagon and CIA - a lot. There was great animosity between them. JFK had a major restructuring planned of the entire US intelligence operation - just as he had overhauled intelligence in the Pentagon, taking out redundant, biased groups in each branch and creating the DIA ot serve him, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Yes, 'he was wrong' to start a war, even to protect the programs that would give millions of Americans healthcare and take millions more out of poverty, because the Republicans forced him LBJ into such choices - for which they are not blamed at all by people like you - pales in comparison to the naked treason of a Nixon secretly sabotaging the US peace talks that could end the war in 1968 instead of years later.
As it should, but you are too biased to recognize that's correct, and so you make dishonest attacks.
If anything, I'm being too soft on the Republicans in all this. Why you can't give them the blame they deserve for being so wrong and so bloodthirsty, is your problem.
Not one word of blame for their opposing his outstanding programs that helped so many Americans - that are under attack then and ever since but especially today.
To be fair, there were some 'liberal Republicans' then - unlike today, after they've all been purged - and the neanderthal south was in the Democratic party then.
You need to stop the inaccurate attacks, though. Have some standards for accuracy.
The 2 million+ Vietnamese who we killed count, too, despite your desire to want to ignore them. And our soldiers whose sacrifices are so huge deserve better than your attempt to whitewash history and paint a false picture that paves the way to repeating the mistakes that got them killed and we should not repeat.
Just mourning our soldiers as if there's no more to learn reinforces a wrong history and uses sentimentality to try to misrepresent the history, which insults them.
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Hayabusa Rider
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Those who died were sent there by some you approve of. When this war was waged both Dems and Reps applauded. Forced? That is the fallback excuse for failure to stand up. To put it this way the 2 million+ deaths plus our own are in part to be laid at the feet of those who ordered the beginning of the shooting war. Even the Nazis had a better excuse. To defy them was to meet with death, but we had protesters in the streets, some of which were harmed, but the majority not. So the poor LBJ was "forced" by political expediency and agenda. From that everything else followed. I suggest the insult is not mine, but yours. Is was our government who decided to engage in the war, and nothing mitigates that act, especially fear of disapproval by Republicans. Your contention seems to be that Vietnam had to happen for the social programs of the 60's to come to pass. If true was it worth the millions of lives it cost? Would you look at the families of those who died here and abroad and tell them how noble their sacrifice was? How would you justify yourself? How would you approach a disabled Vietnamese citizen and say just how awful it must be then justify the real reasons behind it? My guess would be to fall back on Nixon and omit what you've described as "let's make a deal" murder.
I've not forgotten anything about Vietnam. There are many who know it far better than you. These who are returning home knew better than you could possibly understand. They didn't ask for the war, but they had to die for it while others dispassionately gambled away countless others in the perfect safety of their plush residences. They are far more honorable than ANY who sent them.
He is not the one who turned it into that. Look at the 2nd post in this thread.
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