Some of you may be too young to remember what was happeninig in the late 60's to mid 70's. I was 14 when Saigon fell and I remeber the troops coming home. This short Video explains alot of what we really did in Vietnam and why we lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYGHZCJwk
58,000 United States soldiers dead. 153,000 wounded. Soldiers coming home addicted to drugs. The country torn apart. Riots in the streets. But now I've seen that 5 minute video, I finally realize, we had it won if only we had poured just a little more money down that rat hole.
Where's that face-palm thingy when I need it?
The problem with every war since WWII:
"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda."
- Douglas MacArthur
Quote:The problem with every war since WWII:
"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda."
- Douglas MacArthur
Indeed, wars are not won only on the battlefield. Wars have to be won on the home front as well. Even if we can debate whether the Vietnam War could have been "won" (whatever definition you want to put on that word), there is no doubt the war was lost on the home front, and that led to a loss on the military front as well.
In the 1930s, the Germans liked to claim they had not lost WWI, for example. They were on the verge of losing WWI, to be sure, but where they really lost was on the home front where the German people were on the verge of open rebellion and that is what forced the Germans to go to the Western Allies and ask for an Armistice. And all through the 1930s, right-wing Germans kept insisting their troops had not lost, they had been stabbed in the back on the home front. That was one of the Nazis' main propaganda points.
Given the fact that wars have to be won on the home front as well as on the battlefield, by any reasonable definition of "winning" the Vietnam War was not won, it was lost. So to suggest, as that video did, that the Congress lost the War in Vietnam, is to totally misinterpret history. Sure, we could have fought on, and probably destroyed all of Vietnam in the process, but by 1972, the damage done to this country by that war, with 58,000 American servicemen dead and another 150,000 wounded, thousands and thousands of other men coming home severely damaged psychologically, and antiwar riots in the streets, what the Congress was doing was reflecting the will of the people who had decided by that time that the cost of that war was so much greater than the potential gain from "winning" that it could not continue.
The speaker on that video is suggesting that the Democratic Congress lost the war. The fact is, that war was one of the worst mistakes this country has ever made. And to suggest that we could have won "if only..." makes me want to go throw up.
All foreign interventions are damned to failure.
Quote:![[Image: 83858267_79268d42a1.jpg]](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/42/83858267_79268d42a1.jpg)
Posting propaganda in a thread started with a video claiming propaganda lost a war. Adorable. :no:
War is just another play in the banksters proverbial playbook.
We've been captivated with war ever since the Earth cooled; same conquests, different dates.
Quote:
Wait, So you're telling me those problems have been solved?
Cause we still have all of those present in the world today, so...........................
I find it frustrating how the right seems to miss the point that war is always the leading cause for the loss of civil liberties. The only time War should be considered is in defense but this whole preemptive war is garbage used by the Neo-Conservative movement to restrict the population.
Quote:Wait, So you're telling me those problems have been solved?
Cause we still have all of those present in the world today, so...........................
ummmm, the Nazis are still putting people in the camps? The Gulags are still up and running? Saddam is still dropping people feet first into industrial shredders? Hey, who's picking my cotton?
Yeah, war is never a good idea.
Quote:ummmm, the Nazis are still putting people in the camps? The Gulags are still up and running? Saddam is still dropping people feet first into industrial shredders? Hey, who's picking my cotton?
Yeah, war is never a good idea.
Slavery has not been solved world wide and it's not even close. Nazis are not in power true but Communist Russia is just a different type of beast but still the same oppressive nation. In addition, communism is still in practice in several nations. Our intervention in the ME gave way to the crazy extremists over there in many ways.
Quote:ummmm, the Nazis are still putting people in the camps? The Gulags are still up and running? Saddam is still dropping people feet first into industrial shredders? Hey, who's picking my cotton?
Yeah, war is never a good idea.
First of all ww2 we where attack so war is justifiable in response and to even try and compare ww2 to Vietnam or Iraq is ridiculous.
2nd Iraq is way worse off now then they where under Sadam so let's not pretend we did them any favors.
3rd you know the civil war had nothing to do with slavery so trying to use it as a noble reason for war is ludicrous.
Quote:3rd you know the civil war had nothing to do with slavery so trying to use it as a noble reason for war is ludicrous.
WHAAAAAT??????
That is ridiculous. Read the articles of secession of every southern state who seceded. They all state they are seceding to defend slavery.
Quote:WHAAAAAT??????
That is ridiculous. Read the articles of secession of every southern state who seceded. They all state they are seceding to defend slavery.
We're going to get off track here, but slavery was a product of the larger issue they where leaving over. Yes Slavery was an issue, it was not the issue. Lincoln didn't even want to free the slaves and he said so. It was about where the final authority comes from the individual sovereign states or a federal centralized government. The point is he's making a false equivalence to try and justify War by proxy.
Quote:We're going to get off track here, but slavery was a product of the larger issue they where leaving over. Yes Slavery was an issue, it was not the issue. Lincoln didn't even want to free the slaves and he said so. It was about where the final authority comes from the individual sovereign states or a federal centralized government. The point is he's making a false equivalence to try and justify War by proxy.
No, no no. Again, that is ridiculous. The only reason anyone cared about states' rights was because some states wanted the right to have slaves. That was the reason for the argument over states' rights. Slavery.
The reason Lincoln said he didn't want to free the slaves was because that was the reason the Southern states were leaving: they thought he was going to try to end slavery. Of course he denied it, because he was trying to stop them from seceding. But the war started because the Southern states seceded, and the reason they seceded, in their own words, was to defend slavery.
You make it sound like there was some academic debate about states rights that got out of control and led to a war. Wars don't start over issues like the role of the federal government vs the states. No one cares about that issue unless there is a reason to care about it (slavery).
If you look at the entire history of the era of the 1850s, the country was consumed by the issue of slavery. It's all anyone talked about.
One thing I tend to link to the "loss" of Vietnam is the rise of Islamic extremism. Think about it, the Democrats won control of congress and lost the appetite for war (as well as the American Public). Jimmy Carter (Mr Peanut) was elected President in 76...... come 1979 Iran decided to take our people hostage and held them for 444 days because they knew Congress and Mr Peanut didn't have the testicular fortitude to do anything. By the time Reagan got in to office (and the hostages freed) the fuse had been lit and the powder keg that is the middle east began to explode.
I lived through this part of history so I can talk with some authority about it
Quote:One thing I tend to link to the "loss" of Vietnam is the rise of Islamic extremism. Think about it, the Democrats won control of congress and lost the appetite for war (as well as the American Public). Jimmy Carter (Mr Peanut) was elected President in 76...... come 1979 Iran decided to take our people hostage and held them for 444 days because they knew Congress and Mr Peanut didn't have the testicular fortitude to do anything. By the time Reagan got in to office (and the hostages freed) the fuse had been lit and the powder keg that is the middle east began to explode.
I lived through this part of history so I can talk with some authority about it
I lived through it, too, and I have a different take.
The reason the Iranians took our people hostage was because we had set up the Shah on the throne of Iran, and the Iranian people hated him and his secret police. But we were propping him up with arms and intelligence. The Iranians thought (accurately, it turns out) that the American Embassy was a nest of spies.
Now, let me ask you this: what do you think Carter should have done in response?
He should of Sent in Ground troops, surrounded the embassy and retaken it
Quote:No, no no. Again, that is ridiculous. The only reason anyone cared about states' rights was because some states wanted the right to have slaves. That was the reason for the argument over states' rights. Slavery.
The reason Lincoln said he didn't want to free the slaves was because that was the reason the Southern states were leaving: they thought he was going to try to end slavery. Of course he denied it, because he was trying to stop them from seceding. But the war started because the Southern states seceded, and the reason they seceded, in their own words, was to defend slavery.
You make it sound like there was some academic debate about states rights that got out of control and led to a war. Wars don't start over issues like the role of the federal government vs the states. No one cares about that issue unless there is a reason to care about it (slavery).
If you look at the entire history of the era of the 1850s, the country was consumed by the issue of slavery. It's all anyone talked about.
The entire world was consumed by slavery, the war was over the reality of one group telling another group how they could or couldn't commence commerce. If it was all about slavery then explain the slave states in the North. They didn't secede because ending slavery didn't destroy their commerce, the northmen slave states where not dependent on agriculture to survive.
Was the South racist, yes. Was the South dependent on Slavery, yes. Was the war fought over Slavery, No. Heck Lincoln had to bring in foreign fighters to fight his war, it wasn't about slavery it was about holding a union together regardless of the people's desire to be apart of the union anymore.