The lunacy that is and was the Republicans

Correct observation. To defend my opinions is empowering the people that take issue with them, in that, then I would be believing that they are worth "converting" to my opinion. I do not want to "save" anyone's "intellectual soul," so to speak.

While others may say this reflects a superiority complex, I believe it is not a complex.

rabel22 wrote:

Actually our involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhour presidency.

Not to any great degree. It was John Kennedy that put advisors in there. He could have ended it while he was alive. It snowballed from then on. A Republican, Nixon, ended it.

candidone1 wrote:

Foofie wrote:

The Republicans weren't in the Whitehouse when Vietnam started and continued for 10 years. That "domino theory" of Communism coming to our shores, if Vietnam fell to the Communists, was wrong.

If the domino theory was wrong vis a vis Vietnam, then how come the same "logic" has been used in fighting the so-called WoT.
After all, most of the pre and post-war fear mongering was grounded in propaganda stating that "these islamists" want to turn the world into an oppressive islamic state, and "we are fighting them over there so that we won't have to fight them here".

If there really are no parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, this is one point worth addressing.

On the contrary, Islamic terrorists have come to our shores. Have you heard of 9/11?

That wasn't a country. That was 19 thugs.

Actually our involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhour presidency.

rabel22 wrote:

Actually our involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhour presidency.

CIA -- no troops. Eisenhower turned down repeated French requests for direct aid in the last years of their struggle.

Our military involvement in Vietnam started with JFK, who felt he needed to act tough after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in which he ruled out the Naval air support for the landing that had been part of the plan from the start and then blamed Eisenhower for bequeathing him a bad plan.

With which particulars do you take exception? I am quite sure of my facts here. USS Essex was standing by south of Cuba with the U.S. markings painted out on its aircraft - all in accord with a prearranged plan - when the Cuban invasion took place. Kennedy cancelled their participation at the last moment.

georgeob1 wrote:

With which particulars do you take exception? I am quite sure of my facts here. USS Essex was standing by south of Cuba with the U.S. markings painted out on its aircraft - all in accord with a prearranged plan - when the Cuban invasion took place. Kennedy cancelled their participation at the last moment.

There were US troops (not advisors) on the ground in southest indo-china during the Eisenhower admin however, I concede they were under CIA authority rather than military authority.
JFK increased America's troop numbers from 500 to 16,000.

dyslexia wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

With which particulars do you take exception? I am quite sure of my facts here. USS Essex was standing by south of Cuba with the U.S. markings painted out on its aircraft - all in accord with a prearranged plan - when the Cuban invasion took place. Kennedy cancelled their participation at the last moment.

There were US troops (not advisors) on the ground in southest indo-china during the Eisenhower admin however, I concede they were under CIA authority rather than military authority.
JFK increased America's troop numbers from 500 to 16,000.

OK. I agree.

The only difference I see between the Democrats and the Republicans is about 10 to 15 years. That's about how long it takes the Republicans to accept Democratic positions, as they both move further and further leftwards.

Or, as Michael O'Brien has written, that with the passage of time:

"People began to think of them (liberals) as the new moderates; by the same token, the truly moderate were now considered ultraconservative, and the conservatives to be sociopaths"

A pox on both their houses.

Okie, get a clue or bow out.

dyslexia wrote:

Okie, get a clue or bow out.

LBJ was responsible for escalating the war into what it was. He used the Gulf of Tonkin incident as the justification. What previous presidents did was childs play compared to LBJ's decisions. If you wish to assign secondary blame, then yes, JFK bears responsibility for escalating the advisors there, but we were not there yet in a full combat role.

rabel22 wrote:

Actually our involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhour presidency.

Not to any great degree. It was John Kennedy that put advisors in there. He could have ended it while he was alive. It snowballed from then on. A Republican, Nixon, ended it.

Foofie wrote:

rabel22 wrote:

Actually our involvement in Vietnam began during the Eisenhour presidency.

Not to any great degree. It was John Kennedy that put advisors in there. He could have ended it while he was alive. It snowballed from then on. A Republican, Nixon, ended it.

Just defending what Foofie said a couple of pages ago, dys.

Yes, and what a noble statesman he was. Thank you for bringing him up, for he is a shining example of Republican values. You must be so proud.

Foofie wrote:

Correct observation. To defend my opinions is empowering the people that take issue with them, in that, then I would be believing that they are worth "converting" to my opinion. I do not want to "save" anyone's "intellectual soul," so to speak.

While others may say this reflects a superiority complex, I believe it is not a complex.

I don't think it has anything to do with a superiority complex. And I don't discussing ideas you honestly believe in has anything to do with "converting" people.


To me, refusal to discuss opinions often means that these opinions are not very well thought out. That they can't be backed up. That they don't merit discussion.

Not saying that's necessarily true for you. But if you merely want to state your opinions without discussing them, it's slightly odd to post them on an internet forum. Maybe you should rather start a blog. And disable the 'comments' option.

Dear Red States:

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California and we've decided we're leaving.

We intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states
pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro choice and anti war and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We wish you success in Iraq and hope that the WMDs turn up but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven

Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush

Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

We're taking the good pot too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokedearredstates.htm

War Crimes in Southeast Asia

Prior to his election, the Nixon campaign conspired with his future National Security Advisor and Secrtary of State Henry Kissinger to prolong the Vietnam War by sabotaging the Johnson adminsitration's peace agreement with North Vietnam, all in an effort to win the presidency. Essentially the same peace agreement was signed by the Nixon administration and North Vietnam 4 years later after the deaths of another 250,000 Vietnamese combatants and civilains and another 25,000 Americans in uniform.

Nixon also expanded the Vietnam War through a rightist miltiary coup d'etat in Phnom Penh and the U.S.-South Vietnamese invasion of eastern Cambodia and massive aerial bombardment of all of Cambodia. The rightist miltiary government of Cambodian strongman Lon Nol installed by the U.S. initiated the genocide in the country with mass executions of ethnic Vietnamese. The genocide achieved a horrendous scale when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized power, killing perhaps one-fifth of the country's population. The Khmer Rouge were able to develope from a small fanatical buit isolated organization into a massive political movement because the Nixon administration's invasion and massive aerial bombardment of Cambodia drove most of the country's traditionally passive, monarchist and conservative peasantry in to their arms.

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Richard_Nixon