littlek:
Gimme a link, you know I love parties!! Especially if there's a hug waiting for me!! Thanks mucho!!!
Anon
Can I have a hug tooo littlek are am I not one of the "guys" you are talking about. I need hugs.
Anon,
...Thanks, and don't forget,the U.S. was the prime career booster, to Osama Bin Laden...
OK, I can't read that fast. I don't want a Coles notes of this, but that is a heap of reading to do. I may need a hug to get me through it.
EVERYBODY GETS HUGS!
Anon, it's over in N America - Boston Gathering. If you still need a link I'll link ya.
Thank you thank you littlek I need a hug today.
Sure thing JD. Wow, I feel good for dispensing all those hugs, maybe there's something to this hugging business.
There is indeed something to this hugging business, and this is a thread that needs some. I recall some of the VN vets I met in the mid-to-late 70's. Many of them were very hug-needy.
Well, the plight of VNW Vets is a consequence of the debacle, and could not be adequately served in a thousand threads in a thousand Forums.
To my mind, The US, for a number of undisputed, well known reasons, blundered into a disastrous war which was essentially the consequence of European Bungling and Oriental Resentments. That Ho and cohorts were taken by Marxist/Lenninist Communism is telling in itself, indicative of deepseated and longstanding societal unrest, typical of peoples who feel oppressed, exploited and disenfranchised. Ho himself was a symptom of the failure of The Colonial System, in some regards not unlike George Washington.
timber
The regional history that proceeded the war is something that I know very little about.
Quote:Ho himself was a symptom of the failure of The Colonial System, in some regards not unlike George Washington.
Timber
Quoting Woody Allan, "I want to marry you and have your baby"
Timber:
That's the quick way out.
I've scraped open the wound, I'm going to do something about it. One thing Abuzz did do for me is make me realize just how angry I am inside. With the advent of the proposed "neverending battle against terrorism", without really fighting terrorism, I think it's time to take the stand I was too much of a coward to take in 1969.
They told me, go in the army or go to jail. I went into the army.
Even with a volunteer army, we shouldn't be sending them in harms way to line a few elite pockets.
My contention is to debunk the patriotic rah, rah, rah bullshit, and get into the real reasons we do things.
I want to get to the real reasons why we were in Vietnam, and what the progression was. I've never been able to face it! I want to do it, and then I want to use it to hopefully derail more national mistakes that we're still paying for 28 years later.
At least, I am!!!
Anon
Anon
This thread is directed towards the cause of the Viet Nam war, so I don't want to go off into something else, but your notion that the rah rah dynamic blinds us to rather a lot finds me in accord.
Blatham:
I'm not trying to derail the intent of the interaction, trust me. I guess my real point is that at the basis of all our incursions has been patriotism, and anything less is anti-american, cowardice, and on!!!
Anon
Anon
Sorry. Meant to suggest that my own post was a bit shakey, theme-wise, not yours, but wanted to support your point.
Blatham:
I knew you'de take that wrong, didn't mean anything about you friend. I appreciate your input on all this! I'm so busy after the vacation right now, that I haven't been able to charge into this in my usual manner! Stinking work just ruins my A2K time
Anon
Not sure if should be posting here at all - posted on one other political discussion on this forum (on missile defense) which promptly ground to a halt <G>
The definitive history of the Vietnam disaster can't be written until all records of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations are made public. Such selective quotations from the Kennedy tapes (accessible through the Kennedy family) as are made by McNamara in his latest book show that Kennedy had decided to withdraw all U.S. troops [tape made at National Security Council meeting of October 2, 1963] shortly before his death.
The responsibility rests squarely with his successor.
HofT:
Welcome to our on-going discussion. I appreciate your contributing here!
I think you are right on about the Kennedy, and truly, all the rest of the Presidential records that need to be released. King George has taken care of that one for now though now that he has exercised the Executive Order to lock up the records from Reagan ... on ... I'm sure to protect the guilty. I doubt seriously we will ever learn the truth now. Can't have Daddy doing time you know!
Anon
Anon, tks for welcome, and glad to see you're doing better!
Here's the answer to your original question:
The Vietnam war, like the Korean war before it, was fought to stop the relentless drive of Chinese communist expansion.
Arming the locals - as was tried in Tibet, just before the Chinese invasion on request of a man from "Daddy's" old shop, Mackiernan by name - was deemed ineffective, so the *fundamental* advice of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was discarded: "The U.S. should never fight a ground war in Asia."
The tactical corollary of that strategic advice was also discarded - that it's impossible to fight guerilla armies which have secure sanctuaries and unlimited supply lines *beyond* the "official" war zone.
How and why these 2 fundamental points were forgotten in Vietnam is for historians to decide - but they're with us still in addressing nuclear-armed North Korea (sole lifeline: China) today <G>
Helen of Troy!
I didn't catch the signature on your the first post!! I am so veerrryyy happy to see you! I have really missed you! Are you actually going to post here, or are you just going to tease and run like you usually do!
Uncompress your data, I expect you to know a lot about stuff like this!!!
I am most happy!!!
Anon
