VietNam..April 30th....How It Ended.

[LA RAM FAN]

Two citations for all of that? Notable quotables & a Joan Baez quote link?

Anyway, you ever hear of the gulf of Tonkin "incident"? What are your views of the military industrial complex and the lengths to which it will go to feed the beast (contractors like the modern day Halliburtons, KBR's, BlackWaters, ect... and their politician, water-carrier's campaign coffers and promises of future employment)?

whats interesting is the commander of that ship has now come out and admitted they intentonally provoked the war and fired on the vietnamese first unprovoked .excellent post.


So do I became I lost more friends at close to exactly the same time in Cambodia and in both cases it was communist assholes ultimately responsible for the deaths.

actually it was Nixon responsible. for their deaths in Cambodia.


We gained precisely nothing by fighting there and the effects of it are still being felt today.

But, who could have known that then?
Johnson and Nixon thats who.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

There's all sorts of uninformed. You're uninformed and passing it along by ignoring the basis for the war.

You brought up Kent State.

It was your attempt to change the subject.

I'll accept your acknowledgement that you didn't know the details of the incident.

Do you do so?

Now...if I can open a larger can of worms.....the real 'basis for the war' was the Roosevelt-Truman administrations' infiltration by communists, who gave aid to Mao, and opposed nationalist Chiang Kai-shek

No Mao, no communist China, no Viet Nam war.

But, heck....you're probably not even here today....you must be out celebrating May Day....

Your ignorance is astounding. We supported Chiang at every turn. If he lost, it was his own fault.

As for Viet Nam, the north was supported by the USSR, not China. China was their traditional enemy. Regardless of whether Mao won or not, Ho Che Mihn was a nationalist who would have tried to oust the French or any other power.

Why do I bring up Kent State? To counter your one-sided analysis of the war. Not everyone that opposed it was a Communist.

 

[numan]

Another anniversary is coming up on May 4th.

OHIO CSNY ( got audio back) - Kent State Massacre Montage - YouTube

CSN&Y- Ohio

Our wonderful DICK Nixon sending the military after protesters murdering four college students.

I will never forget those streaming, unending, panicked flights of helicopters hightailing it out of Saigon -- and being pushed overboard into the sea because there was not room enough for all of them on the American aircraft carriers stationed off the coast.

That is what the USA got for bankrupting itself over ten long years, enriching the bank accounts of the War Profiteers and sacrificing its soldiers to the False God of the Military-Industrial Complex.

"Tricky Dicky" Nixon also shamed himself by getting the union bosses of the construction workers of New York City to order their workers to attack a peaceful demonstration protesting the murder of the Kent State students.

Here is, to me, the quintessential photograph of the Vietnam War era, summing up America's idiocy, anger, violence and hysteria.

I look at the obese, bawling, mindless goon in the center of the picture and see America's answer to the German Nazi Party member.

.

 

[Auteur]

My brother and his buddies in country '66-'68 had a name for the death of their buddies over there:

WASTED.

And that is 100% correct. You can not fool the boots on the ground. They KNEW this was a political war ONLY.
Every soldier that gave his life in Nam had his life WASTED FOR NOTHING.

BULLSHIT. They died while serving their country carrying out the mission they were given exactly like our soldiers who died in any other conflict and they deserve exactly the same respect. It can be argued that the mission was not in fact worth the price but that is an entirely different argument.

All who are sent to fight in the military should know exactly what they are doing, and why. Otherwise, they simply become automatons, lethal weapons under the control and direction of others; "good Germans" who obey orders without question.

This was one of the bitter lessons of Vietnam. Sending draftees off to sacrifice themselves for political gamesmanship was no longer going to be a viable option. The population, or at least a significant portion of it, recognized the madness of sending kids to their deaths for a- completely wrong headed, as it turned out- global great game.

Military action should be an absolute last resort, after all else has failed. Unfortunately, this is a concept that has still not caught on, and the geopolitical games (and bitter defeats) continue, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places.

 

[Circe]

Military action should be an absolute last resort, after all else has failed. Unfortunately, this is a concept that has still not caught on, and the geopolitical games (and bitter defeats) continue, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places.

I would say not a "last resort" but war justified on purely defensive grounds. Military action is a "last resort" for a lot of desirable political goals: the Iraq adventure, No. 2, was a last resort for dealing with problem dictators who seem to get a Fountain of Youth out of sanctions and last forever -- Qaddafi, Castro, Kim, etc. Rumsfeld decided to try out "regime change" as a way to scare them into better behavior. Okay, maybe that was a last resort, but it sure didn't work out! We got bogged down and no dictator was scared by it.

Bush I's war on Iraq, Desert Storm, was justified because Saddam was taking "our" oil and oil is extremely important to America, with our huge distances. We also had to go after bin Laden, though that was direly messed up since we stayed in Afghanistan long years after bin Laden left that first year, pointlessly. We should have found out where he was and made war on that country: Pakistan. If possible! I agree that was a difficult problem, but making a forever war on an empty sandpit was just dumb, and we've lost, as ever.

No war ever, ever, ever, ever for any reason except defense or defensive retaliation against open aggression. During WWII we were out of the fight: correctly. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the same week Hitler declared war on us. Okay ---------- that became a justified defensive war! I can think of a few others, too, smaller issues: the Cuban missile crisis, and the Grenada militarism build up by Cuba. One does have to defend the country.

But the wars in Serbia? Mogodishu? Iraq II? Libya? Vietnam? Korea? No, no justification for any of them.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

How Vietnam ended

With the deaths of 58,000 American soldiers and 1.1 million NVA soldiers and 1.2 million injured over absolutely nothing.

well for greedy evil people like the banksters and corporations it wasnt absolutely nothing sadly.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

And we did in fact win in Iraq and Afghanistan. The actual lesson we should have learned in Vietnam was that you shouldn't fight wars unless you intend to win.[/COLOR]

I agree that we should have learned in Vietnam that we should not fight wars we don't intend to win.

But I certainly do not agree we have done anything but lost, lost, lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Got driven out, in fact. Same as in Vietnam.

It's a failed warmaking model, and I do not understand why they keep using it.

These perpetual wars are the greatest danger to our nation's stability, because war is what bankrupts societies most often so that they collapse, and we keep waging these long, far away, incredibly expensive wars and never getting ANYthing out of them except huge deficits and the world hating us.

the bankers,the corporations want wars because war means big business for the big businesses and corporations.

they are the ONLY ones that win in these mindless wars.

Its disgusting the american sheople never leanred anything from vietnam and they STILL ignorantly put on that uniform and line themselves up for slaughter all in the ignorance thinking they are dying for a great cause and sering their country when in reality,they are only serving the purposes of the bankers and the corporations with them laughing at their stupidity while they profit over it.

 

[numan]

'
Yes, it is sad that the American people are so brainwashed that they cannot perceive the simple and obvious fact that these evil wars are run by and for the benefit of War Profiteers, who will stop at nothing to swill at the public trough and destroy and bankrupt the American people.

Ever since the Second World War, the War Profiteers and the Military-Industrial Complex have been the REAL enemies of America !!

.

 

[Gadawg73]

'
Yes, it is sad that the American people are so brainwashed that they cannot perceive the simple and obvious fact that these evil wars are run by and for the benefit of War Profiteers, who will stop at nothing to swill at the public trough and destroy and bankrupt the American people.

Ever since the Second World War, the War Profiteers and the Military-Industrial Complex have been the REAL enemies of America !!

.

Maybe the policy is lobbied for by defense manufacturers but your claim that the wars are run by them is absurd.
Politics ran the Nam war and the defense corporations got their asses burned at the end of it and from there NO war has had any corporate influence as a result of the Nam fuck up.
Nice conspiracy theory sound bite but nothing true in any of it.
Today's military got their asses burned in the Nam war and the "never again" mentality sticks to this day.
Note the casualty rates and see the truth as well as command tenure.

 

[Auteur]

Military action should be an absolute last resort, after all else has failed. Unfortunately, this is a concept that has still not caught on, and the geopolitical games (and bitter defeats) continue, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places.

I would say not a "last resort" but war justified on purely defensive grounds. Military action is a "last resort" for a lot of desirable political goals: the Iraq adventure, No. 2, was a last resort for dealing with problem dictators who seem to get a Fountain of Youth out of sanctions and last forever -- Qaddafi, Castro, Kim, etc. Rumsfeld decided to try out "regime change" as a way to scare them into better behavior. Okay, maybe that was a last resort, but it sure didn't work out! We got bogged down and no dictator was scared by it.

Bush I's war on Iraq, Desert Storm, was justified because Saddam was taking "our" oil and oil is extremely important to America, with our huge distances. We also had to go after bin Laden, though that was direly messed up since we stayed in Afghanistan long years after bin Laden left that first year, pointlessly. We should have found out where he was and made war on that country: Pakistan. If possible! I agree that was a difficult problem, but making a forever war on an empty sandpit was just dumb, and we've lost, as ever.

No war ever, ever, ever, ever for any reason except defense or defensive retaliation against open aggression. During WWII we were out of the fight: correctly. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the same week Hitler declared war on us. Okay ---------- that became a justified defensive war! I can think of a few others, too, smaller issues: the Cuban missile crisis, and the Grenada militarism build up by Cuba. One does have to defend the country.

But the wars in Serbia? Mogodishu? Iraq II? Libya? Vietnam? Korea? No, no justification for any of them.

Kennedy risked nuclear war over the indignation of having missiles based nearby, although the US enjoyed the reverse situation with Russia, and they were expected to suck it up. It came awfully close. Later research has shown Russia had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba, and at least one submarine skipper came close to firing a nuclear torpedo at a US destroyer. A modest geopolitical imbalance hardly seems worth the end of the world as we know it. And at any rate, even at that time, technology was overtaking events. Russia soon had regular patrols of subs with strategic nuclear weapons off the coast of the US- and there was no getting around it.

Grenada? The Cubans were building an airport. This was nothing but Reagan's grandstanding for political purposes. The US could have normal relations with Cuba, but for the fact of US fixation on communism.

 

[numan]

The US could have normal relations with Cuba, but for the fact of US fixation on communism.

More of a fixation on regaining the lost property of Mafioso kingpins in Havana and the rest of Cuba.

.

 

[numan]

Maybe the policy is lobbied for by defense manufacturers but your claim that the wars are run by them is absurd.

What is absurd is your making out that WAR manufacturers were not making hundreds of billions of dollars in profits all during the ten long years of that, otherwise meaningless, war!!

With "logic" like yours, I can't imagine you won many cases as a lawyer.

But then, perhaps you saved your logic, as the war manufacturers did, only for what directly profited you.
.

P.S. I duly noted your lawyerly equivocation about who "runs" wars!
A lawyer like you can make out that it is the government that "runs" the wars -- while sedulously avoiding the facts of who runs the government!!
Shame on you!!
.

 

[Mad Scientist]

War IS Hell but look at all the good paying jobs it creates that we eventually send to China.

 

[Gadawg73]

War IS Hell but look at all the good paying jobs it creates that we eventually send to China.

Take a look at your shoes.
Made in China
YOU sent that job to China.
And so be it. That is a good thing.
A dumb ass with a 3rd grade education can be taught how to make the shoes you wear.
I would hope you and your neighbors could do better than 3rd grade remedial labor.

 

[numan]

'

Considering the state of "education" in the USA, I think your hope is delusory.

.

 

[Gadawg73]

Maybe the policy is lobbied for by defense manufacturers but your claim that the wars are run by them is absurd.

What is absurd is your making out that WAR manufacturers were not making hundreds of billions of dollars in profits all during the ten long years of that, otherwise meaningless, war!!

With "logic" like yours, I can't imagine you won many cases as a lawyer.

But then, perhaps you saved your logic, as the war manufacturers did, only for what directly profited you.
.

P.S. I duly noted your lawyerly equivocation about who "runs" wars!
A lawyer like you can make out that it is the government that "runs" the wars -- while sedulously avoiding the facts of who runs the government!!
Shame on you!!
.

Viet Nam war "hundreds of billions"???
LOL.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

How about all those people that were protesting the war. I believe they had a clue.

I doubt most of them did. Protesting was a social event and a good way to get laid for the majority.

Give it just a moment's thinking and you'd realize how utter silly that statement is.

Remember the DRAFT?

People were paying attention to VietNam because about half of us were worried about getting out asses sent there or aready had friends and relatives who were in county.

Remember that at one point we have over one half million troops stationed there.

People, especdially those protesting that war knew far more about that nation and its history than most of CONGRESS apparently did.

thats old school for you.He is sure consistant in his ignorance.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

Communist's were responsible for Kent State? I'd REALLY like to hear your explanation of THAT!

Simple. It was the "protesters"-led by communists and communist sympathizers- who started and escalated the violence at Kent State and this time they got the violent response they wanted and martyrs to the cause.

Total bullshit from someone who was not there and not involved.

thats the understatement of the year

I was a leader in the anti war movement, and WE had no such intentions.

Have you heard the term "Useful Idiots"?

They didn't want to use your real name.

Unfortunately, it is PoliChic who is a useful idiot of the Boat People and Conservatives bullshit

that ALSO is the understatement of the year.

Are you still claiming that was a "winnable" war? Maybe if we just threw more money at it? Do you believe the American Revolutionaries would have lost had the Brits just threw more money at it?
__________________
knowing her,im sure she indeed thinks it was a winnable war.


There is no excuse for National Guard presence at Kent state.

There is no justification for their carrying loaded weapons.

There is no justification for firing indiscriminately into a crowd of students.

There is no justification for those who killed that day not to be at least in prison.

this post has so much logic,common sense and rational thinking in it dude,that you will overload and fry her brain with it.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

WE lost in South VeitNam and still

no dominos fell.​

Instead we have become a valued trading partner with the communists that we so feared.

Which means people my age knew one fuck of a lot of our generation who

died for a lie​

Bullshit. The NVA had occupied large portions of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand when I was there in '70. And when RSVN fell there was indeed the expected bloodbath both there and in Cambodia.

"died for a lie"? That is both wrong and sick. My bros. died accomplishing a mission given them by the American people via the government and military exactly the same as anyone else who has fought for this country.

dude your in denial.He is totally correct.

The american people did not want that war,many of them wisely defected to canada because they knew it was a fake and phony war.what you dont get is that wars mean big buiness for corporations which is why we have the wars going on in the middle east.He hit the nail right on the head.vietnam was an unnessary war and Johnson and Nixon were the ones thta murdered all those 58,000 bothers of yours,not the NVA or vietcong.They are tha mass murderers of them whether you want to face it or not.

 

[Gadawg73]

WE lost in South VeitNam and still

no dominos fell.​

Instead we have become a valued trading partner with the communists that we so feared.

Which means people my age knew one fuck of a lot of our generation who

died for a lie​

Bullshit. The NVA had occupied large portions of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand when I was there in '70. And when RSVN fell there was indeed the expected bloodbath both there and in Cambodia.

"died for a lie"? That is both wrong and sick. My bros. died accomplishing a mission given them by the American people via the government and military exactly the same as anyone else who has fought for this country.

dude your in denial.He is totally correct.

The american people did not want that war,many of them wisely defected to canada because they knew it was a fake and phony war.what you dont get is that wars mean big buiness for corporations which is why we have the wars going on in the middle east.He hit the nail right on the head.vietnam was an unnessary war and Johnson and Nixon were the ones thta murdered all those 58,000 bothers of yours,not the NVA or vietcong.They are tha mass murderers of them whether you want to face it or not.

Your claims are all over the map.
I work in a field with many Viet Nam vets and many stayed on in the military and their voices were heard as to the mistakes of that war. Many changes were made.
You are a complete fool to believe that the men that fought over there and saw their friends die DID NOT initiate total change in the military and the operations and strategy of war time. Of course there have been times when the President did not listen to boots on the ground such as Iraq II but it was not from some corporation making the decisions.
We know, we work in the field and many of my colleagues were there and other places and the boots on the ground NOW tell us what you claim is total bull shit.
So should I believe YOU or a 27 year old Marine Captain in the field in with THE FIFTH MARINE REGIMENT, 1ST MARINE DIVISION?