Vietnam War

[Mindful]

It's good to get some real testimony, from people who were actually there, in the military.

 

[Windparadox]

Correct. We had it won and would have won if Nixon hadn't chickened out. Kissinger had Hanoi all ready to surrender until Nixon suddenly remembered how the Japanese sent a surrender party to the British in Singapore and damned if the Brits didn't wind up surrendering instead. So instead of accepting Hanoi's surrender, Nixon decided to pull out of Vietnam instead. What a clusterfuck that became.

`
I've read a lot of things about Vietnam, listened to hours of stories told to me by the vets who where there but I never heard anyone with your theory.

 

[Mindful]

All these accounts; which led me on to read up on military blunders:

From ancient times to the present day, battles have been lost to dire weather, insufficient weaponry and bad luck. But what about those for which poor judgment and bad planning are to blame?

Historian Rupert Matthews says.

*Any fool can lose a battle. All you need to have is a weaker army than your opponent. What takes a special talent is to lose a battle when you start off with all the advantages in your own hands.

Some commanders have managed to throw away the power of greater numbers, strong positions and superior weaponry with blunders of such awesome scale that they have ended up losing a battle that, logically, they should have won with ease.*

 

[Hossfly]

Correct. We had it won and would have won if Nixon hadn't chickened out. Kissinger had Hanoi all ready to surrender until Nixon suddenly remembered how the Japanese sent a surrender party to the British in Singapore and damned if the Brits didn't wind up surrendering instead. So instead of accepting Hanoi's surrender, Nixon decided to pull out of Vietnam instead. What a clusterfuck that became.

`
I've read a lot of things about Vietnam, listened to hours of stories told to me by the vets who where there but I never heard anyone with your theory.

No theory, just hard, cold facts. The troops who were there knew what happened and who was to blame.

 

[GHook93]

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

Nixon ran on "I have a plan", that being to end the war in Vietnam; this promise was the theme of his campaign during the summer of 1969. His plan, seems to have been, to expand the war into Cambodian and Laos and spend months arguing about the shape of the table at the Paris Peace Talks.

Four years later he was reelected notwithstanding the continuous body count of our troops. It was IKE who sent the first advisors into Vietnam, too bad Hossfly needs to lie, but that's what right wingers always seem to do.

Your right about Ike sending advisors to Vietnam, but only to advise, not to fight. The bastard, Kennedy, escalated the war and Johnson and his micromanaging created a clusterfuck. Hossfly doesn't lie so get that thought out of your empty liberal skull.

Vietnam was a "clusterfuck" from the moment Diem claimed his leadership, and in the Trumpian way claimed he won with over 95% of the vote. Pointing fingers at JFK and LBJ is AT BEST a half-truth, and a half-truth, like a lie by omission, is still an effort to mislead and thus a lie.

Bring to the liberal to put Trump in the Vietnam discussion.

JFK and LBJ started and escalated our involvement in the war, so yes they are the main culprits in this conflict. Additionally they provided the loser strategy of not engaging the North in the North, Cambodia and Laos, simply because they were afraid of China


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[danielpalos]

Just watching Ken Burns doc on the bbc.

I will have to watch it again when the house is quieter.

But at first glance it does seem that a lot of brave young men were let down badly by the politicians and the Generals.

I dont know if the doc is accurate but the impression given is that they just didnt have a clue.

My knowledge of the conflict is poor and mainly taken from the movies.

How did it go so badly ?

Containment was a difficult strategy, especially if the nation in question had land borders with communists nations that you did not want to have open war with.


The guerrilla style of the war was a challenge to an military built around the potential tank battles of WWIII.


AND, the media was a much more powerful and hard to control force.

We have a Commerce Clause. Y'all on the right wing make it seem like you don't really believe in Capitalism and prefer the command economics of socialism on a national basis.

 

[danielpalos]

Killing commies is a noble endeavor. I'm ashamed my country has embraced so much socialism, but it looks as if the tide may be turning.

Did you know, socialism requires social morals for free and not capital morals for a market friendly price?

 

[danielpalos]

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

The private industrial sector was probably too busy "retooling for a warfare-State".

 

[tyroneweaver]

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

Just burued a church member this month. Agent Orange

 

[danielpalos]

Just watching Ken Burns doc on the bbc.

I will have to watch it again when the house is quieter.

But at first glance it does seem that a lot of brave young men were let down badly by the politicians and the Generals.

I dont know if the doc is accurate but the impression given is that they just didnt have a clue.

My knowledge of the conflict is poor and mainly taken from the movies.

How did it go so badly ?

War is always about the health of the state.

You being a flaming statist should know that.

I agree to disagree. War is about command economics, not free markets. Only the right wing, never gets it.

 

[Wry Catcher]

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

Nixon ran on "I have a plan", that being to end the war in Vietnam; this promise was the theme of his campaign during the summer of 1969. His plan, seems to have been, to expand the war into Cambodian and Laos and spend months arguing about the shape of the table at the Paris Peace Talks.

Four years later he was reelected notwithstanding the continuous body count of our troops. It was IKE who sent the first advisors into Vietnam, too bad Hossfly needs to lie, but that's what right wingers always seem to do.

Your right about Ike sending advisors to Vietnam, but only to advise, not to fight. The bastard, Kennedy, escalated the war and Johnson and his micromanaging created a clusterfuck. Hossfly doesn't lie so get that thought out of your empty liberal skull.

Vietnam was a "clusterfuck" from the moment Diem claimed his leadership, and in the Trumpian way claimed he won with over 95% of the vote. Pointing fingers at JFK and LBJ is AT BEST a half-truth, and a half-truth, like a lie by omission, is still an effort to mislead and thus a lie.

Bring to the liberal to put Trump in the Vietnam discussion.

JFK and LBJ started and escalated our involvement in the war, so yes they are the main culprits in this conflict. Additionally they provided the loser strategy of not engaging the North in the North, Cambodia and Laos, simply because they were afraid of China


Sent from my iPhone using USMessageBoard.com

Wow, not only poor syntax, but an example of total historical ignorance.

 

[danielpalos]

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

What lessons were learned Hoss ?
You still get involved in places you should keep clear from and, Iraq, still seem off the pace in terms of what the reality is on the ground.

Under our form of Capitalism, a profit motive must be involved.

In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

Real times of War should require real times of War tax rates; or, it is just more wealth redistribution where capitalists can exploit their capital wealth, at the expense of the poor.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, between 1979 and 2007 incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew by an average of 275%. During the same time period, the 60% of Americans in the middle of the income scale saw their income rise by 40%. From 1992-2007 the top 400 income earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%.[15] In 2009, the average income of the top 1% was $960,000 with a minimum income of $343,927.[16][17][18]

During the economic expansion between 2002 and 2007, the income of the top 1% grew 10 times faster than the income of the bottom 90%. In this period 66% of total income gains went to the 1%, who in 2007 had a larger share of total income than at any time since 1928.[17] According to PolitiFact and others, the top 400 wealthiest Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."[19][20][21][22] Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a "substantial head start".[23][24] In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, "over 60 percent" of the Forbes richest 400 Americans "grew up in substantial privilege".[25]

If a family has a positive net worth then it has more wealth than the combined net worth of over 30.6 million American families. This is because the bottom 25% of American families have a negative combined net worth.--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States

 

[danielpalos]

Would we have the same policies, if real times of War require real times of War tax rates?

We could be thanking the right for wanting to keep us out of War, by lowering taxes.

 

[Hossfly]

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

Nixon ran on "I have a plan", that being to end the war in Vietnam; this promise was the theme of his campaign during the summer of 1969. His plan, seems to have been, to expand the war into Cambodian and Laos and spend months arguing about the shape of the table at the Paris Peace Talks.

Four years later he was reelected notwithstanding the continuous body count of our troops. It was IKE who sent the first advisors into Vietnam, too bad Hossfly needs to lie, but that's what right wingers always seem to do.

Your right about Ike sending advisors to Vietnam, but only to advise, not to fight. The bastard, Kennedy, escalated the war and Johnson and his micromanaging created a clusterfuck. Hossfly doesn't lie so get that thought out of your empty liberal skull.

Vietnam was a "clusterfuck" from the moment Diem claimed his leadership, and in the Trumpian way claimed he won with over 95% of the vote. Pointing fingers at JFK and LBJ is AT BEST a half-truth, and a half-truth, like a lie by omission, is still an effort to mislead and thus a lie.

Bring to the liberal to put Trump in the Vietnam discussion.

JFK and LBJ started and escalated our involvement in the war, so yes they are the main culprits in this conflict. Additionally they provided the loser strategy of not engaging the North in the North, Cambodia and Laos, simply because they were afraid of China


Sent from my iPhone using USMessageBoard.com

Wow, not only poor syntax, but an example of total historical ignorance.

The syntax was correct, complete and concise. I was there for a couple of tours. Where were you?

 

[Hossfly]

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

The Vietnam War was a civil war we had no right to be involved in.
Poor leadership, Poor Decisions and over 50,000 dead Americans.
Waste of Blood and Treasure...... I sure hope the politician that got us involved get what is coming to them

What happened when it finished ?
Was there an enquiry ? Were people held to account ?

No need for an inquiry. The guilty culprits, Kennedy and Johnson were worm food by 1973.

Just burued a church member this month. Agent Orange

So sad. Agent Orange killed me in Viet Nam. I just havent died yet.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Just watching Ken Burns doc on the bbc.

I will have to watch it again when the house is quieter.

But at first glance it does seem that a lot of brave young men were let down badly by the politicians and the Generals.

I dont know if the doc is accurate but the impression given is that they just didnt have a clue.

My knowledge of the conflict is poor and mainly taken from the movies.

How did it go so badly ?

War is always about the health of the state.

You being a flaming statist should know that.

I agree to disagree. War is about command economics, not free markets. Only the right wing, never gets it.

War is generally the failure of diplomacy, In the case of the Vietnam War, it was bungled from the start, the abnormal fear of communism - evident even today - and the lack of courage of elected officials along with their egos, led directly to the cataclysm of this war.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Nixon ran on "I have a plan", that being to end the war in Vietnam; this promise was the theme of his campaign during the summer of 1969. His plan, seems to have been, to expand the war into Cambodian and Laos and spend months arguing about the shape of the table at the Paris Peace Talks.

Four years later he was reelected notwithstanding the continuous body count of our troops. It was IKE who sent the first advisors into Vietnam, too bad Hossfly needs to lie, but that's what right wingers always seem to do.

Your right about Ike sending advisors to Vietnam, but only to advise, not to fight. The bastard, Kennedy, escalated the war and Johnson and his micromanaging created a clusterfuck. Hossfly doesn't lie so get that thought out of your empty liberal skull.

Vietnam was a "clusterfuck" from the moment Diem claimed his leadership, and in the Trumpian way claimed he won with over 95% of the vote. Pointing fingers at JFK and LBJ is AT BEST a half-truth, and a half-truth, like a lie by omission, is still an effort to mislead and thus a lie.

Bring to the liberal to put Trump in the Vietnam discussion.

JFK and LBJ started and escalated our involvement in the war, so yes they are the main culprits in this conflict. Additionally they provided the loser strategy of not engaging the North in the North, Cambodia and Laos, simply because they were afraid of China


Sent from my iPhone using USMessageBoard.com

Wow, not only poor syntax, but an example of total historical ignorance.

The syntax was correct, complete and concise. I was there for a couple of tours. Where were you?

'67 - '69 mostly aboard a DD on ASW Patrol, working in the Ship's Office and responding to the 1MC when called upon to run to the 5" gun wherein I was the Projectile Man.

 

[danielpalos]

Correct. We had it won and would have won if Nixon hadn't chickened out. Kissinger had Hanoi all ready to surrender until Nixon suddenly remembered how the Japanese sent a surrender party to the British in Singapore and damned if the Brits didn't wind up surrendering instead. So instead of accepting Hanoi's surrender, Nixon decided to pull out of Vietnam instead. What a clusterfuck that became.

`
I've read a lot of things about Vietnam, listened to hours of stories told to me by the vets who where there but I never heard anyone with your theory.

No theory, just hard, cold facts. The troops who were there knew what happened and who was to blame.

Who was to blame for the French position at Dien Bien Phu?

Did any management from Normandy neglect, "military castle doctrine"?

 

[Mindful]

He drafted 100,000 with low IQ's into the Army. There was a unit of them going through basic training next to me in July 1969. My basic was 8 weeks, their's was 16 weeks,
Can you say cannon fodder?

Sounds like a pure BS story to me. .....

Actually, Sunni Man the problem started in late 1966 when judges around the country started sweeping the streets and ordering criminals to either go to jail or join a service. I saw many, many draftees and recruits from those who couldn't read or write up to college grads who could barely read or write. It got worse right up to 1977 when I retired and didn't have to put up with those knuckleheads any more. In late '66-early '68 and late '74 to Dec '77 I could write a book about those pathetic humans. Up until 1966 a single male had to have an AFQT of 60 to join the military and from then until I got out in late '77, it dropped to 10. Imagine having an IQ of 10! SSGT Bags was correct. The trainees in '69 took Basic and AIT together if they were in that low AFQT group making it 16 weeks. The last 3 years before retiring I was 1Sgt of Special Training Company. (We called it Shirley Temple Company) I would have as many as 500 trainees in my company and each week we would graduate about 100 and receive about 100 newbies. Upon arrival the newbies would arrive by bus and when they got off I would have them line up, drop their bags and strip to their shorts. Then, my 15 DIs would search their gear and generally come up with a bunch of pistols, knives and brass knuckles. I won't go any further but you can see what king of tripe we had to deal with.

Just picked this one up,which sort of fits into your narrative.

Jimi Hendrix was given a choice, facing either prison or joining the military.

 

[Hossfly]

Correct. We had it won and would have won if Nixon hadn't chickened out. Kissinger had Hanoi all ready to surrender until Nixon suddenly remembered how the Japanese sent a surrender party to the British in Singapore and damned if the Brits didn't wind up surrendering instead. So instead of accepting Hanoi's surrender, Nixon decided to pull out of Vietnam instead. What a clusterfuck that became.

`
I've read a lot of things about Vietnam, listened to hours of stories told to me by the vets who where there but I never heard anyone with your theory.

No theory, just hard, cold facts. The troops who were there knew what happened and who was to blame.

Who was to blame for the French position at Dien Bien Phu?

Did any management from Normandy neglect, "military castle doctrine"?

In both cases, it's hard to pin down. It was either Bush's or Trump's fault.

The French employed ignorance, arrogance and poor planning among other things. The Froggies thought the Viet Minh lacked anti-aircraft ability. DBP was suppose to be resupplied by air. Big booboo. All their planes got shot down.

Military Castle Doctrine? Waddaya mean? Castle Doctrine or "Stand Your Ground Law" I understand. What is "military castle doctrine?"