Bush's absurd and disturbing speech deserves greater consideration thatn this one line. Do his speechwriters and advisers truly believe the nonsensical logic they were putting forward? If so, heaven help us all. (Bush himself clearly didn't understand it, yet alone believe it.)

August 22, 2007

Leading Democratic Party presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, has urged the Iraqi parliament to get rid of embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki saying he was not up to the job.

May 10, 2007

A majority of members of Iraq's parliament have signed a draft bill that would require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and freeze current troop levels. The development was a sign of a growing division between Iraq's legislators and prime minister that mirrors the widening gulf between the Bush administration and its critics in Congress.

The draft bill proposes a timeline for a gradual departure, much like what some U.S. Democratic lawmakers have demanded, and would require the Iraqi government to secure parliament's approval before any further extensions of the U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2007.

May 24, 2007

President Bush said today if the Iraqi government were to ask the United States to leave Iraq, he would grant the request.

"We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice,�� the president said during a Rose Garden news conference. "If they were to say leave, we would leave."

May 20, 2007

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States would "certainly" leave Iraq if the Iraqi government were to ever decide it wanted U.S. troops out of the war-torn country.

"If the Iraqi government ever decides they want us to leave," said McConnell, "then certainly we would comply with their wishes, they are a duly elected sovereign government."

The Defeatocrats could start by mentioning (s the New Republic has) the facts that Barry Goldwater was among those who finally refused Ford's request for still more Vietnam aid -- and that, until then, the anti-war forces in Congress had never managed to muster a majority to make any actual cut whatever in funding for Vietnam.

I think a lot of progress would take place, in terms of agreeing on the way forward, if Bush would admit, in no uncertain terms, that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.

That would clear the decks and there would be no need for Bush to strive for a "solution" that tries to justify the war. For example, if Bush would shut up about Al Qaeda being the main threat, which it isn't, then policies that don't place disproportionate weight on Al Qaeda can emerge, and be a better option to consider.

So true . . .

Great post!

Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I’ll be here ’til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Always tease tease tease
You’re happy when I’m on my knees
One day is fine, next day is black
So if you want me off your back
Well come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An’ if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know!
Should I stay or should I go?

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin to the top
The sheik he drove his cadillac
He went a cruisnin down the ville
The muezzin was a standing
On the radiator grille

The shareef dont like it
Rockin the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef dont like it
Rockin the casbah
Rock the casbah

This indecision’s bugging me
Esta indecision me molesta
If you don’t want me, set me free
Si no me quieres, librame
Exactly who’m I’m supposed to be
Dime que tengo que ser
Don’t you know which clothes even fit me?
¿sabes que ropas me quedan?
Come on and let me know
Me tienes que decir
Should I cool it or should I blow?
¿me debo ir o quedarme?

These folks had it nailed ~30 years ago

"...Pride of Man, broken in the dust again..." - Quicksilver Messenger Service

If Bush wasn't going to listen to the Baker report, he's not going to listen to anything that doesn't agree with his warped view of reality and help him politically.

It's difficult to imagine any facts or considerations that will trump the one overarching concern of the Bush administration: that the final withdrawal of US forces does not take place on his watch so Republicans will be able to do spin Iraq like they spin Vietnam: it was a winnable war that the Democrats wouldn't let us win. Plenty of people believe that about Vietnam, plenty more will believe that about Iraq.

It's worth noting a conversation that was recorded between Kissinger and Nixon. Kissinger conceded that the war in Vietnam was lost, but both agreed to pursue a political strategy to help them in the upcoming elections of talking up how well the war was going while at the same time escalating the fighting (to help create the illusion of change). 20,000 US soldiers and unknown tens of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians would die after that conversation took place before the war finally came to an end.

Jesus. Shorter Bush's VFW speech: Graham Greene predicted the US would lose in Vietnam in 1955. 20 years later, we lost. Obviously -- it was Graham Greene's fault! Similarly, the fact that we are losing in Iraq is all the fault of the people who said in 2002 that we should not invade Iraq.

These people need to be turned over to Michael Vick.

Jesus, Al, maybe because the South Koreans supported their government while the South Vietnamese did not (try to guess which country Iraq is closer to). Now if you only could've worked in Munich you would have had a perfect storm of stupid historical analogies.

Bush is an expert on Vietnam, of course, because of his many brave actions there as a soldier.

Oh, wait ... that was Alabama. Oh, wait, he didn't show up there, either. Never mind.

Al: "Why is that such a hard thing to believe? Certainly, American achieved victory in the Korean War and created the free, democratic, and prosperous South Korea there is today. Vietnam could have been another South Korea if we were just willing to stay the course, but Democrats and liberals forced America to cut and run which caused the troops to lose in Vietnam. Now that we have a chance to allow President Bush and the troops to win in Iraq, why shouldn't we give it a chance?"

"The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object ... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.'

"Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

"Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men ...

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger (1910)

Al: "Now that we have a chance to allow President Bush and the troops to win in Iraq, why shouldn't we give it a chance?'

Yes, I agree. And you should lead the charge. By the way, have you signed up yet? You have been asked this and many other pointed questions over the past year of criminal bloodshed, some with the idea of simply establishing that you are a human being and not some parody troll. You have never seen fit to answer one.

Commenters who never respond to the queries of actual humans -- you know, participants in what we used to call American democracy -- should be banned from this site like so much rancid Spam.

Anyone with me on that?

Fuck it. Let the dumb bastards continue to enlist and die if that's what they want to do. Let the treasury be depleted. the economy go to hell, the military slide into disrepair. It's what the nation deserves anyway. Let the stupid goddamned citizenry continue to put up with all of it. This electorate put Bush into office twice. You want to put your hand in the garbage disposal and flip the switch I guess you didn't value your fingers enough for me to care either. Screw doubling down, let's dump every goddamned asset we have into Iraq and get the grand national implosion over with. Rubbernecking isn't the worst way to spend a litle time. This is one car crash we all can slow down a bit and marvel at for its sheer destruction.

> we now have a president who's officially decided
> to take history lessons from Rambo.

IF ONLY! I urge Americans to download or rent Rambo III... Tonight. Seriously, trust me, you *need* to see it! I am not kidding, tell your friends!

On the upside now that Bush has "taught" us all the lesson of Vietnam the VFW is sure to finally move on and accept the reality of that tragic chapter in American history. Anything that Bush embraces the rest of the country runs away from; even the ones who can't stop mouthing their servility. They've become people trapped inside puppet bodies unable to comprehend why they can't control their limbs and mouths.

Actually Bush's unwavering commitment to 'conservative fantasy' sets up nicely the lesson to be learned: is a poorly educated electorate, gleaning what little understanding it has of history and current events from TV news or, for the really motivated, some partisan blog-like flotsam - can such an electorate ever be anything but a willing dupe? Bush's brazen abuse of history in yesterday's speech would indicate Republicans firmly answer no to that question - and do it with a smile!

only one drink?

j think gwb's speeches are being written by aliens.the object, of these speeches, is to blow kevin's fuse. i think they are succeeding.

i need a drink..... i need two drinks.....i need
n drinks.....these mf-ers have blown my fuse a
long tine ago.

Al sez: "American achieved victory in the Korean War and created the free, democratic, and prosperous South Korea there is today..."

Nobody at the time thought we'd achieved victory. Ike cut our losses, accepted the results of a catastrophic retreat, and essentially quit in place.

"Vietnam could have been another South Korea..."

You meant SOUTH Vietnam.

Not a few people have noticed that united VIETNAM is far more like South Korea than it is like North Korea, even though we fought for a dozen years, 60,000 American and maybe a million Vietnamese dead, for the opposite idea, that only another divided Asian nation could preserve world freedom.

History shows pretty decisively that we were wrong, Al.

And how should we apply that lesson to Iraq?

Turns out we were this close to winning in Vietnam when the Defeatocrats decided to pull the plug.

When -who- pulled the plug?
Refresh my memory here - didn't one of the candidates in the '72 election run on a promise to withdraw from Viet Nam? And was subsequently elected ...

More upsetting than Bush's latest lunacy are all the signs that Democrats are folding: Levin, Hillary, Obama.

One sixpack is not enough.

"...or it'll get worse"

I am tired of seeing this argument without any mention of how better/worse is measured. Come back when you've defined a precise metric and have the historical data of the past metric and a good prediction of the future of this metric under various assumptions.

So, those bumper stickers that say 'Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam' are right on target after all...

GWB is quite smart. He knows that so long as the debate is about short term tactics (pacifying Baghdad or Anbar or Fallujah or the next pocket of discontent in Iraq), he is going to get his way, and there is going to be no exit for us from this fiasco.

Even the moderates like Kevin succumb to debating on the issue in a framework that is inherently favorable to the warmongers.

The discussion should be more about the desirability of our military presence there. Cindy Sheehan got it exactly right when she asked the question in the way that she did: 'why did my son die?' It scared the hell out of the people who want to continue to send our kids to die over there.

The same soundbites--9/11, Iraq, Katrina, subprime crisis, etc.--in the new miileneum--

No one could have imagined...(but many did)

No one knew...(but many did)

No good options...(but many died)

Kevin,

Nixon (a Republican) pulled the plug on Vietnam.

Quit helping the opposition.

-----------------

What the president and those pretending the tragedy that unfolded after we left Vietnam was our fault fail to consistently take into account is the number of deaths in Vietnam had we stayed.

They pretend that had the US stayed in Vietnam, not a single extra death would have occurred, miraculously in contradiction to the previous 10 years of the war.

The truth is that we could have stayed in Vietnam another 10 years, incurred the same average rate of casualties as in the previous 10 years, and still would not have achieved victory, while at the same time bankrupting the country (US) and being forced to leave anyway, with all the bad things that happened still happening.

The same is true of Iraq.

There will still be chaos and killing when we leave, be it this year, next year, or 10 years down the road, just as there is chaos and killing despite our presence, but 10 years down the road we will have exhausted our military resources and bankrupted the country for generations, still without success.

Pay now or pay an even more obscene amount later by "staying the [failed] course" established by this pathetic excuse of a president.

In 2002, Bush Promised that as he fought the War on Terror, he won't let us get sucked into a Vietnam quagmire. Because he had great strategic judgment.

(please note that this is the same press conference where he said about Osama bin Laden "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you... again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.")

March, 2002:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20020313- 8.html

Q I wanted to ask about the second phase of the war. As a member of the Vietnam generation, do you worry as you send these military advisors all over the world, typically to chaotic places, that they may get involved in direct conflict and the situation could escalate? And are you prepared to do that?

THE PRESIDENT: Interesting question. Hutch, let me tell you something, I believe this war is more akin to World War II than it is to Vietnam. This is a war in which we fight for the liberties and freedom of our country.

Secondly, I understand there's going to be loss of life...It breaks my heart when I see a mom sitting on the front row of a speech and she's weeping, openly weeping for the loss of her son. It's -- it just -- I'm not very good about concealing my emotions. But I strongly believe we're doing the right thing.

And, Hutch, the idea of denying sanctuary is vital to protect America. And we're going to be, obviously, judicious and wise about how we deploy troops. I learned some good lessons from Vietnam. First, there must be a clear mission. Secondly, the politics ought to stay out of fighting a war. There was too much politics during the Vietnam War. There was too much concern in the White House about political standing. And I've got great confidence in General Tommy Franks, and great confidence in how this war is being conducted. And I rely on Tommy, just like the Secretary of Defense relies upon Tommy and his judgment -- whether or not we ought to deploy and how we ought to deploy.

Tommy knows the lessons of Vietnam just as well as I do. Both of us -- he was a, he graduated from high school in '63, and you and I graduated in '64. We're of the same vintage. We paid attention to what was going on.

If Bush can pull some idea out of his ass and the MSM take him seriously at this point in time, then there is something seriously wrong in the US.

March 6, 2003:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20030306- 8.html

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi, and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in the 30 years since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?

THE PRESIDENT: That's a great question. Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in order to disarm, it would mean regime change. I'm confident we'll be able to achieve that objective, in a way that minimizes the loss of life. No doubt there's risks in any military operation; I know that. But it's very clear what we intend to do. And our mission won't change. Our mission is precisely what I just stated. We have got a plan that will achieve that mission, should we need to send forces in.

No Kevin you don't need a drink,

What we need is an overwhelming national show of our anger to the Dem leadership that has refused to hold this asshole administration accountable. It's very simple. We get action from day one in September for the committees, or things get really ugly.

If Bush can pull some idea out of his ass and the MSM take him seriously at this point in time, then there is something seriously wrong in the US.

Posted by: Bob M on August 23, 2007 at 9:19 AM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duh. The last two presidential elections proved that. The ballot accomplishes nothing. Witness the '06 bullshit that was supposed to herald a change in direction. Somebody is going to eventually pick up a rifle and take matters into their own hands. Sure, it'll be the wrong thing to do. Criminal. Probably make matters worse. Frustration and anger will cloud rational thought in some people. Then again you can't change your luck in the game without sometimes rolling the dice.

Why is that such a hard thing to believe? Certainly, American achieved victory in the Korean War

Technically, North and South Korea are still in a state of war. The two countries have been living under a cease-fire established on July 27, 1953. No peace treaty has ever been signed officially ending the conflict. Therefore nobody has achieved "victory" in the Korean War.

I would recommend a double. Perhaps two doubles.

It seems to me that you're wasting your time bashing Bush. If you're really serious about getting us out of Iraq, then you need to start bashing the democrats that betrayed you by funding the war.

The difference between Iraq and Vietnam? Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

kenga - "Refresh my memory here - didn't one of the candidates in the '72 election run on a promise to withdraw from Viet Nam? And was subsequently elected ..."

Let me refresh your memory, kenga - the candidate you're thinking about made that promise in the *1968* election campaign.

The right wing line is: "Tet was a complete victory for the U.S. which smashed the Vietcong and destroyed the North's war making abilities " etc. Tet occurred in Jan 1968. Here's our casualties by year:

1967: 11,000
1968: 16,000
1969: 11,000

Pretty impressive for an enemy that was defeated.

TruthPolitik: It seems to me that you're wasting your time bashing Bush. If you're really serious about getting us out of Iraq, then you need to start bashing the democrats that betrayed you by funding the war.

Yep, not a single Republican voted to fund the war.

It was all Democrats, all the way.

LOL.

--------------

Pat: The difference between Iraq and Vietnam? Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

Excellent!

We did not lose in Vietnam; we only redeployed. It now appears that the North Vietnamese regime is developing weapons of mass destruction and is an imminent threat to America. Just as we went back to Iraq to finish the job and are now achieving a glorious victory, we should also return to Vietnam and finish that job. We have much better weapons and technology now and it should not be very tough. 2-3 months tops. The citizens will welcome us with flowers and candy. There will be no insurgency.

The right wing line is: "Tet was a complete victory for the U.S. which smashed the Vietcong and destroyed the North's war making abilities " etc.

The irony is that by military standards, the Tet Offensive was a tremendous defeat for the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong. The offensive failed and an estimated 45,000 NVA and Viet Cong were killed compared to less than 4,500 US, Australian, and South Vietnamese killed.

The political fallout was another matter. In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Lyndon Johnson's popularity plummetted eventually causing him to drop out of the 1968 Presidential race.

"But it leaves you with the sense that what we've been doing hasn't been working, but we can't let up, or it'll get worse."

Sure, if we stop doing what we're doing, things will most likely get worse, at least in the immediate aftermath. But the precise reason that there is the impression that what we've been doing hasn't been working is that things are getting worse even with us doing exactly what we are doing.

We don't have an infinite capacity to put up with the costs from Iraq. Certainly, if we withdraw, its quite possible that the rate at which things are getting worse there will increase, at least in the short term. But, the thing is, we're going to leave, eventually, and things are getting worse, whether we leave or not. The question is whether we wait until the price is high as it was for us in Vietnam or for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan before we face up to the fact that we lack the capacity to turn around the political situation to the kind of outcome we prefer through the use of military force.

A war isn't lost when one side's military force is utterly defeated (that is sufficient, but not necessary), it is lost when one side lacks the capacity to achieve the political objective that it is seeking through the application of military force. It is possible that the US post-Saddam effort to impose a regime that was simultaneously friendly to the US and democratic was lost, by that standard, from the day it began, but even if it wasn't it is long lost now. And its quite certain that having destroyed every force and institution capable of maintaining order in Iraq and having heightened the factional animosity within Iraq, the US has almost guaranteed that whenever it withdraws, the chaos in Iraq will accelerate in the short term. But the US, in its continued presence, doing nothing which advances its notional political objectives in Iraq as far as democracy promotion, stability, etc., only deepening the internal divisions and stresses which will tear the country apart when it leaves.

And whether it leaves now because the US government and people recognize the fact that there is no road to success, just a mounting cost, or leaves later because the American people experience the horrific cost of protracted failure, the US will leave Iraq. The only question left open is how high of a price we pay first.

The irony is that by military standards, the Tet Offensive was a tremendous defeat for the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong.

The only military standard that matters is the effect on the political objectives for which wars are fought. Any other "military standard" is pure wankery.

We have lost George Bush's war. This is not an American war. This is strictly a Repukeliscum war. Thus, if we withdraw with terrible consequences, it does not matter to the American people, who did not agree to this war under truth.

The Repukeliscum will look terrible, of course. That's the only important thing: We must pin the DEFEAT FIRMLY ON BUSH.

It does not matter what happens, as long as Bush gets the blame. That's all that matters.

"Dang, we were that close"

If only those lib flight instructors, had allowed him to qualify for a F-105.

A true Rambo in the skys. Of course, there would have been all that extra weight of Pampers.

Let me refresh your memory, kenga - the candidate you're thinking about made that promise in the *1968* election campaign.

Thanks ralphie!

Took him a while to get around to it though, huh?
Maybe he was too busy listening to "Alice's Restaurant"?

Hate to quibble, Helena Montana, but, if Shrub failed to show in Alabama, who ran all those bar tabs?

Nice to see Straight Talk putting Barry Goldwater in a tumbrel for not being pure.

Strange, Al, that many of those Generals involved in Korea, were dead set against any involvment in Viet Nam.

I'm sure all of the conservative geniuses in the Bush Administration, who have such a keen understanding of history, are aware that superpowers are 0 and 5 against home-grown insurgencies in the past 100 years.

Unless we plan to kill every human being in Iraq, we will never, ever, ever "win" this occupation.

(sigh) I wish folks who made references to history bothered to learn it: this means YOU, Dice.

Tet '68 all but destroyed the Viet Cong. Prior to 1968 (e.g., the struggles against Diem), the Viet Cong were largely an indigenous southern force. While there were lots of NVA fighting in the South, they were supported by an essentially southern insurgency: the VC.

THEY were decimated in the Tet offensive. Through the end of the war, the NVA took on an ever increasing role, finally leading to the Central Highlands campaign and the ARVN's ultimate defeat -- NOT by the 'guerrilla war' of legend, but by a heavy armored invasion.

NONE of this applies to Iraq, even as an analogy -- but if you misread the history as thoroughly as Dice (and others) do, you wind up on the wrong side of the lesson.

Nixon and Kissinger resolved to kiss off South Vietnam, to accept its utter collapse "a decent interval" after we bailed. You don't have to buy the idea that we caused the Cambodian genocide by leaving (as opposed to first destroying the county with B-52s), and assorted other nonsense, to recognize that we abandoned hundreds of thousands of people who trusted us.

That failure encouraged Syria to invade Lebanon. Assad told Kissinger in 1975, just before he sent his troops to Beirut "“You’ve betrayed Vietnam, someday you will sell out Taiwan and we’ll be around when you get tired of Israel.�

A great post on DK makes an insightful suggestion:

Iraq should now be called "Bushnam".

Remember, Iraqis may die, the country may go up in flames, but NOTHING MATTERS EXCEPT BUSH MUST GET THE BLAME.

BUSH MUST GET THE BLAME.

BUSH'S LEGACY: TWO FAILED WARS>

Nothing else matters, nothing.

Worth reading:
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/05/try-again.html

IMHO, there is now no substantive difference between Bush and HRC and the other dem candidates on the Iraq War -- certainly none that the average voter can detect. To me, this means that dems are unlikely to benefit very much from the widespread public sentiment against the war. Any advantage in 2008 that the dems might have had due to the unpopularity of the war is now virtually gone.

The election will come down once again to who can protect us best against terror. By the time the election rolls around, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the WOT will all be one huge confusing hairball.

At this point, I am very pessimistic about our chances in 2008.

“It seems to me that you're wasting your time bashing Bush. If you're really serious about getting us out of Iraq, then you need to start bashing the democrats that betrayed you by funding the war. “

Ah, brings back memories of the 1968 presidential race. Don’t waste your time bashing Nixon; you need to bash Humphrey who betrayed you. I lived in Minnesota in the late seventies, and one of the sadist things I saw was the continuous stream of former activists who would come up to then Senator Humphrey in the last years of his life and apologize for attacking him instead of the real enemy, Nixon. Please, keep your eyes on the ball, people!

There's more. Lots more.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2004/04/vacationall-i-ever-wanted.html

asdf: " urge Americans to download or rent Rambo III... Tonight. Seriously, trust me, you *need* to see it!"

There was a Rambo III? Christ, no wonder they hate us for our freedoms!

Thanks Americanist for injecting some, you know, actual historical perspective to the debate.

Bush's point in raising Vietnam in his speech yesterday was no so much "we were this close to winning" as it was about a reminder of the consequences of cutting loose South Vietnam. And I think most folks would agree that cutting loose Iraq would also lead to serious and negative consequences both for Iraq and for us.

Critics can argue that Iraq is futile and therefore the question isn't if but when we decide to abandon Iraq. We can certainly debate that. But the historical analogy regarding the consequences of abandoning South Vietnam would still apply. To write this off as "yet another longtime conservative fantasy" is to ignore the reality of what happened in 1975 and the impact it had on the years since then.

There was a Rambo III? Christ, no wonder they hate us for our freedoms!

Rambo III documents how Sly Stallone teamed up with OBL to drive the Soviet infidels out of Afganistan.

duh

Donald from Hawaii,

Just wait for Rambo IV, in production at the moment following filming in Thailand, where Sly comes out a rest home and...

Gives new meaning to "Gray Panthers" - Sorta like Lloyd Bridges training Seinfeld.

We dropped two a-bombs on Japan killing 180,000 people to win in Pacific. The Allies/US bombed Germany into the stone age to "win" against Hitler. It is possible to "win" in Iraq, but we don't want to pay the price (thankfully). Remember that scene in Apocolase Now!, Kurtz talking about how the Vietcong cut off the arms of children he and is SF had just vaccinated? "And I thought, the brilliance of that, the brilliance."

Bush's point in raising Vietnam in his speech yesterday was no so much "we were this close to winning" as it was about a reminder of the consequences of cutting loose South Vietnam.

And where was Bush's concern for "consequences" when he launched this ill-conceived and incompetently executed war in the first place?

Critics can argue that Iraq is futile and therefore the question isn't if but when we decide to abandon Iraq. We can certainly debate that.

No, Hack, we can't "debate" that. The US military is quite plain that we can't sustain the current force levels; the so-called Surge was Bush's last chance to restore some kind of order in Iraq, and with the failure of Iraq's political process, the Surge has failed its stated objectives (hence the long-predicted goalpost-moving to "signs of progress" in lieu of success).

And so yes, Hack, there are likely to be some bad outcomes. But they're bad outcomes of Bush's decision to invade, and incompetent occupation, not of the decision to withdraw.

That decision is a manifestation of the American peoples' realization that they are no longer willing to sacrifice American blood and treasure to this doomed adventure. And of course, most war cheerleaders agree -- certainly you don't see them lining up to bolster our flagging military forces -- right, Hack? -- or advocating increasing taxes to pay for the war.

Thanks, though, for continuing to prove our predictions of the right wing's Dolchstosslegende campaign were right on the money. But the inevitable bad consequences -- just like in Vietnam and Cambodia -- are not a result of the decision to withdraw, but rather the decision to escalate. Once that decision was made, the consequences were inevitable, and no amount of neocon spin can wash the blood off their hands.

Bush's point in raising Vietnam in his speech yesterday was no so much "we were this close to winning"

BS. That's exactly what it was about.

Everybody understands that there will most likely be an increase in violence in Iraq when the US leaves and a new political equilibrium is established. Duh. We don't need to be reminded of that. GWB's goal in his speech was the same as it has always been -- to ask for enough FUs to take us to Jan 2009.

Bush and his policies have painted his Administration and everyone else into a corner, and now he's saying, "It would be a mistake to walk out of this corner because we would all get paint on our shoes. Trust me: I know how to solve this problem: we keep painting."

By the way, the irony of Hack complaining about "longtime conservative fantasies" is not lost.

You can thank theAmericanist for rewriting history.

Hack[saw]: And I think most folks would agree that cutting loose Iraq would also lead to serious and negative consequences both for Iraq and for us.

Uh, no, it will not have serious and negative consquences for the US any more than cutting loose Vietnam had serious and negative consequences for the US, at least not as serious and negative as the consequences that would have existed had the US "stayed the course" in Vietnam and still lost 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years down the road.

And as usual, conservatives massively overstate the negative consequences of abandoning an "ally" who doesn't and never has deserved the American blood spilt on their behalf.

Just as the South Vietnamese refused to accept responsibility for their own fate, so have the Iraqis.

We're getting our hand bit by our erstwhile friends and all you and theAmericanist can do is lie about history and the current situation in Iraq because of partisan political arrogance, self-importance, and self-centeredness.

To write this off as "yet another longtime conservative fantasy" is to ignore the reality of what happened in 1975 and the impact it had on the years since then.

Your "reality" of what happened in 1975 is the real fantasy, born of rewriting history.

Shove it.

We still have troops in Korea,Hence we still have not won.We have no troops in Viet Nam,Hence we won.Or is Nam one of the Triangle of terror.

kenji --
I'm with you on that.

Anonymous:
"Yep, not a single Republican voted to fund the war.

It was all Democrats, all the way.

LOL."

It simply amazes me that you don't understand. The democrats have a majority in the house and senate. Even without a majority the Republicans seem to be able to block bills they don't agree with. Why couldn't the dems just block the funding bill thus ending the war like they did for vietnam. Wake up!!!

I'm trying real hard not to believe that it's just politics. LOL

And I think most folks would agree that cutting loose Iraq would also lead to serious and negative consequences both for Iraq and for us.

Christ, now you're a realist. Yet when we kept saying back in 2003 that attacking and invading Iraq would lead to serious and negative consequences both for Iraq and for us, nobody listened.

Besides, staying in Iraq also will lead (and had led) to serious and negative consequences both for Iraq and for us. There are serious and negative consequences no matter what we do. The question is, which will do the least harm to us and them in the long run?

TruthPolitik: It simply amazes me that you don't understand. The democrats have a majority in the house and senate.

It simply amazes me that you don't understand the Constitution and that it takes more than a majority to override a veto.

Perhaps you should go back and re-read that document and educate yourself.

Or maybe you just want the Democrats to stage a coup?

Why couldn't the dems just block the funding bill thus ending the war like they did for vietnam.

Because Bush will leave the troops in Iraq without funding and the Dems will get blamed for any deaths that result from failure to keep them armed, fed, housed, and their families fed and housed.

I'm trying real hard not to believe that it's just politics.

What fantasy world do you live in where politics is not a consideration for politicians holding positions in political institutions?

Even Jefferson and Madison played politics.

Wake up.

Grow up.

Get back to the world of reality where you claim to be from, instead of the fantasy world of ideological purity eerily similar to the world of Bush and his supporters.

Exactly.

In 2002, George Bush told us that Osama bin Laden wasn't worth worrying about.

In 2003, he pulled troops out of Afghanistan and promised he was going into Iraq, but it wouldn't be another Vietnam. Because he was on a very limited mission with a clear objective: to make sure Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and it might include some regime change.

He didn't seem to understand that "regime change" was an extremely large mission and unclear objective.

So, in 2007, we've got OBL on the loose, the growth and expansion of al-Quaeda, Iraq descending every day into a worse chaos, Afghanistan falling apart, our national prestige at an all-time low, soaring war debt, and an military that is incapable of sustaining its current commitments.

We're supposed to believe that going forward, negative consequences will happen because we're pulling out of the quagmire in Iraq? That's like jumping off the Empire State Building and blaming your injuries on the ground. Dude, the mistake didn't happen when you hit the ground. The mistake was jumping off the Empire State Building without a parachute!

anonymous: The mistake was jumping off the Empire State Building without a parachute!

I agree with anonymous who is anonymous@anonymous.com.

If someone jumped off the Empire State building without a parachute, only if he was insane would he want to proceed to the ground instead of being caught and his path diverted to safety.

Bush wants to keep failing in Iraq until America hits the ground with a big splat, hopefully after he leaves office.

Funny thing about those majoritys, Mr Politboro, Joe Liebemann and the Blue Dogs.

Sorta like the days of the phony Democrat, Rep Phil Gramm, passing info to the Repugs and voting for their budgets - Ever hear of the "Boll Weevils", or did not Tass print that out for you?

But, then old, even though born on an Army base, took marriage deferments to keep him out of Nam, Phil cut and ran over to the Repugs, first as a Rep, then a Senator.

And don't forget Rep Brian Baird (D?) of the Southwestern part of Washington, morphing into a reincarnation of Linda Smith.

Hack, you could relocate to Ft Lewis - Just live in Thurston County to the southwest and you can vote for Brother Baird, the reborn Repug.

Yeesh--it's the Hotel Iraq, we can check out any time we like, but we can't leave.

Really now, how much worse can it get if we do leave?

TruthPolitik: "The democrats have a majority in the house and senate. Even without a majority the Republicans seem to be able to block bills they don't agree with. "

You must have missed the excellent work on the power of the filibuster that Kevin Drum posted a month or so ago. Bascially, until the Democrats have a solid block of 60 votes to override the threat of filibusters, or can count on sufficient Republican defections, they do not have a real working majority.

Maybe he was too busy listening to "Alice's Restaurant"?

Heard an updated version of AR from Arlo a few Thanksgivings back. He remarked that when the White House was being cleaned out after Nixon, one of the things they found was a copy of Alice's Restaurant. Arlo also observed that AR was 18 1/2 minutes long, which made him wonder what Rosemary was REALLY erasing on that tape. :-)

Really now, how much worse can it get if we do leave?

For whom?
If this mis-adventure is laid at the feet of the Republican party, their prospects for having any real say in the federal sphere(and likely at the state level as well) will be badly damaged for the foreseeable future.
Couple that with the seemingly likely effects of accelerating climate change and it is possible that the Republican party and their proponents will find themselves in the dustbin of history well before this century reaches its mid-point.
They are looking at a very real threat of extinction - some of them suspect it while others remain oblivious. Still others frequently adjust their blinders.

There's a key distinction here that few are mentioning: there's a fundamental difference between (1) doing something that causes some new state of affairs and (2) deciding to stop trying to prevent an existing state of affairs from getting worse.

If you plant dynamite under a bridge and set it off, the bridge will collapse. Without your action, the bridge would continue to stand.

If you're trying to stop flood-waters from flooding your home and you give up on the stand-bagging operation, the floodwaters will inundate your home. But you didn't cause the flood.

If you look at these situations in terms of culpability and responsibility for consequences, they are profoundly different.

In Iraq, a good case can be made that Bush caused the horrific situation we're in, so pulling out would simply lead to the consequences of Bush's policy becoming more severe. As if he had actually caused the flood -- and how he's telling us we can't afford to stop sand-bagging. In this case, we can ascribe responsibility and culpability to his INITIAL POLICY, which caused the flooding. This is why his warning that that giving up on his occupation and surge will cause more harm is really hard to take.

anonymous: Bush wants to keep failing in Iraq until America hits the ground with a big splat, hopefully after he leaves office.

I'd amend that to say "Bush wants to keep failing in Iraq, hoping the Democrats will intervene to catch America before it hits the ground with a big splat. Then he will lead the chorus of complaints that America was about to blast a big hole in the ground with its invulnerable body that would have destroyed its enemies when those meddling, pessimistic Democrats intervened."

If the Democrats don't intervene, they'll be hated as much as Republicans, so it's win/win for Commander Codpiece, who will soon be clearing brush and soaking his brain in Jim Beam in Paraguay anyway.

PTate: Bascially, until the Democrats have a solid block of 60 votes to override the threat of filibusters, or can count on sufficient Republican defections, they do not have a real working majority.

Or they could become just like the Republicans and ignore the rules.

But, then, they would be no better than the Republicans, except of course you would be supporting the policies and laws adopted without regard for the rules which means that conservatives should not have any shame supporting a president and GOP Congress who have and continue to break the rules to achieve their policy goals.

After all, if it is okay for Democrats to break the rules for the things they believe in, it was okay for the GOP to do the same and all that hollering about respect for the law and legislative rules and against underhanded legislative tactics just becomes meaningless squawking by self-serving ideologues.

Are you a self-serving ideologue, TruthPolitik?

If not, why are you insisting that the Democrats abandon principle and engage in the same type of underhanded legislative tactics that the GOP did when they were in power?

theAmericanist at 11:18 AM
….Tet '68 all but destroyed the Viet Cong….
As Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."
There were no compelling reasons for Americans to shed their blood in Vietnam. Eventually everyone, not just the left, came to realize that.

NONE of this applies to Iraq, even as an analogy….
Actually, it does. Once again, the US has invaded a country without a compelling reason to shed blood and treasure for its national interest.

Nixon and Kissinger resolved to kiss off South Vietnam…
No, they came to recognize the futility of the war. The Vietnamese were not going away. They, like Iraqis, were fighting for their own territory. We are the invaders and occupiers.
After the war, Ford opened the US to Vietnamese refugees for those who chose the wrong side. Even though there are far fewer Iraqi collaborators, will Bush and this crop of Republicans show that basic human decency?

That failure encouraged Syria to invade Lebanon….
Sure, post hoc ergo proper hoc. Syria always and still considers Lebanon to be part of Greater Syria just as Iraq considers Kuwait to be one of its provinces. In fact, Syria's forced withdrawal led to the Israeli attack and slaughter of Lebanonese last year.

Hacksaw at 11:49 AM:
…Bush's point…. was about a reminder of the consequences of cutting loose South Vietnam…
Here is the consequence of leaving Vietnam: Bush, on a trade mission in Vietnam.
Actually, it is staying in Iraq that has serious and negative consequences for both Iraq and the US. The US military is being broken, Iraqis are being slaughtered, and Iraq's infrastructure is being destroyed. Everything Bush and his minions promised has turned to turds.

…. the historical analogy regarding the consequences of abandoning South Vietnam would still apply….
As even Stevie Wonder can see, the consequence of ending the American war on Vietnam was to allow the Vietnamese people to attaint their own destiny without being part of someone's empire.

it was about a reminder of the consequences of cutting loose South Vietnam.

And those consequences were what exactly? We're all speaking "commie" now? The nations fell like dominos? Must have missed it.

George Bush doesn't learn from history (and US foreign policy gaffes). He simply rewrites history to his liking, how he dreams it should have turned out. Then, he repeats these grievous errors.

NONE of this applies to Iraq, even as an analogy….

Then Mike says..Actually, it does. Once again, the US has invaded a country without a compelling reason to shed blood and treasure for its national interest.

Exactly right.

Analogies between Iraq and Vietnam:

* Invaded another country without any compelling national security reason

* Invasion based on lies by political leaders

* War's continuation promoted based on lied by political leaders

* Overemphasis on number of enemy combatants killed while underemphasizing the actual strategic and tactical significance of those losses

* Reliance on and promotion of a foreign government whose existence depends solely on the continued presence of American troops, without any popular support

* Support for a government that is weak, ineffectual, and incompetent, whose own interests, apart from mere existence, directly conflict with the interests promoted as justifying the war

* A refusal to demand performance from the foreign government we support, making the US responsible for nearly all sacrifices, both monetary and militarily

* Intellectually dishonest domino theories (Vietnam's fall will cause a domino effect and result in the entire world coming under communist domination; Iraq's success will cause a domino effect and result in the entire world coming under the domination of democratic institutions)

* Constant denigration of the very people the administration and military are defending within the ranks of the military and war supporters

* Abuse and murder of innocent civilians in the name of victory and as the result of the psychological toll of a war against an insurgency that hides among the populace

* A majority of the populace hating American and the presence of American soliders

* Routine promises of victory just around the corner if we just stay the course a little longer

* Routine [false] pronouncements of an improving war situation

* Abusive treatment of soldiers by the administration, the Pentagon, and their own commanders

* Blaming the messenger for failures of policy and military strategy and tactics

* Loss of respect for American values around the globe for our failure to uphold those values ourselves

* Wasteful spending on a doomed war effort that leaves needed matters unattended at home and weakens the nation's security abroad in other areas of the world

* The creation of enemies at a greater rate than we are killing them

* War apologists lying about the war, about history, about the opposition, and about their own motivations

Anonymous, kindly note between quotation marks a SINGLE thing which I said about Vietnam (or anything else), and demonstrate that it is factually wrong.

I'll show you how it's done. You wrote "the South Vietnamese refused to accept responsibility for their own fate..."

In fact, many ARVN units fought against the NVA until literally their last bullet in the Central Highlands. If you'd like to repeat that they refused to accept responsibility, I will be happy to bring you to meet a few, and you can take it up with them.

I'll hold your coat, and even call 911.

As always when backed into his own little corner of falsehoods and illogic, theA's last argumentative gasp is to issue a threat of violence.

So typical of the breed.

After the war, Ford opened the US to Vietnamese refugees for those who chose the wrong side. Even though there are far fewer Iraqi collaborators, will Bush and this crop of Republicans show that basic human decency?

He's refused to allow more than a few Iraqis political asylum in the US so far (for obvious reasons), and GWB is nothing if not consistent.

"Tet '68 all but destroyed the Viet Cong."

The VC controlled most of the rural areas after the Tet offensive, so much so in fact that Westmoreland demanded an additional 200,000 plus troops because he could only secure the cities.

Sound familiar?

[Lt. Col. John Paul Vann wrote in March 1968 that the VC were "being given more freedom to intimidate the rural population than ever before in the past two-and-a-half years.

So much for being "all but destroyed."

That's a SINGLE thing.

Bye, bye, so long, go find your ARVN friends and relive the fantasies in your own head, but no need to peddle your lies here any more.

---------------------

In fact, many ARVN units fought against the NVA until literally their last bullet in the Central Highlands. If you'd like to repeat that they refused to accept responsibility, I will be happy to bring you to meet a few, and you can take it up with them.

You know exactly what I meant, that the South Vietnamese government never accepted responsibility for it's own security, just like the Iraqi government is not.

So, you can shove your dishonesty right back up the dark hole in your behind where it came from.

the[so-called]Americanist: . . . we abandoned hundreds of thousands of people who trusted us . . .

They didn't trust us and they never had the right to our assistance in the first place.

BTW, where were you when Bush 41 abandoned the Southern Shiites in Iraq?

Where were you when Bush 41 abandoned the Kurds in northern Iraq?

Where were you when Bush 41 was funding Saddam and helping him to acquire WMDs, torture his own people, and committing genocide?

Where were you when the GOP wanted to abandon the Albanians, Bosnians, and Kosovoans?

Where were you when the GOP abandoned the Guatemalans to a brutal dictator?

Where were you when the GOP abandoned the Peruvians to a brutal dictator?

Where were you when the GOP abandoned the South Africans to the brutality of apartheid?

Where were you when the Bush 43 administration abandoned the Chechnyans?

Where were you when the Bush 43 administration abandoned the Afghanistanis?

Where were you when the Bush 43 administration abandoned our veterans, our wounded, and our still-serving soldiers in Iraq?

Where were you when the Bush 43 administration abandoned the Sudanese?

Apologizing, rationalizing, denying . . .

ROFL -- man, some folks are just DUMB.

There isn't ANYBODY (which included Vann, and even Westmoreland) who doesn't acknowledge that Tet crushed the VC. The ARVN didn't lose to the Viet Cong, much less America losing to 'em -- we left, and ARVN lost to the NVA. (What Vann was bitching about was how the VC "were being given more freedom", which had to do with OUR strategy, not their capacity.)

Re-read that, 'ymous, since you didn't get it the first three times.

Maxwell Taylor said the single smartest thing ever said about America's involvement in Vietnam: in the late 60s and 70s, he used to tour college campuses and talk to anti-war protestors. He always started by reminding them that he had known some of their fathers, who had helped liberate Europe with him. Then he would talk about Vietnam, and he would say, gee, if we could explain in 200 words why we're there, what's gone wrong, and how we can set it right, then...

So some wiseass kid stood up (I think it was at UCLA), and said: Okay, General -- give us 200 words.

To his credit, Taylor always acknowledged that at the time, he couldn't do it. But he took his own challenge seriously, and worked it out, finally doing a letter to the editor of the old Washington Star.

He said that the initial American strategy in Vietnam made sense: we were backing our ally the Diem government, from both an internal revolt (the Viet Cong and the Buddhists) AND an external invasion (the NVA). That was a consistent mission, Taylor argued, because you can improve a government while you support it against internal enemies, and of course you can help defend even a bad government against an invasion.

BUT we got disgusted with Diem (who was never popular anyway,being a Catholic in a Buddhist country), and signaled Big Minh that we would continue to support Saigon against the NVA as well as the VC (the Buddhists faded as a threat to Saigon) even if Diem was killed, which promptly happened.

So we had two contradictory missions for several years, Taylor argued. First, we had to help the south repel an invasion -- and in fact, we TOOK OVER that job, starting at Ia Drang in 1965, only a year and half or so after Diem's murder.

But second, we had to build up an independent government that could withstand the domestic insurgency (the VC), which required political means (including brutal ones, like the Phoenix program), AND be able to defend the nation against the invaders.

Taylor pointed out that Tet '68 was the last, and really the only shot the VC ever had: and they got clobbered. It wasn't the VC that won the Vietnam War. (Hell, check the re-education camp stories about south Vietnamese communists who got purged by the NVA.) It was a heavy armor invasion from the North.

You can deny that 'till Doomsday, but it's still the simple truth.

What it MEANS, though, is that the far more insidious political myth about Vietnam isn't the right wing fantasy that we coulda won. (As noted, Goldwater himself voted against funding the damned thing, in the end.)

It's the left's idea that there was something ultimately honorable about abandoning our friends, people who BELIEVED in us; that commitments made by JFK and LBJ and even the evil Nixon, weren't worth anything. It's the Flounder Foreign Policy: "You fucked up, you trusted us".

I want people to TRUST us, which requires smarter (not to mention more honest) folks than 'ymous, here.

It's legit (if a bit tendentious) to argue, for example, that Syria would have invaded Lebanon anyway: probably.

But only a fool or an ignoramus (or someone who hates America) can read Assad telling Kissinger, hey: you betrayed Vietnam, you will bail on Taiwan, and one day, you will grow tired of Israel, and not feel a chill.

You don't get to hit a re-set button, and get a different set of choices. Ike handled Korea beautifully, Reagan even did pretty well getting the hell out of Lebanon. But those two choices ( a stalemate and ceasefire in place, and just buggin' out) weren't available in Vietnam... and the REAL parallel is that they're not available in Iraq, either, unless you're willing to open our borders to a WHOLE lot of potential terrorists (you'd trust the guys who are issuing passports to screen 'em?), AND accept a pretty ugly outcome in Iraq itself.

That's what we're looking at, folks: and fools who learned nothing and remember nothing from Vietnam aren't helping us focus.

Since you ask, 'ymous: I was working for a Democratic member of the House during much of the times you mention. Among other things I urged that we put a permanent floor on refugee admissions, among other things, which would have substantially increased the #s admitted over the past few years, which would have been useful in lots of places, including Iraq.

If you really want to go WAY back, since you mention South Africa (I met Mandela once, in a hallway: he is REGAL), when I was working in the Senate, the Democratic Senator I worked FOR (as a junior aide on foreign policy and national security stuff) was a major player in the legislative fight over what to do about South Africa, and he was the Democratic leader over Central America. I helped at the press conference in 1982, when we followed the lead of the Miami Herald (which had broken the story) and demanded Reagan come clean about what he was letting Casey do with the contras.

(And, in fact, if the frigging House had listened to us and passed the Senate, not the House version of the Boland amendment, the whole Iran-contra mess would have gone very different and, IMNSHO, much better: the House guys were too smart for their own good, and wrote language that only SEEMED restrictive -- Ollie North drove a war through it.)

But back in this century, I wrote a fair amount after 9-11 about the need for a theological component to our strategy in the 'global war on terror', in the same way we won the Cold War in part because we had a political strategy: we were for freedom, the Communists were against it. (Ask Vaclav Havel if that didn't have some power.)

I rather suspect I'm one of those folks who is being watched by FISA taps, cuz I have had a # of overseas contacts with folks banned from the US, e.g., Tariq Ramadan.

Learned anything yet, 'ymous?

"Reagan did pretty well in getting out of Lebanon"

Yeah, and leaving all of those bereavement cards, gifts and flowers behind for the families of those killed by Cap Weinberger's orders.

But, by all means support a puppet government to the end - Why stop now? Help keep a casino out of Garden Grove. Support Ky's Grocery.

theAmericanist: You can deny that 'till Doomsday, but it's still the simple truth.

Since I didn't deny that the NVA beat the Americans and the ARVN, this is a strawman you can put forth till doomsday, but you will still be lying about the VC being destroyed and about what I wrote.

But only a fool or an ignoramus (or someone who hates America) can read Assad telling Kissinger, hey: you betrayed Vietnam, you will bail on Taiwan, and one day, you will grow tired of Israel, and not feel a chill.

Only a fool would implicitly deny that Assad (and others) can play a psychological and political game by making such statements, assuming they were in fact made, just like Saddam played with the West and his Arab neighbors by pretending to have WMDs he didn't have and he knew we knew he didn't have.

Your capacity to take the words of leaders like Assad at their face value without any nuance or appreciation of psychological or political warfare is truly astounding.

I won't bother to ask if you've learned anything, since clearly you know it all already and the "truth" is fixed in your mind.

------------

I was working for a Democratic member of the House during much of the times you mention . . .

Strom Thurmond used to be a Democrat.

Liberals have worked as law clerks for conservative justices.

So what.

---------------

But back in this century, I wrote a fair amount after 9-11 about the need for a theological component to our strategy in the 'global war on terror' . . .

Sure, who ever suffered from religious warfare?!

That's the ticket - give in to the radical Islamists desire for a worldwide religious conflict driven by theology!

. . . we were for freedom . . .

I guess that's why we overthrew so many democracies and installed strongman dictators or supported ruthless dictators already in place.

And, in fact, if the frigging House had listened to us and passed the Senate, not the House version of the Boland amendment, the whole Iran-contra mess would have gone very different and, IMNSHO, much better: the House guys were too smart for their own good, and wrote language that only SEEMED restrictive -- Ollie North drove a war through it.

Yeah, if the legislation had only been tighter, nobody in the Bush and Reagan administrations would have dared violate it, because, you know, the GOP has such respect for the law.

It's the left's idea that there was something ultimately honorable about abandoning our friends . . .

It's the Right and self-congratulatory "Americanists" who have the idea that the people our leaders call "friends" are actually friends.

Maybe if we all acknowledge that we want to blow theAssholist, he'll just go away....

But only a fool or an ignoramus (or someone who hates America) can read Assad telling Kissinger, hey: you betrayed Vietnam, you will bail on Taiwan, and one day, you will grow tired of Israel, and not feel a chill.

I admit it, I felt a chill.

But then the air-conditioning is on, and I'm wearing a very thin shirt....

The idea that we went in to Vietnam to "save" the Vietnamese and bring them freedom and democracy is so utterly dishonest, so arrogant, so filled with superior self-righteousness that I almost can't stomach it.

We went to Vietnam based on the false assumption that if Vietnam fell communism would spread to the edge of our shores and leave us helpless in the face of worldwide communist domination.

We went to Vietnam for ourselves, not for the freedom of the Vietnamese, who most Americans, including many in the military, mocked and belittled and called vile names.

History is repleat with American attempts to bring "civilization" to peoples they considered second class, such as the Cubans upon whom we imposed racist and brutal dictatorships that favored white cubans over brown and black ones, the Guatemalan native peoples, and so forth.

And our goals in all of these instances was American economic exploitation, not democracy or freedom for the majority of people in those countries.

Try reading a little history of America's actual involvement with Cuba, Guatemala, Peru, Columbia, Nicaragua, the entire Middle East, and a host of other countries and peoples, "Americanazist."

It is a history of land theft, slavery, oppression, self-interest, and everything that is the opposite of democracy and freedom.

Even WWII wasn't waged until we were directly attacked and our own direct interests threatened.

You can put all the makeup you want on the Vietnam War and other "American" activities that you categorize as bringing freedom and democracy to the world, but it will still won't cover the ugly truth that you can't abandon a house that you were never invited into.

Good points, anon, esp regarding WWII. Even to this day, the American ideal of an action hero is a Bruce Willis Die Hard type -- a guy who only reluctantly gets drawn into conflict when all reasonable responses have failed. Why do we expect so much less from our governments. Oh, right: chickenhawk flu.

Anonymous

The democrats don't need to break any rules to end the war in Iraq. All they needed to do was not pass the funding bill. As they did for the Vietnam War. There was no problem finding the money to bring the troops home from Vietnam There would be no problem finding the money to bring them home from Iraq. If President Bush kept them there after funding stopped then whatever happened would be his fault. But we both know the dems are just playing politics.

theAmericanist at 3:59 PM
There isn't ANYBODY … who doesn't acknowledge that Tet crushed the VC…
According to the US government reports, we had all but defeated the enemy when they then launched a countrywide attack that they were not supposed to be able to do. It took weeks and heavy loses for the US to retake those areas.
The US won every battle in Vietnam, yet lost the war. The same is happening in Iraq. Your point is irrelevant.

Maxwell Taylor said ….he had known some of their fathers, who had helped liberate Europe with him….
WWII was not Vietnam. There was a vital American interests at stake in WWII. Japan attacked the US; Germany declared war against us. Neither Vietnam nor Iraq attacked or declared war against the US. It's that simple.

….we were backing our ally the Diem government…
Initially, we were backing our ally, France until we decided to supplant them because of some nonsensical concept of dominoes and fighting communism. Diem was not important and was overthrown when he became inconvenient. Revisionism makes interesting, but inaccurate, stories.

……second, we had to build up an independent government that could withstand the domestic insurgency (the VC)...AND be able to defend the nation against the invaders
The division of Vietnam into North and South was artificial (like the division between North and South Korea) and done by Western powers, not the Vietnamese people. One cannot speak of their fellow citizens as being invaders in this circumstance.

Taylor pointed out that Tet '68 was the last, and really the only shot the VC ever had: and they got clobbered…. It was a heavy armor invasion from the North…
that the US was incapable of defeating. The simple truth is that the VC and NVA were both Vietnamese and you can deny that 'till Doomsday, but it's still the simple truth. The commitment was to the French, then we installed a puppet regime that supported the US because the US supported it. That puppet regime was not supported by the people, hence, it fell.

...But only a fool or an ignoramus (or someone who hates America) can ...not feel a chill
As expected, the hate American argument. Thanks for the smear, chum, and right back at ya. Frankly, any conversation reported by Kissinger is suspect because he is a notorious self-aggrandizing liar and partisan. This one, if true, is irrelevant so the only "chill" I feel is that Assad was merely speaking realpolitik.
The US has a one China policy in case you didn't know it. Vietnam was unwinable, in case you didn't know it. And our support for Israel is counterproductive to American interests, in case you didn't know it. One day, we will realize that. The sooner the better.

….Ike …. Reagan….... unless you're willing to open our borders to a WHOLE lot of potential terrorists …AND accept a pretty ugly outcome in Iraq itself.
Ike left the war suspended, not solved. It's still an international mess. If you think that beautiful, you're figgin' nuts. Reagan ran from Lebanon with his tail between his legs and invaded Grenada to distract attention from the fiasco. You other point seems to be claiming that we gotta fight 'em over there, which is so stupid one would expect to hear that from Bush. Oh, wait, Bush does say that.
As for the ugly outcome in Iraq itself, what would you call 600,000 Iraqi dead, 4 million Iraqi refugees, and a destroyed Iraq infrastructure? What would you call 4,000 American dead, 30,000 American casualties and almost $1,000,000,000,000 wasted? It sounds pretty ugly to me, pally.

LOL - see, this is why I post here: I get to read folks talk about how America is a "history of land theft, slavery, oppression, self-interest, and everything that is the opposite of democracy and freedom..."

And then they tell ME that I'm self-righteous.

Just to clarify a small thing (cuz you guys are impressively ignorant): the Senate version of the Boland amendment (which, as it happens, was NOT called "the Boland amendment") simply said that "it shall not be the policy of the United States to overthrow the government of Nicaragua."

Eddy Boland's language sought to restrict the use of the MONEY.

So North and his buddies took the money and said it was being used for some OTHER purpose -- to get influence, etc. Like most attempts to legislate policy by providing the money with strings, it failed.

The point of language stating that "it shall not be the policy" was that it was a open authorization for the Congress to investigate what actions the Reaganistae were taking, and in fact would have put 'em into a box: since the law authorizing 'em to spend money was stated negatively, to continue to get funded they would have had to prove the negative, that they were complying with a policy that was NOT overthrowing the Nicaraguan government.

IMNSHO, that level of scrutiny (which was missing: I was there) would have done wonders during the years they were setting up the arms for hostages deals (about which I wrote at the time that conservatives oughta think twice about the principle they were insisting on: what if it was President Jackson hocking an aircraft carrier to pay for a war on apartheid that the Congress had refused to pay for?), precisely because during the on-again, off-again Congressional authorization for funding the contras, the Reagan administration got to have its cake and eat it, too.

LOL -- and just to complete this small segment of your public education, 'ymous: to "give in to the radical Islamists desire for a worldwide religious conflict driven by theology..' is the OPPOSITE of what I've urged by a theological component.

And if you weren't such a fucking idjit, you'd know this already: it's not like it's difficult.

Islam has succeeded Communism as the world's premier us vs. them ideology. In Muslim lore, this is expressed as 'the house of submission to the will of God' (Islam), constantly struggling with 'the house of war', the infidels: us.

AQ and similar folks believe that by our very existence, with stuff like the separation of Church and State, etc., we are at war with Islam itself.

So I've argued that if we're NOT, we have to be able to say what IS the Islam with which we are not at war: this is the missing theological component of the GWOT.

Bush's nonsense that "Islam means peace" can't cut it. For one thing, it's not true: Islam doesn't mean 'peace', it means Submission, and unlike Christ or Buddha or pretty much any other major religious figure I can think of (Guru Nanak, maybe), the Prophet was a warrior during his life: Holy War can mean REAL war, and is far more central to Islamic theology than, say, oil.

So I've argued that Tariq Ramadan's notion of the House of Witness, which IS in the Koran (as the House of Submission vs. the House of War is NOT), is the way to go. I've interviewed and quoted the likes of Khalid abou el Fadl and W. Deen Muhammed on the theme.

It's where my online monicker comes from: the Americanist heresy denotes the Notion that civics has a moral value in itself. Islam faces essentially the same conflict that Catholicism did a century and more past, particularly in America.

Do tell, 'ymous: what do YOU have to offer?

….But we both know the dems are just playing politics. TruthPolitik at 5:42 PM

You have been yammering this for a couple of threads so you've made aware of the political facts of life. That puts you the heart of Republicanland where everything is politics over policy and where the rule of discourse is dissemble, demonize, demagogue.

theAmericanist at 6:00 PM
….Islam has succeeded Communism as the world's premier us vs. them ideology…
The West has been supporting totalitarian regimes, overthrowing governments, invading and occupying Middle Eastern countries since WWI. You should try to see history from the side of the victim, and perhaps you'll learn.

…AQ and similar folks believe that by our very existence, with stuff like the separation of Church and State, etc., we are at war with Islam itself….
That is pure Bushista b/s. If all you have are inane, inaccurate and asinine Republican talking points, you're in deep denial.

…Islam doesn't mean 'peace', it means Submission….and is far more central to Islamic theology than, say, oil.
Irrelevant, but since you brought it up, oil is essential and central to Western capitalism and the reason for our interference in their lives and culture. That, and our support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, are their grounds for believing that is is U.S. vs them.

This isn't quite right: "The division of Vietnam into North and South was artificial (like the division between North and South Korea) and done by Western powers, not the Vietnamese people. One cannot speak of their fellow citizens as being invaders in this circumstance...."

Vietnam was not like Korea.

It IS an historical curiousity that the guy who actually divided Korea was an obscure Army colonel named Dean Rusk, who eventually had a lot to do with Vietnam. (And who once said of the Chinese government under Mao that it failed the first test: it wasn't really Chinese.)

The key all over Asia was who would accept the surrender of Japanese troops -- and the Yalta agreement was that we would meet up with the Russians somewhere on the Korean peninsula: they'd take the surrender in the North, and we'd take it in the South.

Confronted with this choice of dividing a single people, American diplomats damned near gave the whole peninsula to Stalin rather than 'put aside principle and do what's right.'

There are MILLIONS of free Koreans today who are quite happy that Rusk would do what better-informed folks would not.

But it is simply not true that all of what's now Vietnam was ever as ethnically or culturally homogenous as Korea, not even when you factor in the intermittent domination by various Chinese dynasties.

The Mekong Delta was originally mostly Khmer, and the more Sinitic Vietnamese (Viet Nam just means "further south") pushed 'em up river for a thousand years.

The central part of the country, the highlands, was An Nam (the pacified south), which was the one the Chinese cared about most, when they cared about it at at all: good lumber.

And the actual North, Hanoi and Haiphong mostly, were the back of beyond for China.

So the big ethnic split was between Han Chinese and a list of smaller ethnicities -- Lao, Hmong, etc., and the Khmer to the south.

The language issues are peculiar -- Vietnamese is one of the spoken languages that didn't HAVE a written form until a European invented it. (They used Chinese.)

But what really counted was the economics. North Vietnam didn't have much of an economy, except fishing and some trade. Annam produced lumber, which China wanted. But the real trade (including lumber) was down the Mekong, and THAT was dominated by ethnic Chinese, to the undying resentment of the Vietnamese-speakers.

When France took over the whole region as a colony, they naturally made friends with the Cochin Chinese, cuz that was what France was there for: money. This is how you got Catholics like Diem in power -- the French influence, the Jesuits, and finally Maryknoll.

And we had a VERY good reason for supporting France in Indochina in 1945-6, yanno: we wanted 'em to form an alliance with GERMANY, despite the late unpleasantness. So we let France take the Japanese surrender in Indochina, rather than the Chinese, much less the Viet Minh, who went along reluctantly: in the immortal words of Ho Chi Minh "I'd rather smell French farts for a decade than eat Chinese shit for a century."

A good book is the memoir by OSS agent Archimedes Patti, "Prelude to America's Albatross."

(sigh) I wish folks who made references to history bothered to learn it: this means YOU, Dice.

Strange, then, that none of your recounting of history (even granting, arguendo, that it is all gospel, undisputable fact) contradicts anything that I've said. I know you have a bizarre fetish with attacking mean reminiscent of the long-departed Don P, but its a bit bizarre, even for you, to call me out twice in one post as being wrong without actually pointing to any supposed facts which contradict anything I've said.

Nixon and Kissinger resolved to kiss off South Vietnam, to accept its utter collapse "a decent interval" after we bailed. You don't have to buy the idea that we caused the Cambodian genocide by leaving (as opposed to first destroying the county with B-52s), and assorted other nonsense, to recognize that we abandoned hundreds of thousands of people who trusted us.

Sure, lots of people in Southeast Asia had chained their fortunes to the US. Plenty of people in Afghanistan chained their fortunes to the USSR later. Neither of those facts makes it necessary, or even desirable, for the foreign power to remain embroiled in a costly quagmire.

That failure encouraged Syria to invade Lebanon.

Whatever withdrawing from Vietnam might have said about US will in the Middle East, the fact is that, just as the engagement in Iraq has sapped the capacity of the US military for other missions, Vietnam, for many years, had wrecked the capacity of the US military, and thus its ability to project a credible threat of force against potential adversaries to deter actions which we opposed.

Likewise, Iraq has the same effect now, and will continue to as long as we remain embroiled in it and for several years thereafter. The sooner we withdraw, the sooner our Army will be rebuilt nad its capacity restored. And our adversaries realize that, and will be emboldened by it.

And, yes, perhaps pulling out of Iraq, now or later, will also embolden them, as they will see us abandoning a cause to which we have appeared committed. So what? We're going to withdraw from Iraq sometime and produce risk that result unless we have a credible path to some other outcome. An open-ended commitment of ever-increasing resources that sap our real and perceived ability to respond anywhere else in the world, whatever our real or perceived will to do so, does not provide that in Iraq.

We don't lessen the cost by delaying when we pay it.

We don't lessen the cost by delaying when we pay it.

Maybe Bernanke can inflate our way out of paying the cost....

nevermind... wrong thread....

Vietnam was not like Korea. ….theAmericanist at 6:31 PM

Thus far, you analysis of the Vietnam War, the Middle East, and the Iraq war are lame and misinformed. You have some details, but completely miss the meaning and import of those details. Your commentary does not inspire one to heed any book suggestion you make. It's pathetic, really.

Dayum -- Mike is bidding to be the stoopidest poster here, and the competition is STEEP.

For one thing, Vietnam wasn't "artificially" divided by Western powers. It was China who created it as an administrative unit, and the CHINESE version of "Vietnam" was considerably further south than it is now.

And if you still don't know the differences between Hanoi and Haiphong, Annam, and the Delta; or who the Cochin Chinese were, you're fucking hopeless.

For another, Archimedes Patti was the OSS officer assigned to Indochina at the end of WW2. HE was the crucial guy that Ho Chi Minh tried to persuade that America's longterm interest lay in recognizing Vietnamese unity and freedom from Western imperialism. And in fact, Patti was persuaded -- but there was that whole creation of NATO thing to consider.

Patti's memoir is fascinating in a bunch of ways -- not least being the photographs of the posters the Viet Minh were carrying in Hanoi rallies in the 1940s.... in English.

LOL -- so much for Mike's wisdom and insight. Can't LEARN anything about a subject before you have opinions, after all. After all, if you KNOW what you're talking about... why, you will miss "the meaning and import".

BTW, Mike (just to show off what a fool you are), why was it "the West" which divided Korea?

Why wasn't it Stalin?

Would you have over-ruled Rusk, and allowed the Red Army to take the surrender of Japan's forces all over Korea -- which, obviously "Western" power that they were, they had held since the 19th century?

Or perhaps you would have urged that the CHINESE take Japan's surrender in BOTH Vietnam and the Korean peninsula?

Do tell -- since you're so good with the "meaning and import" stuff.

Dice: once again, you are dangerously close to learning something, but I have faith in your stupidity, which has never failed.

You write "abandoning a cause to which we have appeared committed...unless we have a credible path to some other outcome."

Abandoning folks who have counted on you is NOT the smartest way to get the NEXT bunch of folks to step up. (Re-read that, since for some reason it seems like the Kabbalah to you folks.)

I remember when Nelson Mandela did something nice for Libya, and some folks on the right freaked out: doesn't he know that... etc.

Actually, Mandela remembers who his friends were when he didn't have many of 'em. Qaddafi was one of 'em.

THAT is something the US forgets, if only because as a superpower we feel like we don't need to remember it.

But we do.

I used to know a guy who was a key staffer during the fight over El Salvador in the early 1980s. Jose Napolean Duarte was coming to town for something or other, and there was a big briefing, and this guy wasn't going. I asked why -- and he told me: Hell, I was meeting with Duarte when NOBODY would talk to him.

Which Duarte acknowledged, when he saw this guy ... in a meeting with LOTS of big noises.

The point is, the time to make (and keep) friends is before you need 'em. That's NOT what ditching the South Vietnamese, or the Kurds, or the Iraqi rebels in 1991 (much less now), helps us to do.

Realpolitik only takes you so far. In the end, ya gotta stand for something -- or you will fall for anything.

theAmericanist: THAT is something the US forgets, if only because as a superpower we feel like we don't need to remember it.

What Americanist forgets is that the US spit on Mandela, just as it spit on Castro, and drove them to find "friends" elsewhere.

It is truly pathetic that conservatives in this country who have courted, funded, aided, and abetted some of the worlds worst dictators criticize leaders of other countries from seeking assistance from countries we despise after being pissed on by the US.

In the end, ya gotta stand for something . . .

Standing for continued support for regimes that hate us and who will not implement the necessary reforms to further either country's interests and with a result no different down the road except for more Americans killed is not standing for anything noble.

Staying in Vietnam another 5, 10, 15, or 20 years would have bankrupted the US, killed tens of thousands of US troops and left many more maimed, as well as destroying hundreds of thousand or millions of Vietnamese and the outcome would still have been the same.

So far none of you "we should not have abandoned the South Vietnamese" have shown how the war could have been won and when it would have been won, much less that staying would have ultimately resulted in fewer Vietanmese deaths and democracy for their country.

As for the South Vietnamese, they were never our "friends," something you refuse to acknowledge; we didn't enter their country as friends or protectors, but insufferable elitists concerned with our own interests.

Mike is bidding to be the stoopidest poster here, and the competition is STEEP.

Sorry, but you already nailed that down, as well as being the most mendacious.

TruthPolitik: If President Bush kept them there after funding stopped then whatever happened would be his fault.

Yeah, right.

That's worked so well in the past on the same type of issues.

I guess that's why most Americans, despite their belief that Bush is incompetent, still consider him a supporter of our troops, despite his constantly pissing all over them by sending bill collectors after vets, running a rag-tag vet medical system, keeping armor from them in favor of reducing the costs of war, and attempting to cut their hazard pay benefits, to name only a few.

Go smoke some more weed in your mom's basement; you'll get a better view of reality than from whatever ideological crap you are smoking now.

'ymous:"Staying in Vietnam another 5, 10, 15, or 20 years would have bankrupted the US, killed tens of thousands of US troops and left many more maimed, as well as destroying hundreds of thousand or millions of Vietnamese and the outcome would still have been the same...."

Kindly explain to us how this squares with the Easter Offensive in 1972, when the south was surprised by a huge conventional invasion from the north (lots of tanks). Despite surprise, bad intelligence, worse leadership, and a series of tactical defeats, the ARVN stopped the North -- with the help of huge American air support, but virtually NO American troops.

South Korea has lasted considerably longered than 5, 10, 15 or 20 years since 1954, with minimal American loss: how does this square with your idea that maintaining a similar commitment to South Vietnam after 1972 would have bankrupted the USA and cost us thousands of Americans, and a million Vietnamese lives? We defended South Korea -- and we are not bankrupt, nor have there been even dozens of American casualties in South Korea since the ceasefire.

Explain how the Easter Offensive proves your point, that our support didn't matter.

Cuz ya see, a couple years later, the north did it again -- only this time, the ARVN got no American support.

DO tell -- what was the difference in the outcome?

But Kevin, you don't think, but I'm in touch with your emotion.

Lou
Cerritos, CA

"Americanist": South Korea has lasted considerably longered than 5, 10, 15 or 20 years since 1954, with minimal American loss: how does this square with your idea that maintaining a similar commitment to South Vietnam after 1972 would have bankrupted the USA and cost us thousands of Americans, and a million Vietnamese lives?

The VC and NVA controlled the rural areas of South Vietnam; the US was able to gain control of South Korea in its entirety.

Additionally, I am unaware of any major South Korean insurgency that put our troops at risk behind the nominal lines of battle as existed in South Vietnam.

Therefore, your analogy, like Bush's, is mendacious and tendentiously so.

Westmoreland demanded 200,000 more troops on top of the 500,000 already committed, with no guarantee that the extra 200,000 would in fact result in the retaking of control of rural areas; how many more troops and deaths would you have committed to South Vietnam's defense?

You still haven't answered when and how we would have "won" even a partition of Vietnam that was sustainable.

Simply pointing to Korea and pretending that the situation there was identical in politics, terrain, history, geopolitical significance, or militarily is simply more bamboozlement by someone who likes to rewrite history, make false and simplistic analogies, and give in to laughable pretense that populations such as the South Vietnamese and Iraqis are our "friends"; in other words, you are someone who likes to practice the same sort of bamboozlement that Bush does to justify an war that had nothing to do with any respect for the people of the foreign country invaded or any desire to see democracy take root there.

"Friends" are those who proffer assistance and support, something neither the Iraqi populace or the South Vietnamese ever did for the US.

We were there for geopolitical reasons, not some established friendship based on trade, shared values, or anything else, nor have you established any basis for calling them "friends," much less a basis for claiming we abandoned said "friends."

Explain how the Easter Offensive proves your point, that our support didn't matter.

Explain how it proves we would have eventually won the war.

Explain how we could have obtained a cease fire.

The Korean War was "won" in 3 years; the Vietnam War lasted over 10 years without resolution.

If they were as similar as you claim, we should have had a cease fire in Vietnam and a partition by year 3; we didn't.

If we had obtained such a status quo and then abandoned SV, then maybe you might have a glimmer of an argument, but it only happened that way in your imagination, not in the real world.

More proof of your inanity and dishonesty.

LOL -- man, is this guy dumb. Let's take your historical errors first, then we'll tackle your illiteracy, 'ymous.

1) "Westmoreland demanded 200,000 more troops on top of the 500,000 already committed..."

Um, then he got FIRED, 'ymous. General Abrams took command. Abrams LOWERED American force levels.

Ya got a problem mastering the concepts of "more" and "less", 'ymous? Hint: They're NOT the same.

2) "You still haven't answered when and how we would have "won" even a partition of Vietnam that was sustainable...."

As noted, in 1972 the North invaded the South with heavy armor. They achieved near-total surprise, and the South suffered a series of tactical defeats: then rallied, and halted the North, with very few American troops (and a LOT of American airpower).

This is what is known in the trade as a "fact". Facts have consequences. You can argue that this commitment was not "sustainable", and in fact, we did not sustain it.

But since it is a fact, you can't argue that it didn't happen. Personally, I'm inclined to think you didn't even KNOW it happened, 'ymous.

3) "Explain how we could have obtained a cease fire."

Um, the 1973 Paris Peace Accords ring a bell?

4) "If we had obtained such a status quo and then abandoned SV..."

Re-read #3, then #2.

'Course, that brings us to your difficulties with literacy....

Korea 36,516 dead Americans, 92,000 wounded, and a "victory" that could be preserved.

Vietnam 58,209 dead Americans, 305,000 wounded, with no end in sight and none you can guarantee.

So how long, Americanist?

US soldiers stopped dying in 1953 in Korea due to a cease fire that didn't require the US to leave which allowed us to maintain a presence there.

The only way Nixon was able to get a cease fire in Vietnam was to promise to withdraw American troops. No withdrawal, no cease fire.

So when were US soldiers going to stop dying and being maimed in Vietnam?

There was never any cease fire in Vietnam that allowed US troops to stay and protect the integrity of the South Vietnam, as there was a cease fire in Korea that allowed the US to stay and protect the integrity of South Korea.

US soldiers never stopped dying in Vietnam and there was never going to be a cease fire without their withdrawal so to imply that the two situations are similar and that the US could have maintained a presence in South Vietnam without any risk of further US deaths is an evil and reprehensible lie that ignores the course of the two wars and the situation at the "end."

Your pathetic attempts to mimic Bush's historical inaccuracies and mendacities to justify the unjustifiable with appeals to emotions based on false assumptions and circumstances that exist only in fantasy are beneath contempt.

Americanist: Um, the 1973 Paris Peace Accords ring a bell?

Hey, f*cking idiot, the terms of the peace accords REQUIRED US WITHDRAWAL.

No withdrawal, no cease fire.

No cease fire, continued US soldiers dying, very much different than in Korea.

Boy, but you are a moron.

'Course, that brings us to your difficulties with literacy....

Nothing compared to your dishonesty in flinging irrelevant "facts" into the fray.

Hey, the sun is hot; yep, that's a "fact," so deal with it.

Of course, it has nothing to do with any theory being debated here just as your reference to Abrams has nothing to do with anything or your reference to the "Easter battle", but heck if you can throw "facts" around, so can I!

As noted, in 1972 the North invaded the South with heavy armor. They achieved near-total surprise, and the South suffered a series of tactical defeats: then rallied, and halted the North, with very few American troops (and a LOT of American airpower).

None of which brought a cease fire or victory and if they were able to do it without us, then why stay?

The truth is the US wasn't winning the war, was never going to win the war, and wasn't going to force the North to the peace table without promising withdrawal of US troops which means the war would have dragged on forever or until the US ran out of money and men and you can't point to any battle or any other event or circumstances which demostrate that a victory was achievable at any point, even within a few years.

So, again, how much longer should we have stayed in Vietnam and how many more Americans should we have sacrificed and when would enough have been enough?

If we were still in Vietnam losing soldiers today, nearly 30 years later, with no resolution and South Vietnamese continuing to die in battle as soldiers or as civilians, with resultant deaths equal to those that occurred in the aftermath of the South's defeat, would you still be demanding we stay the course?

No, anyone who would lie about the Paris Peace Accords is going to be in denial until the day they die.

Americanist: Um, then he got FIRED, 'ymous. General Abrams took command. Abrams LOWERED American force levels.

This statement, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote, but nevertheless I'm game . . .

. . . so, do you agree with Westmoreland that we should have put another 200,000 troops in harm's way with no victory guaranteed but likely a continued status quo of war without end with more and more troops demanded every year or do you agree with Abrams who advocated by your own standards "abandoning" the South by reducing the US commitment below what was (in Westmoreland's view) necessary to retake the rural areas?

BTW, how is it historically erroneous to say that Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops?

Are you claiming he didn't?

Because if you agree he did, then my statement was accurate and your claim that it is not is a lie.

If you are in fact claiming Westmoreland didn't ask for 200,000 more troops, then you are either ignorant of the history of the war or a liar.

I'm just putting my money on the fact that you are a liar, since that seems to fit the pattern of your comments.

Careful, now, 'ymous: you are dangerously close to learning something. But I'm sure you can avoid it without trying.

The 1972 Easter Offensive is pretty solid evidence that there was no need for American troops (and the resulting casualties) in order for the ARVN to hold off the North.

Try to follow this part, cuz it is one of those facts that punctures your daydream: I say "pretty solid evidence" BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED.

You asked about a ceasefire -- and I pointed out that we HAD one. This is how you use these "facts", those things you're evidently unfamiliar with, in an argument.

You didn't seem to know that we HAD gotten a ceasefire: why else would you have demanded "Explain how we could have obtained a cease fire...?"

So you changed the subject, in a way the reveals the utter weakness of what you hallucinate IS your argument: now, you insist the problem that the ARVN had in 1974 was a lack of American TROOPS.

But actually, they had won in 1972 without American troops.

See how this "argument" thing works? I know, this requires a familiarity with "facts" -- as noted, you are dangerously close to learning something.

You asked for proof that they could have held off the North without our troops. I gave you an example -- the Easter Offensive in 1972.

You demanded to know when we could have gotten a ceasefire: I pointed out that we GOT one, in 1973.

The results of the 1972 attack, which was remarkably like the North's invasion in 1974, demonstrate beyond any reasonable dispute that it wasn't the lack of American TROOPS that caused the fall of Saigon. I ask again -- what was the principal difference causing the results in 1972 and the results in 1974?

They didn't have American troops to speak of fighting against the heavy armored invasion the North staged in 1972, but the ARVN stopped 'em. So it wasn't a lack of American troops.

We made guarantees to the South in the 1973 accord (e.g., air support) that we failed to keep. History shows that the South COULD have held off the North, if we had kept our word.

We didn't.

'ymous, it's not like this isn't widely known to literally ANYBODY who knows the history.

Perhaps you should learn some?

theLiar: We made guarantees to the South in the 1973 accord (e.g., air support) that we failed to keep. History shows that the South COULD have held off the North, if we had kept our word.

Please cite your source that the Paris Peace Accords contained a provision that authorized the US to continue to supply air support to the South Vietnames.

Any agreement we had with the South would have been separate from any accords that included the North, since it seems unlikely that the North would expressly agree that the US could maintain an air support presence in the South, but you are free to point to the specific and express provision was so provided.

But actually, they had won in 1972 without American troops.

I guess someone forgot to tell the North and the history writers!

News Flash! South Vietnam won the war after all. The claim of a North Vietnamese victory is all a MYTH!

I guess that means there was no reason for the US to maintain a presence in Vietnam, since the South had already won.

You asked for proof that they could have held off the North without our troops.

Again, you lie. I asked no such thing.

Your claim about the "cease fire," ignoring the context of the issue which was whether the continued presence of troops in Korea was analogous to the US remaining in Vietnam, is also mendacious, but since I expect no less I will spend no more time on your attempts to spin away from your mendacity on that score.

"History shows that the South COULD have held off the North, if we had kept our word."

Well, fantasy history anyway.

Hey, I heard that the US won a street battle in Iraq the other day; I guess that is proof positive that the insurgents are defeated!

See, your logic works BEAUTIFULLY!

. . . demonstrate beyond any reasonable dispute that it wasn't the lack of American TROOPS that caused the fall of Saigon . . .

Yeah, if the South had just had a little more air support from the US, all would have been well.

BTW, if all that is required for "not abandoning" our allies is to supply a little air support, but no troops, then pulling the troops from Iraq, but continuing to provide air support (or some other token contribution) should be sufficient to avoid said "abandonment."

Thanks for playing.

I'll be sure to pass on this suggestion to my congressman.

BTW, I'm still waiting for an explanation of why the statement that Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops was historically erroneous.

Got anything?

Didn't think so.

-------------

I forgot to add . . .

NEWSFLASH! the"Americanist" agrees that pulling our troops from Iraq is not abandoning the Iraqis! Air support for Iraqi troops is sufficient commitment!

Are you really this stupid?

" if the South had just had a little more air support from the US"

Actually, a whole LOT more - -as in 1972, when Operation Linebacker was (and I think, still is) the largest aerial bombardment in history.

Again -- are you really this stupid, 'ymous?

"South Vietnam won the war after all. The claim of a North Vietnamese victory is all a MYTH!"

I pointed out that the South had stopped the North's Easter Offensive in 1972. It did.

You DO have a problem with basic stuff, 'ymous. Westmoreland asked for more troops -- and got fired. Abrams did a better job, with less troops. It's a sign that you're projecting a bit with all this 'mendacity' stuff, that you insist on the importance of Westmoreland asking for more soldiers, without adding that he got FIRED for it, and his successor is the guy whose record we're talking about.

More, less. What came before, what came after. Winning a battle, winning a war: we can see how basic stuff confuses you.

"I guess that means there was no reason for the US to maintain a presence in Vietnam, since the South had already won."

To a more literate, not to mention smarter person, an accurate paraphrase would be that it is false to argue that maintaining a large American force in South Vietnam, much less suffering steady levels of high casualties, was necessary.

The 1972 campaign proves it was not, just as it proves that a North Vietnamese victory was not inevitable, either.

You did get me on a minor inaccuracy, though: the South Vietnamese government was not a party to the 1973 Accords, so the commitment to continue supplying weapons, ammunition, and air cover to the South was not part of the Accords.

"Air support for Iraqi troops is sufficient commitment!"

Man, you ARE stupid: I'm pretty clear what I mean, and that ain't it.

In a sense, the Vietnam analogy probably looks more like this -- IN the US, it's 1972: we tried, it didn't work, fuck it, let's go home.

In Iraq, it's 1965: there is no central authority to speak of, everybody's a faction, and it will be years before we get a viable strategy and an Iraqi military to carry it out.

What Bush meant by playing the Vietnam card is precisely what 'ynmous is doing, among others (as somebody said upthread): progressives are SO stupid about it, that they can't resist insisting that folks who were stupid enough to believe in our help DESERVE what happens to them.

If it is possible for Democrats to lose next year, a knucklehead like 'ymous shows the way.

The WSJ channels the"Americanist":

If the U.S. had continued to support Saigon with a small troop presence and substantial supplies, there is every reason to believe that South Vietnam could have survived. It was no less viable than South Korea, another artificial state kept in existence by force of arms over many decades. But after the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, we all but cut off South Vietnam, even while its enemies across the borders continued to be resupplied by their patrons in Moscow and Beijing.

More dissembling about Korea vs. Vietnam, pretending that a situation where combat operations had halted due to a cease fire that allowed US troops to remain in a protect and maintain mode is the same as a situation where combat operations were continuing and a cease fire was achievable only by the withdrawal of US troops.

But in the winger world, it's all the saem and they will keep telling this lie over and over and over.

It is a very simple concept:

The North Koreans were willing to accept a cease fire in which the US could maintain a presence in South Korea and thus by that presence preserve the status quo.

The North Vietnamese were unwilling to accept the same terms.

A rejection of the Paris Peace Accords, essentially what the"Americanist" (theLiar) and the WSJ are arguing, would have meant that the US would still have been engaged in full combat operations against the North Vietnamese (and the remaining VC), not in a protect and maintain cease fire mode.

As usual, the wingers like to compare apples to oranges, while calling the orange a head of lettuce, and the apple a head of lettuce, and insisting they are both vegetables.

Lies.

Damn lies.

Winger lies.

Hell, they even lie about an unambiguous historical fact, calling citation to that fact an historical error!

Now, that's desperation!

theLiar: You DO have a problem with basic stuff, 'ymous. Westmoreland asked for more troops -- and got fired. Abrams did a better job, with less troops. It's a sign that you're projecting a bit with all this 'mendacity' stuff, that you insist on the importance of Westmoreland asking for more soldiers, without adding that he got FIRED for it, and his successor is the guy whose record we're talking about.

Again, how does this show that the statement Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops is historical error?

You refuse to answer the question and then proceed to change the subject to Abrams - well, by your own standards, a sign of desperation, no?

The 1972 campaign proves it was not, just as it proves that a North Vietnamese victory was not inevitable, either.

Again, you implicitly lie by throwing up a strawman.

I never argued that the North would have inevitably won, but very expressly that the war would have continued indefinitely, a claim that necessarily excludes a claim of anyone winning, including the North.

. . . that they can't resist insisting that folks who were stupid enough to believe in our help DESERVE what happens to them.

Still insisting we went in to "help" the Iraqis, despite abundant historical on-the-record evidence that Bush said we were going in to protect America from WMDs and terrorists and enforce the UN resolutions, not to provide democracy for the Iraqis, not to mention you've never explained how the Iraqis were are "friends" at the time of the invasion or why they would be considered "friends" now.

BTW, at one time we called Saddam our friend and promised him our help, then we abandoned him.

Apparently you disagree with that decision.

Very sad and very pathetic hypocritical stance you've taken.

If it is possible for Democrats to lose next year, a knucklehead like 'ymous shows the way.

If the Democrats were to support inane analogies between Vietnam and Korea, delude themselve into rewriting history to make the Iraqis our "friends" who we sought to "help," and call for the types of actions the "we-could-have-won-Vietnam" morons insist we should be taking in Iraq, then they deserve to lose, since those policies will result in continued losses without victory for years and years, until we have to pull out due to a lack of manpower or financial resources with the same horrible aftermath as is being predicted today.

You can pay the piper now or you can pay him later, but no matter how long the US stayed in Vietnam, by 1973 the number of expected deaths wasn't going to change all that much from staying to leaving and the same is true for Iraq.

The claim that X number of people will die if we leave utterly ignores that Y number of people will die if we stay and that there is no predictable appreciable difference between X and Y that isn't rank speculation fueled by the biased need for wingers to be right about the war.

The WSJ editorialist bemoans the tens of thousands of people who died in Vietnam after US withdrawal, without ever comparing that to the tens of thousands who would have continued to die each year had the US stayed and the war continued.

He also ignores that if the US had stayed and had not been able to force a cease fire on terms favorable to the US and the South (you are smoking some serious stuff if you think we could have defeated the North and secured the entirety of Vietnam), securing a South Vietnam in the same fashion as a South Korea (no one has explained how this would have happened, not even the mendacious "Americanist" with all of his spinning and dissembling), the US would eventually have had to call it quits, since unlike Korea, US troops and South Vietnamese would have continued to die in droves and US funds would have been continued to be spent at a rate far exceeding that necessary for South Korea, and the aftermath of our withdrawal, while delayed, would still have come.

The 1972 campaign proves it was not [necessary to maintain a large US troop presence], just as it proves that a North Vietnamese victory was not inevitable, either.

At best what the campaign proves is that the war would have continued without either side achieving a significant advantage, with continued military and civilian losses, whether Vietnamese or American or both, contrary to your assertion that a Korea-like solution was nearly in hand.

The issue has never been about whether South Vietnam could have survived another 5, 10, or 15 years, but whether it could have done so in peace.

If there were no peace, then the killing that you wingers continue to insist resulted from American abandonment would have still occurred, albeit through war casualties rather than education camps and executions.

10,000 (example) dead from war is no different than 10,000 dead from education camps and executions and 20,000 dead from war is even less defensible as against 10,000 dead from education camps and executions.

The same is true for Iraq: it is incumbent on those who claim that US withdrawal will be a disaster to prove that the number of deaths in Iraq after such a withdrawal will ultimately exceed the number of deaths that will happen if we stay, that the expenditure of US lives and US money is worth any small difference between the two, and that there is an inevitable victory or accomodation that will ensure that the predicted aftermath will never happen.

The most likely scenario if we stay in Iraq, however, is that thousand or tens of thousands of Iraqis will continue to die each year we stay, the country will never be pacified, and we will either continue to accumulate a yearly body count for decades that equals anything that would have happened had we just left now or we will end up leaving a decade or two from now and the predicted aftermath will happen anyway at the same levels as predicted now, but with even more lives lost due to the intervening years of war than would have happened had we left earlier.

And nothing proffered about Vietnam by you, Americanist, negates or argues against that scenario.

Even your argument that South Vietnam was holding it's own still results in continued deaths, not a Korea-like cease fire with a cessation of of killing, no different from the current situation in Iraq where the killing has not abated and there is no indication that the surge has or will reduce the killing to levels that would balance favorably against the number of deaths that will occur should the US leave.

'ymous, you keep missing the point and increasing the volume. ADD kicking up again?

"Vietnam was not like Korea. ….theAmericanist at 6:31 PM"

So much for your bizarre notion taht I was saying they WERE.

Tell ya what, let's give you one last shot at making sense:

1) What happened to Westmoreland?

2) Did he remain the American commander in Vietnam until the end?

3) If he did not, why not?

4) If he was relieved of command, what was the policy he wanted to pursue?

5) If someone else was given command of American forces in Vietnam (hint: I named him upthread), what was the DIFFERENT course which taht commander followed?

Just throwing you a life line, dude.

Americanist: So much for your bizarre notion taht I was saying they WERE.

Americanist @ 10:56 AM: South Korea has lasted considerably longered than 5, 10, 15 or 20 years since 1954, with minimal American loss: how does this square with your idea that maintaining a similar commitment to South Vietnam after 1972 would have bankrupted the USA and cost us thousands of Americans, and a million Vietnamese lives? We defended South Korea -- and we are not bankrupt, nor have there been even dozens of American casualties in South Korea since the ceasefire.

Liar.

What happened to Westmoreland?

Let's take a shot here:

What does what happened to Westmoreland have to do with whether Westmoreland asked for more troops or not.

It's a simple question:

You stated that my statement that Westmoreland asked for more troops was historically erroneous.

It wasn't.

You lied.

Whether Westmoreland was fired, smoked Nixon's pipe, or believed in fairies is irrelevant to the historical accuracy of what he said or didn't say, so quit trying to change the subject.

Do you agree that Westmoreland asked for 200,000 more troops or not?

If yes, then why did you lie and say my statement was historically erroneous?

If no, then why do all the histories of Vietnam disagree with you?

Just throwing you a life line, dude.

No, you're just trying to divert attention from the fact that you lied about what I wrote, falsely calling it historically erroneous, and change the subject to what Abrams did rather than what Westmoreland asked for.

BTW, Abrams didn't win with fewer troops.

We lost Vietnam, remember?

'ymous, you've got your head so far up your ass, it's unlikely you can see past your pancreas, but here goes: I quoted you

1) "Westmoreland demanded 200,000 more troops on top of the 500,000 already committed..."

and observed:

"Um, then he got FIRED, 'ymous. "

Ya see how this works? I never said Westmoreland DIDN'T ask for more troops. The word "then" in fact, denotes that I agree that he DID.

I merely reminded you that we weren't talking about Westmoreland and -- if you're gonna bring up his request to throw more lives after a failed policy, an honest person would note IT GOT HIM FIRED, and a new policy put into place.

You project a bit with your 'mendacity' shtick.

FWIW, from my first post in this thread: "Not a few people have noticed that united VIETNAM is far more like South Korea than it is like North Korea, even though we fought for a dozen years, 60,000 American and maybe a million Vietnamese dead, for the opposite idea, that only another divided Asian nation could preserve world freedom.

"History shows pretty decisively that we were wrong."

I don't believe the things you think I've said, and I've never said 'em. But I DO know what I'm talking about, so I can understand why you're confused: it's not your forte'.

From 'ymous first post: "...we could have stayed in Vietnam another 10 years, incurred the same average rate of casualties as in the previous 10 years..."

The point of Abrams' record is that he used fewer American troops, had far fewer American casualties AND, under his watch, the ARVN stopped an NVA heavy invasion. It was to DO that, that Westmoreland was fired and Abrams appointed to replace him.

LOL -- I ain't the one arguing straw men, 'ymous.

From 'ymous second post: "...the South Vietnamese refused to accept responsibility for their own fate..."

I kinda think that soldiers who fought literally to the last bullet against a communist invasion with heavy armor, which brought 'em re-education camps, forced hundreds of thousands to flee the country, and the like, deserve a bit more credit than that.

Look, dude, you've obviously got a serious emotional need to believe that folks who rely on our help over two generations are thereby made morally inferior. I don't.

You clearly believe that folks who know about, f'r instance, what happened to ethnic Chinese in south Vietnam "massively overstate the negative consequences of abandoning an "ally" who doesn't and never has deserved the American blood spilt on their behalf."

You don't seem to GET that not everybody is as historically ignorant, emotionally stupid, reflexively anti-American and just plain cruel, as you are.

And clearly subtlety and nuance are beyond you; you can't even hang with literacy.

(shrug) 'Nuff said.

Americanist: "I quoted you . . . and observed . . ."

Liar.

You observed . . .

Let's take your historical errors first, then we'll tackle your illiteracy, 'ymous.

. . . and then you quoted . . .

1) "Westmoreland demanded 200,000 more troops on top of the 500,000 already committed..."

You said let's take your historical errors first, then the first thing (even designated it as "1)" you quote is my Westmoreland statement, which means you called it an historical error.

Of course, for someone who can rewrite the history of Vietnam, it is certainly not beyond you to rewrite the history of your own comments!

LOL.

I never said Westmoreland DIDN'T ask for more troops.

No, but you did say that my quote ("Westmoreland demanded 200,000 more troops on top of the 500,000 already committed.") was an historical error.

If that statement is in error, then feel free to explain how it is in error, but don't try to pretend you didn't say it was an historical error.

Look, dude, you've obviously got a serious emotional need to lie.

'Nuff said.

. . . are thereby made morally inferior.

Well, I have to hand it to you, you love to prop up the strawmen whenever possible.

Well, since I'm tired of you lying about what I've written, I'll be signing off.

There's only so much arrogant mendacity and dissembling that I can take.

If you ever find a reason why that Westmoreland statement was historically erroneous, please be sure to post it as a comment for everyone to see, else you're just blowing farts into the wind.

(patiently) Your historical error is that you cited Westmoreland's call for more troops (actually, only the last of several, and the only one he didn't get), AS IF it was sufficient in itself.

I noted that "then, he got fired."

Failing to note that is an historical error -- I dunno how much more clearly I can point it out, for the frigging fifth time.

WTF did you THINK it meant, that Westmoreland asked for more troops for a failed policy, got fired and replaced by a guy with a DIFFERENT policy?

theAmericanist at 2:17 PM
Are you really this stupid?
Name calling by immature war hawks and neo-cons instead of rational argument is typical. You're a sad example
…as in 1972, when Operation Linebacker was (and I think, still is) the largest aerial bombardment in history
Which is to admit that the South depended on massive American support. Towards the end, their army just ran while many joined the North. Your adventitious country, South Vietnam, was illegitimate in the eyes of the Vietnamese and could not survive on its own.
… the South had stopped the North's Easter Offensive in 1972.
Only with massive American aid. The South was overrun pretty easily in '75.
If it is possible for Democrats to lose next year….
With unrealistic reasoning by guys like you, it's easy to see way the US lost the Vietnam War and is losing the Iraq War. For years, the military claimed that with more troops, they could win in Vietnam; there was a light at the end of the tunnel. For years they were given more troops and then Tet exposed the fact that South Vietnam was an artificial construct whose existence was maintained solely by American power. The American people's eyes were opened to the lies their government was feeding them. The same has happened in Iraq. A lying American government claims inprovement, that victory is at hand, but the people can see the facts on the ground prove otherwise.
Initiate wars based on lies and false claims of American security, and support falls away. Go to war for reasons of national security, and support stays strong.

Mike MAGNIFICENTLY misses the point: "For years, the military claimed that with more troops, they could win in Vietnam; there was a light at the end of the tunnel. For years they were given more troops and then Tet exposed the fact that South Vietnam was an artificial construct whose existence was maintained solely by American power."

1) In fact, after Abrams replaced Westmoreland we REDUCED American troops.

2) Tet '68 pretty much killed the VC as an indigenous, independent southern force.

3) The ARVN did not require American soldiers, only American air support, to stop the NVA in 1972.

4) The ARVN lost -- cuz America bailed on 'em. When we backed 'em -- as in '72 -- they did not lose.

The hard part of this, folks, is that YOU guys want to blame the Vietnamese for believing in us.

I don't.

You guys want to feel better for OUR country having backed freedom loving people for a generation, and then bailing on 'em -- cuz it was somehow THEIR fault: 'they didn't deserve it'.

I think that mindset is part of the problem. In the end, I don't think it's the folks who ASK foreigners to trust us, and then fail, who hurt us most in foreign policy and national security.

I think it's folks who couldn't care less about that mutual commitment: like the folks we see in this thread.

The great weakness in Bush bringing up the Vietnam analogy is that Vietnam ain't so bad these days: so why should we fight so hard cuz... that might happen with Iraq?

The great weakness in YOUR take on it is that you're obviously hypocritical -- you DON'T care what happens to Iraqis: 'they don't deserve our help', just like ARVN didn't.

Put it this way, in case you can't see the sucker play: Most Democrats and a few key Republicans support a rapid withdrawal early next year, when the troop rotation would accelerate it.

The Shi'ite militias take over Iraq, we have another set of helicopters taking off from the roofs -- and the Bush administration lets in selected refugees, who recount what amounts to genocide against Chaldean Christians, and the like.

The Republican nominee catches -- oh, what the hell, Senator Obama, the Democratic nominee -- sticking his foot in his mouth, saying things to please the posters here: hey, 'I wanted Saddam to stay in power' (cue the Kurd who lost his parents and siblings to Saddam, then his wife and kids to the Shi'ite milita), and 'the Iraqis don't deserve our support' (cue the Chaldean Christian, trained by the US military, wounded in combat, whose family was murdered in Baghdad the day after we bailed).

Blaming the victims is rarely smart politics, folks -- and it damn sure is an ugly, and self-serving approach to foreign policy and national security.

theAmericanist at 9:45 PM
1) … after Abrams replaced Westmoreland we REDUCED American troops.
Red herring. By that time, Americans would not have tolerated any more escalations.
2) Tet '68 pretty much killed the VC as an indigenous, independent southern force
Sure, baby, that's why the US won the war. It's another completely irrelevant talking point.

The ARVN did not require American soldiers, only American air support, to stop the NVA in 1972.
Here I assumed this was an original bit of revisionism, but on The NewsHour tonight, National Review hack Rich Lowery, made an issue of the same battle, so this is one of Conservatives tested and approved talking points. It's supposed to imply that only if only the US continued to wage war and kill Vietnamese, all would have been well. Well for what, isn't clear: the South Vietnamese government was as corrupt as the North Vietnamese government was totalitarian. Too bad this argument works against them: it proves ARVN was incapable of defeating the NVA without overwhelming US support. The West's attempt to divide Vietnam was doomed to failure.

On a historical basis, there are instances of nations being cobbled together that eventually spit, but among those split by outside powers (such as Hong Kong, Vietnam, Germany, Korea, Taiwan) three have reunited. Korea and Taiwan are both a case of historicus interruptus, but in the long view, they will be reunited.

… ARVN lost -- cuz America bailed on 'em. When we backed 'em -- as in '72 -- they did not lose.
Without overwhelimg US support, either air or ground, ARVN was incapable of defeating the NVA. QED.

….You guys want to feel better for OUR country having backed freedom loving people for a generation, and then bailing on 'em….
What you fail to understand is that the government of South Vietnam were just paid puppets. Your claim that they were representative of the people of South Vietnam is laughable. They only had the support of the US. When the US withdrew that support, the government failed miserably. To call them 'freedom loving people' is pure warmongering propaganda.

…you DON'T care what happens to Iraqis: 'they don't deserve our help'…. Blaming the victims is rarely smart politics, folks ….
Your take on Iraq is just as asinine as your spin on the Vietnam War. Iraq was a nation cobbled together by Imperial Britain. It was well understood, even by Dick Cheney, that it would spin apart unless held together by a strong man government. That is why Bush I declined to overthrow Saddam in Gulf I. Bush II wasn't as smart. Our invasion did not created "freedom loving peoples;" as many warned beforehand, it created chaos.
At this moment, the US is caught between a complex civil war and a tribal society determined to settle old scores. The continued presence of the US in this conflict will only exacerbate the situation. Neo-con clowns are incapable of understanding and/or admitting the utter fiasco they have caused. Bush has killed more Iraqis than Saddam; the US has caused the deterioration of Iraqi society and infrastructure and is incapable of fixing the mess they caused. Right now, there are millions of Iraqi refugees flooding Iraq's neighbors and uprooted from their homes, and the US isn't providing one iota of relief to these poor people whose misery you caused.
The Bush regime is too callous to even allow a few Iraq's to seek sanctuary in the US as it is.
You complain that people are blaming the victims. That is silly and you could not provide one quote for that idiotic assertion. The blame belongs to Bush, Cheney, neo-con idiots, the incompetent CPA, the fools who lied to justify this war, and the dishonest fools who continue the lies in order to continue the war and occupation.

"Here I assumed this was an original bit of revisionism..."

Which pretty much proves your astonishing ignorance: this has been the standard understanding of how the war played out since, um, it played out.

It's not "revisionism". It's HOW IT HAPPENED. Hell, don't you even notice when you concede the point, that "it proves ARVN was incapable of defeating the NVA without overwhelming US support..."

AIR support, in 1972. Not ground troops.

And I suppose you figure the T-55 tanks the NVA drove into Saigon were made in North Vietnam, paid for by paddy farmers? LOL -- you're like the guy who argued that it was "the West" that divided Korea, that somehow Stalin's takeover of the North was legit, while American support for a genuinely free South Korea is 'artificial'.

"You complain that people are blaming the victims..."

"just paid puppets."

Tell ya what: if you ever meet Tiger Woods, tell him he's named for a paid puppet of the United States.

theAmericanist at 6:30 AM
....Which pretty much proves your astonishing ignorance:....
In truth, I don't pay attention to RNC revisionist history talking points because they is silly inane nonsense as you show so conclusively.
...AIR support, in 1972. Not ground troops
Support, in case you didn't know it, is support and it was essential because without it ARVN lost, big time. That you think an argument which shows that the South Vietnamese government was not considered worth fighting for by their own troops proves that the US should have continued to waste the lives of tens of thousands to support it is amusing as hell.

You got the RNC blah-blah down pat. You have the imperialistic rah- rah by rote. But the crap in your head, it's all ca-ca, chum.

....if you ever meet Tiger Woods, tell him he's named for a paid puppet.....
This remark perfectly exemplifies your silliness.