Wayne Grabert said:
People should be free to make their own mistakes and determine their course. It's not our place to decide for them.
If a majority of Germans decided to eliminate all of the Jews living in their territory is that ok? Hey, people should be free to make their own mistakes right?
There was much more to it than that Wayne. Who decides for the land and business owners and the people who don't want to lose their freedom without ever having an opportunity to get it back? What about those purged who do not accept communism? I'm sorry but I don't find it as cut and dry as that. There was a real fear of communism and real people were going to be slaughtered and their possessions and land and businesses forcibly taken from them. Is that right?
So we made North and South Vietnamese civilians guinea pigs to test out new military equipment?
Intellectual honesty on my part. Wars are usually fought over multiple reasons.
I guess that also holds true for the people of Iraq who be there when we test out the new bomb that is bigger than the infamous "daisy cutter."
Yes but we will stop the human experiments and the mass starvation that is taking place right now. There are trade offs.
And we have the gall to become indignant when al Qaida kills a couple thousand of our citizens? (Several hundred of the victims of 9/11 were foreign nationals.) Thank you for giving me a "proud to be American" moment.
War is hell, but it is not without justification and like I said trade offs. There is great potential for helping those people.
And don't give me that "proud to be an American" crap. Where were your sentiments when business men, land owners, those that waited for death at the hands of the communists and people who wanted to be free asked for our help.
"Hey, not our problem. You should be free to make your own mistakes." Yeah, that makes me proud to be an American, someone reaches out for help and you turn the other way.
And where do you get the idea that we won every battle in Vietnam?
Every book and every documentary that I have seen said so.
Do you have any evidence that it is not true.
Edited to add: Do some research on the Tet Offensive.
Wayne, the Tet offensive was a turning point in the war. While we won the battle we lost the will of the people to fight.
We did NOT militarily lose the Tet Offensive.
Tet offensive:
Although not meeting its major objectives the Tet offensive did have a lasting effect on the course of the war. It was a turning point. According to US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, 'Henceforth, no matter how effective our action, the prevalent strategy could no longer achieve its objectives within a period or within force levels politically acceptable to the American people.'
One of the major objectives had been to drive a wedge between the Americans and the South Vietnamese. The embassy attack was aimed at showing up the vulnerability of the American forces. The Vietcong had hoped that their liberation of towns and cities would lead to an uprising against the Americans, they believed that the South's weary soldiers, dislocated peasantry, fractious youth and widely discontented layers of South Vietnamese society were ready to join the struggle. However this only occurred on a sporadic basis.
The analogy with Dienbienphu was preposterous - the US was in a far stronger position than the French were in '54. In 'Operation Niagra' the Americans had unleashed their B52 bombers ariel firepower - the greatest in military history. The Vietcong suffered huge losses, as many as 10,000 dead, while only 500 US marines were killed.
The North Vietnamese gained NO ground and lost 10,000 men. How do you count that as a win?
Well...
Tet was the final nail in the coffin for the administration of Lyndon Johnson. In 1963, when he came to power in the wake of the assasination John Kennedy, his approval rating was over 80%. But by 1967 it was down to 40%. 'But then came Tet - and his ratings plummeted - as if Vietnam were a burning fuse that had suddenly ignited an explosion of dissent.' (Stanley Karnow)
Please tell Wayne of a single battle that we lost?
