Hindsight clarifies that Vietnam was a really bad war

[Segnosaur]

Outside of the ability to time travel or visit alternate dimensions, there's no way to know for sure whether supporting a right wing dictator really is worse than supporting a left wing dictator.

There is also the lesser-known third option of not supporting either of them.

Yes, but i the context of cold-war politics, the failure to support a pro-American S.O.B. would often mean that the U.S.S.R. would be the one with the S.O.B. in power.

I can't think of too many areas of the world where both sides weren't jockeying for position. (Do you really think the communist block would have backed off if the U.S. decided they didn't want to support someone?)

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Tranewreck,

about hussein being "America's S.O.B", where were his A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, his M1 Tanks, his F-15s, his F-16s, AH-64s etc?

Noriega: he became a pain in the for the US.

Diem: so loopy the US gave up hope on him

As for Pinochet, the US did not instigate the 1973 coup, while Pinochet was a [insert diatribe full of ], he only acted after the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution condemning Allende as well as the Chilean Supreme court rulling against him.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Which inevitably turns out to be a bad idea.

Some of our "S.O.B.'s":

Pinochet, Noriega, Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Diem...

I think the lesson is to avoid supporting SOB's.

Ferdinand Marcos...


One of these days I'll make a "List of totalitarian regimes the US directly supported".

 

[TraneWreck]

about hussein being "America's S.O.B", where were his A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, his M1 Tanks, his F-15s, his F-16s, AH-64s etc?

I'm not following. We didn't give F-15s to Noriega, and I don't think you'll argue that we didn't support him.

As for Pinochet, the US did not instigate the 1973 coup, while Pinochet was a [insert diatribe full of ], he only acted after the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution condemning Allende as well as the Chilean Supreme court rulling against him.

We didn't instigate the Coup, but we offered military support to the Junta immediately after:

“CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende,” the report states. “Many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses....Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000919/

That's from a CIA report.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

TubbaBlubba,

how about you include Joe Stalin in that list? and define "directly supported". It could mean sending shipments of AH-64s, or even so much as giving loans. The only totalitarian regimes the US supported were Stalin Marcos and Suharto. Various Latin American Juntas were authoritarian.

Tranewreck,

Saddam was clearly in the USSR's SOI (where did he get the scuds and t-72s). I assumed it was the "America armed saddam" fiction that got circulated a lot. As well as that, he didnt have normalised relations with the US until 1984. Even then, they broke off in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Tranewreck, because Sunghman Rhee was an S.O.B, should the Us have handed him over to Kim Il Sung?

I dont deny that the Us supported Pinochet, but there's a lot more to it than "Ev0l CIA overthrows governments for lulz."

 

[Puppycow]

First off, South Korea was also a pretty nasty state. Should the US have given them to Kim Il Sung's Democratic People's Republic by your logic?

No. I'm looking at this with the benefit of hindsight, as I said in the title. And I conceded that it might have been an honest mistake. But hindsight clarifies that it was. I'm talking about Vietnam, not Korea or the Nazis.

 

[Loss Leader]

Yes, but i the context of cold-war politics, the failure to support a pro-American S.O.B. would often mean that the U.S.S.R. would be the one with the S.O.B. in power.

I can't think of too many areas of the world where both sides weren't jockeying for position. (Do you really think the communist block would have backed off if the U.S. decided they didn't want to support someone?)

Um, the main lesson of the Cold War was that there was no war. US or Soviet influence didn't mean anything, the prosperity of one nation didn't preclude the prosperity of the other, and there was no "domino" effect at all.

So, yes, I believe that the failure of the US to meddle in Vietnam would have had absolutely no effect whatsoever. There was no Soviet "threat" to which we needed to respond.

 

[Puppycow]

As a hard-left, lifelong Democrat, I have to admit that the real mistakes of Vietnam were hardly Nixon's. It was Kennedy who supported Diem after the provisional government canceled elections and basically declared itself a dictatorship. That, to me, was the defining moment of bad judgment in Vietnam.

Nixon's handling of the war was, if anything, fairly pragmatic. We knew the North was cutting in and out of Cambodia to avoid us. Taking the fight there was logical. Refusing to acknowledge it publicly was a little silly. But I'd say that Nixon was probably the best President who handled the war - with Ford second, Kennedy third and LBJ dead last.

Well, you're right about that. Kennedy made some of the worst decisions. He's overrated because he's a martyr. Vietnam and Bay of Pigs were really, really bad calls.

Nixon was just an ******* willing to let an underling take the blame and suffer the consequences for a decision he made.

 

[Puppycow]

As well as that, the Pentagon papers note that contemporary (c. 1950s-60s) North Vietnam was (and i think it still is) a totalitarian state. Ever hear of the various purges the Communists did?

No, and I don't claim to be an expert on this, but it hardly seems like the Vietnam of today is a totalitarian state. I don't think it compares to North Korea. I don't think that Ho Chi Minh compares to Kim Il Sung either.

 

[ddt]

One of these days I'll make a "List of totalitarian regimes the US directly supported".

Guatemala post-Arbenz.

Suharto in Indonesia. Killed one million alleged "communists" during his first year alone. Killed another half million in East Timor.

And apropos Chile: the US wasn't directly involved in the Pinochet coup, but it did finance campaign against Allende before he was elected, and it financed various actions to destabilize Allende's government.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

TubbaBlubba,

how about you include Joe Stalin in that list? and define "directly supported". It could mean sending shipments of AH-64s, or even so much as giving loans. The only totalitarian regimes the US supported were Stalin Marcos and Suharto. Various Latin American Juntas were authoritarian.

Tranewreck,

Saddam was clearly in the USSR's SOI (where did he get the scuds and t-72s). I assumed it was the "America armed saddam" fiction that got circulated a lot. As well as that, he didnt have normalised relations with the US until 1984. Even then, they broke off in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Tranewreck, because Sunghman Rhee was an S.O.B, should the Us have handed him over to Kim Il Sung?

I dont deny that the Us supported Pinochet, but there's a lot more to it than "Ev0l CIA overthrows governments for lulz."

Jeze, dude... just repeating the same canned talking-point fallacies one more time doesn't make them true.

And, yes, I get it, you're too dumb to even understand the difference between defending a country militarily and helping a dictator stay in power. In your brain there just aren't any shades between pulling the army out of Korea and propping Rhee.

In reality, there are shades in between. The US could for example supervise the elections if it's already there.

Letting the South Koreans vote for someone else than Rhee wouldn't have given the country to communists. They didn't vote to join the commies in 1960 after they deposed Rhee.

But I guess that would involve rubbing two brain cells together instead of just repeating canned chest-thumping apologist talking points.

Again: there are shades between supporting a dictator and "giving the country to the commies." If you're incapable of understanding that, it's your problem.

But I keely await your repeating the same dumb fallacies one more time. Go ahead. Wouldn't want you to get a sore brain actually thinking and stuff.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Guatemala post-Arbenz.

Suharto in Indonesia. Killed one million alleged "communists" during his first year alone. Killed another half million in East Timor.

And apropos Chile: the US wasn't directly involved in the Pinochet coup, but it did finance campaign against Allende before he was elected, and it financed various actions to destabilize Allende's government.

I thought it was 400k in his first year and 200k east timorese died according to this website. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

IIRC, while nasty and racist, the Post Arbenz Guatemala was more authoritarian than totalitarian.

Hansmustermann,

you cannot make a country a democracy overnight, and Diem was seen as a temporary solution. Indeed he was nasty and brutal, but what could the US have done? Overthrown him and made it worse, which was exactly what they did. And given that SV was a cesspool of corruption, any elections in the 50s and 60s would have been blatantly rigged, observers or not, and the US knew that.

After Rhee was overthrown, various dictators came to power and SK wasnt democratic until the late 1980s. It was also pretty corrupt, with very little guarantee of free elections until later on.

 

[A'isha]

Saddam was clearly in the USSR's SOI (where did he get the scuds and t-72s).

He bought them decades before the Iran-Iraq war. When Saddam invaded Iran, the USSR actually opposed the war. Iran, not Iraq, was in the USSR's SoI, so when the two countries came to blows, the Soviets chose the nation that had influence in over the one they didn't, and suspended all of their arms sales to Iraq. The US bought Soviet military equipment and replacement parts from other countries, and resold them to Iraq, in addition to providing training assistance and sharing things like satellite intelligence with Saddam.

This created the bizarre situation where the American-supplied Iraqi military used T-72s and MiGs to battle the Soviet-backed Iranian military which used F-14s and M-60s.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

The US arms sales to iraq were MINISCULE compared to the Soviet French and chinese sales. And Soviet Arms sales to Saddam DID resume after 18 months. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: 57% of Saddam's arms came from the Soviet Union, 13% from France and 12% from China

And Iran was NOWHERE near the USSR's SOI. Cite evidence that it was. Now.

 

[A'isha]

EDIT: Never mind, if it's going to be one of those kinds of conversations.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

well, for one, you have shown no evidence of your claim that America shipped T-72s and MiGs to Saddam.

 

[A'isha]

I will admit that I understated other nations' support for Iraq (such as France's arms sales), and implied a greater influence in Iran than the Soviets actually had (when I should have said that they wanted a greater influence over Iran, though I will note that an equivalent percentage of arms sales to Iran came from the Soviets or Soviet allies). Given the nature of the Iran-Iraq war as a proxy war, things like who provided covert/open support to who can get messy, and I apologize for painting things in starker terms than I really should have.

As for what the US sold Saddam, Howard Teicher, a staffer with the National Security Council at the time (and one of those who went with Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq during the infamous visit where Rumsfeld and Saddam were photographed shaking hands in Baghdad) said:

CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war. Pursuant to the secret NSDD, the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.

...

The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.

...

The United States and the CIA maintained a program known as the "Bear Spares" program whereby the United States made sure that spare parts and ammunition for Soviet or Soviet-style weaponry were available to countries which sought to reduce their dependence on the Soviets for defense needs. If the "Bear Spares" were manufactured outside the United States, then the United States could arrange for the provision of these weapons to a third country without direct involvement. Israel, for example, had a very large stockpile of Soviet weaponry and ammunition captured during its various wars. At the suggestion of the United States, the Israelis would transfer the spare parts and weapons to third countries or insurgent movements (such as the Afghan rebels and the Contras). Similarly, Egypt manufactured weapons and spare parts from Soviet designs and provided these weapons and ammunition to the Iraqis and other countries. Egypt also served as a supplier for the Bear Spares program. The United States approved, assisted and encouraged Egypt's manufacturing capabilities. The United States approved, assisted and encouraged Egypt's sale of weaponry, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

ah yes, the Bear Spares programme. Except, that egypt only accounted for 1% of all arms sales to saddam and Israel didnt even score as much as 1% of all arms sales.

 

[A'isha]

ah yes, the Bear Spares programme. Except, that egypt only accounted for 1% of all arms sales to saddam and Israel didnt even score as much as 1% of all arms sales.

He explicitly labeled them as examples of how the program worked, and didn't say that Israel and Egypt represented the totality of nations that sold arms to Iraq at the behest of the US.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

i dont deny that the bear spare programme existed. However, we do not know how effective it was. Besides, Third World Arms sales werent that much, seeing as it was First and Second World Nations like czechoslovakia and the USSR that sold saddam the bulk of his arsenal.