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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Vietnam War
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
In the 'Fal$e Teacher$' there has been the following exchange
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
The Billy Graham apologists really take some beating. Sure he was a bigoted anti-semite and used his missionaries in Vietnam to supply information for a plan of mass murder he flogged to Nixon—he did some good stuff too!
K.
Without wanting to turn into a Billy Graham apologist here can you think of a better plan that could have been achieved for defeating the communist aggression in Vietnam?
My response would be too far off the topic of this thread and apparently disagree with you. If you want to discuss it, start a thread on the topic of USA's habit of brutal aggression and see if anyone shows up.
So so as not to take the thread too far off topic I'm starting a new thread on the Vietnam War so that this conversation can continue
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What business had Christ in defeating communist aggression with worse aggression in Vietnam?
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Love wins
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia"
Vizzini, The Princess Bride
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
The argument that it's ok to kill millions of people if you're [claiming to be] defending their freedom does not cut a lot of ice with me.
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What business had Christ in defeating communist aggression with worse aggression in Vietnam?
So what do you think would have been an appropriate response to the North Vietnamese aggression?
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What business had Christ in defeating communist aggression with worse aggression in Vietnam?
So what do you think would have been an appropriate response to the North Vietnamese aggression?
Love?
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Forward the New Republic
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The argument that it's ok to kill millions of people if you're [claiming to be] defending their freedom does not cut a lot of ice with me.
Millions died in World War II as well. Were Britain and America wrong to get involved in that war?
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Tell me again how the Viet Cong's battle plans involved a large-scale invasion of California.
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Forward the New Republic
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Tell me again how the Viet Cong's battle plans involved a large-scale invasion of California.
None of them. The North Vietnamese government and allied communist parties did however launch wars of aggression against South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. What do you think would have been an appropriate response to that aggression?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What did God in Christ Jesus say?
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Love wins
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
Martin60, do you not think that there is such a thing as a just war?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And can you supply your chronology of this aggression please?
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Love wins
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Martin60, do you not think that there is such a thing as a just war?
Not speaking for Martin60, here, but IMO just war theory no longer works. It was developed before the advent of weapons (and the spread of those weapons) capable of wiping out life on this planet. Set the damage of which an army equipped with crossbows is capable against the damage even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons could cause: no comparison. We already have tracts of no-go geography on our planet due to nuclear accidents, and they weren't even the result of war, but of "peaceful" use of forces we apparently have zero common sense about.
However just the causus belli, almost any act of international aggression raises the risk of nuclear powers, through treaties and alliances, entering into the fray, with the potential for use of those weapons, with widespread lethality for noncombatants to that fray. How can that be justified?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
Martin60, do you not think that there is such a thing as a just war?
Just war theory is a load of cobblers. Sure, sometimes it might be necessary to go to war (I don't think Vietnam was such a case) but why dress it up as anything other than a necessary evil at best?
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I'd suggest that bombing dykes to starve the civilian population would be a violation of ius in bello even if you think the casus belli is sound.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Either allow Vietnam to be an independent country with a constitution they wrote themselves, modelled on the USA constitution in 1945 or cynically support France in taking over from the Japanese and drive them into the arms of your rivals. Pathetic, tragic, cynical. It taught us that rhetoric about freedom and democracy is empty.
This is of course why countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran under the Shah, numerous South American and African dictatorships etc have understood that so long as the flow of money is in the right direction, they can buy all the guns they need to keep their populace in the supply chain and chains.
Basically the message on the religious front was that America and the kingdom of god are the same thing, no?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@Bibliophile: I cannot think of a SINGLE just war in fact, regardless of any theory. Not one. Ever. Before the nuclear age let alone after. You? Anyone? As a just war Vietnam scores what? Out of 10? I mean on a strictly utilitarian basis, let alone the transcendent ethics of the Son of Man.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Tell me again how the Viet Cong's battle plans involved a large-scale invasion of California.
None of them. The North Vietnamese government and allied communist parties did however launch wars of aggression against South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. What do you think would have been an appropriate response to that aggression?
Apologise for turning independent people into colonial subjects? Vow never to use them as cannon fodder in a proxy war? Decide beforehand that the use of chemical weapons on a civilian population was a war crime? Broker international peace talks under the auspices of the UN?
All those would probably come under 'appropriate responses'. What did you have in mind?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I think the issue with Vietnam was the scaling up of hostilities by the Americans - including the completely illegal bombing of Cambodia which made the whole situation worse. Was it General Westmorland - 'Waste-more-land' - who said that he wanted to bomb Cambodia back to the Stone Age?
No-one is saying that Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong were anything other than brutal dictators - but the US carpet-bombing of civilians the indiscriminate use of napalm, the rapes, massacres and other war-war-crimes represent a stain on the reputation of the US to this day.
Two wrongs don't make a right and I am not sanctioning the heinous things that the Vietcong did, far from it. But I'm glad that Britain under Harold Wilson refused to get involved.
I've met Mary Wilson, widow of the late Prime Minister and remember her saying with pride, 'Lyndon B Johnson got down on his hands and knees and begged my husband to join the war in Vietnam - and he refused!'
I wish Blair had done the same with Bush over Iraq. I am not anti-American nor disrespectful of US sacrifice in two World Wars but there are times when Presidential child-killers like Johnson and twisted crooks like Nixon ought to be told where to get off.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
If Aggressor + Just War = Just Outcome you might have a starting point for a just war argument. Assuming that your just outcome is saving the notoriously corrupt government of South Vietnam.
The fact that we already know the outcome was in fact Aggressor + Just War ≠ Just Outcome seems to undermine the just war argument here.
Beyond that, please consider how many people suffered because of the just war (WARNING - there is some nudity if you look close enough) and died because of the just war, the argument becomes even more tenuous.
Have a walk around the Viet Nam Memorial Wall sometime.
For an interesting assessment of how Vietnam is doing under those dreaded Commies you might even read an evaluation from an ex enemy.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
It was Curtis LeMay.
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Love wins
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
We should also remember that communist Vietnam invaded Cambodia, ending the Khymer Rouge and the genocide, while we in the west continued to support the Khymer-rump 'government'.
Well done us.
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Forward the New Republic
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Britain exposed the Khmer Rouge, under Thatcher, at the UN. The only voice. We supported them after the Vietnamese [counter-]aggression of course ...
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Love wins
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
The post WW2 idea that USA gets to police the world to it's own advantage and impose USA's value systems on other countries (especially where there's oil?) has probably caused more destruction and pain and death than whatever wrongs the USA pretended it was fighting.
I once tried to count how many 10 year periods USA has not been at war in it's history. Thought I had found one early on until someone reminded me of the French and Indian War which was part of a world war.
USA is a warmongering country. It easily embraces war. Every President starts or continues a war, while boasting of being "peace loving". List of USA wars No other country has such a shameful record of being constantly at war. Except maybe ancient Rome.
Founded by war, expanded territory by many wars, since physical expansion stopped USA has been seeking to control world commerce in unfair-to-others ways via war, often backing harsh dictators and opposing leaders who wanted to improve their countries.
I can see why some say the beast of the Revelation is the USA. There is material wealth for middle class and up, but little actual good in a culture than endorses war and endorses abuse of workers (good for business profits) and encourages materialism (Bush told people to go shopping) and criminalizes poverty (illegal to sit on a park bench too long even if you have no home) as consistently as USA does.
I was in Nam during the war, I visited Vietnamese orphanages for the many kids orphaned by war, and I visited USA hospitals for troops, what do you say to a 19 year old man with three bandaged stumps where there should be limbs because of a war the winning or losing of which will have no effect on his life, his family, or his country?
Nixon committed treason by secretly interfering with LBJ's treaty negotiations because Nixon needed the war to continue so he could run on an "end the war" platform Nixon blocks war end to get elected in 1968.
And at the other end, he postponed the "peace agreement" and final withdrawal until after the election because historically this country re-elects a war president, being still at war increased his re-election probability. Nixon delays ending of war past 1972 election
How many lives maimed or lost on all sides was the election and re-election of a destructive president worth?
Just war? Absolutely not. Hundreds of thousands of people killed for one man's political career.
(Christian country? Gotta be kidding!)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thank you for those awesome links Belle. The final nails in the coffin of my shameful admiration of Nixon that I didn't know that I still had. And emotionally still do! Dear God I STILL regard him as a tragic figure!! Closer to Hitler and Stalin and Mao with my fallen yet-hero Churchill.
We LOVE war. Those of us who stand at the apex of that pyramid whose base is the bloody Earth of meaningless suffering. Dear GOD who needs Satan?!
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Love wins
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
For an interesting assessment of how Vietnam is doing under those dreaded Commies you might even read an evaluation from an ex enemy.
And don't forget to assess the actual outcome (the "bad guys" won) against the "domino theory" used to promote the war, that if Vietnam went so would Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, possibly even Australia, also Burma and India, possibly Japan and then Canada and USA.
Which is exactly what happened after Communist victory in Vietnam, yes? Whoops.
Yes Southeast Asia has some political problems, like the Balkans it has lots of different ethnic peoples who have been pushing each other around for a few thousand years and don't fit well into the modern "unified territorial political state" concept. Lots of bombs and chemicals and dead USA troops can't solve those ancient issues.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Moreover, let's not ignore the fact that the US is the world's arms dealer. We created the arms race that has led to the spread of weapons whose use we dare not even contemplate -- yet there those weapons are, poised and aimed and ready.
Our government encourages development by private enterprise of SuperWeapon A. Private Enterprise then sells SuperWeapon A to our alleged "allies." Somehow (?!), this weapon finds its way into the hands of our alleged "enemies," so we go back to the drawing board to develop SuperWeapon B, and so it goes, with ordinary taxpayers footing most of the bill, plus sacrificing the limbs and lives of our own youth, along with the horrors we visit on others.
What a con game.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Thank you for those awesome links Belle. The final nails in the coffin of my shameful admiration of Nixon that I didn't know that I still had. And emotionally still do! Dear God I STILL regard him as a tragic figure!! Closer to Hitler and Stalin and Mao with my fallen yet-hero Churchill.
We LOVE war. Those of us who stand at the apex of that pyramid whose base is the bloody Earth of meaningless suffering. Dear GOD who needs Satan?!
I voted for Nixon. I believed in him. I said Watergate didn't matter compared with he got us out of Vietnam.
I have been saying mea culpas ever since I learned about his intentionally postponing the war while we sat there in Nam. I have a piece of a rocket that landed outside my building, attended a funeral for 5 men shot down in a helicopter while we waited for the Paris peace talks to end, worked backstage at a Bob Hope show Christmas 1972 Bob was deeply distressed that the show hadn't been cancelled by a total withdrawal - glued to the radio late January when they read us the terms of the treaty we all said "they have announced defeat and are giving South Vietnam to the North" but at least we wouldn't continue fighting an undeclared war with one hand tied behind our backs (I was on a compound watching perimeter guard fire flares trying to burn out the sniper because they weren't allowed to fire bullets because the sniper was shooting from an area the village leader refused us permission to shoot into - remember we were there as "guests invited by the President" and had to obey local rules or where we were allowed to shoot).
Nixon got us out of the war! And then I learned the truth. It would have ended years earlier if he had not believed his personal career more important than anyone else's life, even 60,000 Americans (plus the wounded) plus far more Vietnamese lives.
Yes Nixon is a tragic figure, but the tragedy is far deeper than his merely falling from power.
All his life he fought against the tapes being released, which suggests he did not believe in the moral rightness of his own decisions or reasonings.
Very much the widely promoted American value system - focus on personal advancement, (backstabbing and manipulating others with promises you don't intend to keep are important skills), every decision based on "what's in it for me," everyone else is expendable and if their lives are ruined why would I care it's their fault for not looking out for themselves. I see it all the time in corporate America.
[ 13. June 2015, 14:55: Message edited by: Belle Ringer ]
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The argument that it's ok to kill millions of people if you're [claiming to be] defending their freedom does not cut a lot of ice with me.
Millions died in World War II as well. Were Britain and America wrong to get involved in that war?
There is a difference between a war that (arguably, on balance) saved lives and one that pretty obviously did not. I tend towards the pacifist end of the spectrum so have my doubts even about WW2 (and definitely about some of the actions taken as part of it).
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I wish Blair had done the same with Bush over Iraq. I am not anti-American nor disrespectful of US sacrifice in two World Wars but there are times when Presidential child-killers like Johnson and twisted crooks like Nixon ought to be told where to get off.
I thought this was common knowledge enough to be a cliche, but perhaps it is not well known that there was a huge-- HUGE-- anti- war movement un the Vietnam era, pretty much from the minute Kennedy started sending troops. Throughout the Vietnam war, there were crowds of protesters surrounding the capital. There were rallies and protests underway across the nation. Literally, brother turned agains brother, parent against child, and vice versa. Oh, and there was this little dust up at an Ohio university that some folk may have heard of.
People didn't stop telling Kennedy / LBJ/ Nixon where to get off about Vietnam until the war ended. It just took the White House a long time to listen.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Just think how many of ourselves we MUST have saved by killing eighty million of ourselves! How many more could we have saved by killing even more?!
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Love wins
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
If Aggressor + Just War = Just Outcome you might have a starting point for a just war argument. Assuming that your just outcome is saving the notoriously corrupt government of South Vietnam.
The fact that we already know the outcome was in fact Aggressor + Just War ≠ Just Outcome seems to undermine the just war argument here
A just outcome would have been the reunification of Vietnam under the government of South Vietnam. The problem wasn't the justness of the cause but the way that the war was run. In World War II the US had successfully defeated, occupied and instigated regime on bigger and more powerful countries than North Vietnam. The problem was not the justness of the cause it was the lack of competence and political will in achieving it.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm aware of all of that, Kelly Alves and my post wasn't meant to suggest that there was universal compliance within the US with what LBJ and Nixon were up to - far from it.
The point I was making was concerned with UK neutrality - ie. Wilson told LBJ to bog off. I'm rather pleased about that.
That point in no wise undermines or detracts from the massive anti-war feeling that existed in the US at that time and I'm surprised you took my post that way.
FWIW my youngest aunt - only 6 years older than me - married a London-Welsh Australian after her first marriage broke up. He'd emigrated to Australia at the age of 18 and found himself being drafted to fight alongside the Americans in Vietnam. He still suffers flash-backs and a degree of post-traumatic stress.
Whilst he can be very critical of the left and the anti-war activists who gave him and his fellow returing, traumatised veterans a hard time -- he has nothing but criticism for the way the US military conducted the campaigns over there and the politicians who dragged so many brave men - from the US, Australia and South Vietnam - into a war that could not be won.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Yeah, the US should have taken off the kid gloves and fought a REAL total war, none of that Dee Emm Zee crap, occupied Hanoi, bombed the dykes, executed Jane Fonda.
Cuz it wuz just. Un right makes might.
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Love wins
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
What political will and competence in achieving victory are you talking about, Bibliophile?
The political will to 'bomb Cambodia into the Stone Age' thereby creating the conditions for Pol Pot to take over and massacre a considerable proportion of the Cambodian population?
The political will to commit war-crimes and contraventions of human rights and Geneva Convention stipulations in order to propagate a 'just cause'?
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
In World War II the US had successfully defeated, occupied and instigated regime on bigger and more powerful countries than North Vietnam.
I think you'll find the USA had a little help in that conflict.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Moreover, let's not ignore the fact that the US is the world's arms dealer. We created the arms race that has led to the spread of weapons whose use we dare not even contemplate -- yet there those weapons are, poised and aimed and ready.
Our government encourages development by private enterprise of SuperWeapon A. Private Enterprise then sells SuperWeapon A to our alleged "allies." Somehow (?!), this weapon finds its way into the hands of our alleged "enemies," so we go back to the drawing board to develop SuperWeapon B, and so it goes, with ordinary taxpayers footing most of the bill, plus sacrificing the limbs and lives of our own youth, along with the horrors we visit on others.
What a con game.
Here's the ironic thing- the many, many Americans who protest this are labeled " unAmerican" by the people who support it, and the rest of the world seems content to define the whole of America by the very people who are agressively defining patriotism as support if war. You see why some of us get frustrated?
And I too wish Blair had flipped Bush the bird and stood with the French-- who the US Government owes a huge apology, due to its poisonous Bush Era rhetoric.
Which goes back to my hatred of the A-bomb. Bush dragged his entire country and several others into war under very questionable circumstances, calling everyone who disagreed with him a traitor ( check limbo for early Bush - era Purg/ Hell threads for a refresher) and I tend to believe the reason various world leaders backed down was that they thought he was crazy enough to drop the atomic bomb. The reason various presidents have the power to act in defiance of international wellbeing and even the best interests/ expressed wishes of their own people is they have historically held the ultimate trump card-- we did it before, and whose to say we won't do it again?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
In World War II the US - alongside its allies - maintained the moral high ground -- although that was compromised to some extent by the carpet bombing of German cities -- and the RAF were probably more guilty of attacking unjustified civilian targets, by and large - than the USAF were ...
They did not maintain the moral high-ground in Vietnam.
Watch that shameful footage of US personnel scrambling to save their own skins as Hanoi fell - clambering into the helicopters and leaving their whores and lackeys as well as their trusting South Vietnamese partners and allies to their fate.
Watch it in disgust. Because that's what it evokes. Disgust and contempt.
Be ashamed. Be very ashamed.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What political will and competence in achieving victory are you talking about, Bibliophile?
The political will to 'bomb Cambodia into the Stone Age' thereby creating the conditions for Pol Pot to take over and massacre a considerable proportion of the Cambodian population?
The political will to commit war-crimes and contraventions of human rights and Geneva Convention stipulations in order to propagate a 'just cause'?
Preach.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I feel sorry for the Vietnam Vets, I really do ... it can't be easy for them having fought in an unpopular war.
It's not their fault. The blame lies with LBJ and Nixon --
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In World War II the US - alongside its allies - maintained the moral high ground -- although that was compromised to some extent by the carpet bombing of German cities -- and the RAF were probably more guilty of attacking unjustified civilian targets, by and large - than the USAF were ...
And let's be real-- the Allies may have been better behaved ( and regulated) than the Germans and Japanese, but some of our soldiers participated in the kind of soldierly perogatives that have been assumed since there first were soldiers-- meaning stealing stuff from civilians, commandeering their residences, and (to quote eyewitness Bill Mauldin, a WW2 vet and adament Vietnam protester) "occasional non-consensual poontang." There's no avoiding it-- war itself reduces our collective humanity level.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, that's certainly true - no matter how 'just' or otherwise the cause.
It's a tricky area - because one could use this argument to justify the Vietnam War and the associated atrocities ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I feel sorry for the Vietnam Vets, I really do ... it can't be easy for them having fought in an unpopular war.
It's not their fault. The blame lies with LBJ and Nixon --
Preach, again. My uncle nearly lost his eye in the Tet offensive. He disapproves of me calling myself a pacifist. He doesn't get that one of the reasons I am is that he was deployed well after most people agreed the war was unwinnable. I resent the hell out of the fact that my leaders were so cavalier with of the lives of young men ready and willing to serve any way they could.
And I still do, Mr. Obama.
[ 13. June 2015, 17:35: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, that's certainly true - no matter how 'just' or otherwise the cause.
It's a tricky area - because one could use this argument to justify the Vietnam War and the associated atrocities ...
Something I've pondered before-- some of political America's post WW2 behavior seemed to be like children playacting stuff they saw their older siblings doing. The McCarthy era was us play acting early Nazi roundups of "communists and intellectuals" (Read: Jews) and the Vietnam atrocities were us playacting the excesses of the IJA. Never understood that-- we hadn't had time to take a breath after condemning our enemies before we started acting like them.
Is it part of human nature to secretly envy people who can get away with despotic cruelty? Or did the ugliness of WW2 shake our collective faith in humanity to the point that we stopped having that faith for a while, even as applied to ourselves? Or did our collective vision of ourselves as The Good Guys give us some sort of pass to stop examining our own behavior?
[ 13. June 2015, 18:06: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Tell me again how the Viet Cong's battle plans involved a large-scale invasion of California.
None of them. The North Vietnamese government and allied communist parties did however launch wars of aggression against South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. What do you think would have been an appropriate response to that aggression?
Apologise for turning independent people into colonial subjects? Vow never to use them as cannon fodder in a proxy war? Decide beforehand that the use of chemical weapons on a civilian population was a war crime? Broker international peace talks under the auspices of the UN?
All those would probably come under 'appropriate responses'. What did you have in mind?
To answer your questions. the form of government that Vietnam had before French colonialism was an independent monarchy under the Nguyễn dynasty. After WWII it was the French who sought to restore this in Vietnam and the communists who fought to prevent it.
The country responsible for turning the Vietnamese in to cannon fodder in a proxy war was the Soviet Union.
I would agree with you about chemical weapons. The reason agent orange was used was to stop communist soldiers in South Vietnam using tree cover to get supplied from the North and hen fight in the South. If the US had had the political will to cut off the head of the snake and destroy the North Vietnamese government using conventional weapons there would have no cause to use agent orange.
There were peace talks in 1954 called the Geneva conference. The reason they didn't lead to lasting peace was that communist forces under the direction of the North Vietnamese government shortly after began attacks on South Vietnam and continued them throughout the war.
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Bibliophile
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# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
The McCarthy era
We have McCarthyism now, its called political correctness.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
We also have justification of the unjustifiable too - it's called Bibliophile's view of the world ...
No-one is defending the Soviet Union or Communist China - they both sucked -
Yes, we all know why the US started to use agent orange but that doesn't justify its use against non-combatants. How about the bombing of Cambodia?
The Vietcong are slipping over the border into Cambodia. Let's bomb it.
A neutral country.
That would have been like the British bombing Dublin because the IRA were slipping over the border into the Irish Republic.
Face it. Your country committed war-crimes in Vietnam and Cambodia. Gross violations of human rights.
'Blessed is he who does not condemn himself by what he defends.'
In justifying the use of agent orange against civilian populations and the completely illegal bombing of Cambodia you are effectively complicit with war crimes.
Think about that.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Nobody's defending 'political correctness' either.
Your argument really is morally bankrupt.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Is it part of human nature to secretly envy people who can get away with despotic cruelty?
I would say yes. The Psalmist certainly picked up on that trait when referring to envy of the ungodly
The best example are the Romans who were a very cruel society.
Is it because their cruelty was so highly ordered, and even glamorized with the Games that they have been revered consistently by following generations? Not withstanding the fact that Christianity had a big hand in sanitising what was essentially a brutal Empire.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, that's certainly true - no matter how 'just' or otherwise the cause.
It's a tricky area - because one could use this argument to justify the Vietnam War and the associated atrocities ...
Something I've pondered before-- some of political America's post WW2 behavior seemed to be like children playacting stuff they saw their older siblings doing. The McCarthy era was us play acting early Nazi roundups of "communists and intellectuals" (Read: Jews) and the Vietnam atrocities were us playacting the excesses of the IJA. Never understood that-- we hadn't had time to take a breath after condemning our enemies before we started acting like them.
Is it part of human nature to secretly envy people who can get away with despotic cruelty? Or did the ugliness of WW2 shake our collective faith in humanity to the point that we stopped having that faith for a while, even as applied to ourselves? Or did our collective vision of ourselves as The Good Guys give us some sort of pass to stop examining our own behavior?
I think it's basically just the old thing of "When they do it, they're bloodthirsty scoundrels; when we do it, well, you know, there are reasons."
You see the same thing with, for example, fundy protestants who rail on about the Inquisition, but come up with excuses for Calvin's burning unitarians(or else just ignore that all together). True, that involves two events that both happened in the distant past, rather than the US condeming events in the past and then doing similar stuff in the present. But the psychological m.o is still basically the same.
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