This from the terribly brilliant but morally b.k. boy that has as his representative topic; This is remarkable......? pompous ass

 

I take back what I said. J.A.W. said something reasonable as well.

 

Do I hear an echo

I read through the miles of comments in this thread in hopes of finding something true.
We live on the words of un-informed talk. Educate your self and then comment. Filter the truth from all the media talk, and by being educated on the subject then you might pick up s little bit of truth, and I mean only a very little bit..
We beleived in WMD, and on some words we went to war! We beleived on the words of Iran and their plans for atomic bombs, now we know differently.
Educate yourself, At least that will not hurt you... Don't take me wrong, there are some brilliant minds on this forum.

 

I have a few things to say here. I back-up my comments by 2 1/2 years as an intel. getherer from 1062 -1965. I spent much of my time in V.N bush. and points west and north. I know whereof I speak.

I love Kimiko a lot. I've never disagreed with her before. In late '62-63 we had the war WON. The pols at the peace tables forsed a lull in the combat and there was a massive resupply effort after we had killed the 'supply corp' cold. If they had released us and allowed us to do our jobs the war would have been over in 1963-64

Hell, yes Kimiko, we could have won that war if we had been allowed to. Protesters and weak ass pols. took it away Most of the people were just sitting on their hands waiting. Funny how many protesters were waiting to 'greet'the troops on my ship. I still wish every one of them a death in pain and spitting up their guts

 

Hey, I can handle being disagreed with. And all this was before my time, so you may well be right about circumstances in 1962-63. I would point out, though, that American troops weren't even present in large numbers in Vietnam until 1965. There weren't significant anti-war protests until long after the period you're talking about, and the war didn't end until 1975, by which time 58,000 Americans had been killed. Don't you think people back home were entitled to be a little bit frustrated and impatient by then, especially since then, as now, they had been lied to repeatedly by a succession of military and civilian leaders?

And what was the rationale? Containing communism? That was everyone's favorite bogeyman then, just as "terrorism" is a way of instilling fear today. Sorry, knifedge, it just doesn't work on me.

 

bin Laden

You go, Kimiko. When JFK was killed, we had less than 14,000 troops in VietNam and they were primarily military advisors. Kennedy told Senator George Smathers that he planned to pull out all of our troops after the 1964 election. Even Senator Barry Goldwater said, "If you are not going to plan to win, get the hell out." LBJ changed all that.

The fact remains that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. That was all draft-dodger Cheney's claim so Halliburton could get big contracts.

For the first time in America's history, the government cuts taxes during wartime. Absolute madness.

 

Fear warning

For Possum. Please read the August issue of Atlantic Monthly. It has an article by a reporter that interviewed every major terrorist expert. They all conclude that bin Laden is not as much a danger to us as we are to ourselves. He makes a piss-ant video, and we run in circles. That is Karl Rove's grand plan to keep Republicans in power: esploit terror. Maybe the Democrats could not do better. But the Republicans have killed 2700 American soldiers and Marines in a war that had nothing to do with bin Laden. Meanwhile, we let bin Laden escape.
Finally, the terrorist experts say that American Muslims are our first line of defense. Many of them have ratted out radicals they find in their Mosques.

FDR said at his first inauguration, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That applies to America now. Between cigarettes and drunks we have 160 times as many people die as we lost on 9/11. For example, almost 400,000 people die each year from cigarette smoking plus we have 17,000 die from drunk drivers. Why don't we kill the cigarette makers and give highway troopers the 007 category so they can shoot all drunk drivers in the back of the head when the drunks fail the breathalizer test. Works for me.

 

You're going to complain about half-thought out rants when you just posted one?....... :roll:

 

I really appreciated reading your opinion on my post. I was a combat Marine from 6/66 thru 1/68 Remarkably I missed the tet offensive by 3 weeks. My outfit got chewed up however and as you know that is a wound one carrys forever. The majority of people that have such drastic and skewed thoughts about VietNam, I think, have never talked to people that were actually there and wwitnessed what really happened. We had "charlie" so beaten and emotionally broken that we thought the n.Viets would sue for peace by the middle of '67. The turnaround was so startling that we were caught off -guard when charlie got stronger. You being in intelligence know full well that the Chinese were sending in units of there toughest foot solddiers to weaken us along the borders. It's a dirty little secret that no one talks about but never the less, true.The public by and large just go along with the notion that we must have been inept and without resolve to finish that war, If they only were to ask the real people what happened they might learn lessons that we we were forced to learn all those years ago. I know one thing for a fact , the protesting and counter culture prolonged that war. It is naive and silly to think that the propoganda wasn't used to buck charlie up. It worked wonders. Finally I would love to hear no mention of that war ever again. This constant sound bite of "another VietNam" again forces us that were there to have to relive the reason why what happwened overn there has nothing in common with the Middle East war.thank you sir for your service Semper Fi Steve Berry 5th Marines-Chu Lai ROVN...

 

Re: Fear warning

 

First of all, plenty of Vietnam vets, people who WERE there, some of whom had arms and legs shot off, have come to conclusions about the war that are 180 degrees from yours.

Secondly, I grow weary of claims that the "counterculture" prolonged the war. That's convenient propoganda in its own right, but it's main purpose is to stifle dissent. The same thing is going on today, and it's profoundly unamerican.

Third, you might do well to reflect on the possibility that you and all your fellow soldiers, for whom I have nothing but respect, were used by the people who profited from that war, and who are still profiting from war today. When you guys exchange those testosterone-laced "Semper Fi's", however heartfelt, you're playing right into their hands. They'll need people like you to fight the next war, coming soon to a theater near you.

I've said enough...probably way too much. I won't contribute any more to this thread, I promise. The whole thing just makes me sad. So go to your corners, and come out fighting.

 

Kimiko, I totally agree with you. I'm not going to jump right into such a powder-keg topic right now, though.

What I am going to do, though, is make a few non-inflamatory comments as cooly as I can.

Possum: You're probably misreading 44688381's logic, or perhaps are twisting it; I can't tell for sure and don't want to put words in your mouth. He's saying, of course, that acceptable business practices within this country are killing far more Americans all the time than Bin Laden ever did, and ever will. He forgot to mention fast food, of course, which is a huge contributor to the biggest killer in America today, which is heart disease. He's not saying it was Repubicans who are forcing people to smoke and drink; he's simply saying that there are much bigger threats to America's health and well-being than so-called Isamic-fascism, which, as a term, seems to be a total farse. Of course, I don't mean to dishonor your service to this country, nor do I wish to dishonor those who are serving now. But truth be told, effective soldiers wouldn't know the whole story of any war, ever.

Madmax400f: I also don't mean any disrespect with this analogy; I only use it as an example. If you walked into a room full of second-graders fighting with each other, you wouldn't join in, and you wouldn't try to explain things in a grown up way. I simply didn't know how to approach this ridiculous discussion without either stooping to talking-point slogans or entering on an unrelated level of logical debate.

 

[quote=" Ok, kimiko I think you have made astrong enough case to lets say start

Secondly, I grow weary of claims that the "counterculture" prolonged the war. That's convenient propoganda in its own right, but it's main purpose is to stifle dissent. The same thing is going on today, and it's profoundly unamerican.

Third, you might do well to reflect on the possibility that you and all your fellow soldiers, for whom I have nothing but respect, were used by the people who profited from that war, and who are still profiting from war today. When you guys exchange those testosterone-laced "Semper Fi's", however heartfelt, you're playing right into their hands. They'll need people like you to fight the next war, coming soon to a theater near you.

I've said enough...probably way too much. I won't contribute any more to this thread, I promise. The whole thing just makes me sad. Don't ever quit this ....please kimiko it's important to see this through . It is for me anyway. Because I want to be shown by someone how not to do this again. We both want the same thing kimiko. I think your theory of not maerching off to war for the wrong reasons is totally valid. How would you determine if it was up to you to go or not go to war? Is there anything that some other country has done that would be bad enough for you to say we are going to war with that country. Can more interplay between countrys that don't have a lot incommon possibly be a solution? Here's a way to prove if you're right or wrong. The next time the country calls on us to go. We will imply say "no". Don't want to get involed in these problems so find someone else to die for you. Can that possibility occure. Of course. Will it ? Who knows? It's the people that will do the fighting and dying and find upon their return home people arguing about was it right or wrong that are the most offended. I say to all of them just do not go anymore. If this country can't back the people fighting than quit and don't ever answer the call anymore. If you can't find something worth dying for,than what are we living for?

 

All right, all right, I know I said I wouldn't...

Possum, I can think of circumstances that are perfectly legitimate. Number one would be if the United States were attacked. I would be perfectly willing to sign up myself if that were the case. The war to capture Bin Laden and overthrow the Taliban was the closest thing we've had to a legitimate cause for war since December 1941.

I understand what you're saying about people being willing to go to war unquestioningly. But what goes along with that is our ability to trust in our government that they will not send soldiers into harm's way for no reason, or for the wrong reasons. Regrettably, that trust has been violated repeatedly. Eisenhower warned that the rise of the military-industrial complex would lead to a political system that exists to feed it. What he feared has come to pass. And now we have a new element: a government that thinks that by maintaining a permanent state of war with an ill-defined enemy, they can use it not only to justify anything they do and stifle any dissent, but to stay in power forever. There's a name for that.