Because America is purposely massacring Iraqi and Afghani children, eh Dal_Timgar? :rolleyes:
I’m sure we hardly care about the Afghans- it’s not like we overthrew a group of crazed religious pseudo-fascists that had been tormenting them for years…</sarcasm>
Anyway, as an anecdote for what it’s worth- all the Vietnamese that I’ve had personal friendships with support(ed) the Vietnam war. At least two of them are alive now only because of American forces who managed to hold off their land until they could flee. Now they live in a first world nation and have successful families and careers.
The US military achieved every objective it was asked to do, and did so in a very, very effective manner.
The fact that we did not defeat the enemy lies entirely with the politicians for not assigning objectives which WOULD achieve victory.
I just hate the fact that people seem to think, in general, that the US military failed in Vietnam, which isn’t the case. They simply kicked a whole lot of ass. Unfortunately, Congress didn’t have the will to give them objectives that would help actually win the war.
I mostly disagree. There is nothing more the Congress could have done that would have made a difference. This was an unwinnable war, even positing a successful invasion and occupation of the whole of Indochina, including North Vietnam. Simply put, the internal support was not there. Though I’m absolutely convinced many millions of Vietnamese ( Cambodians, Laotians ) supported the U.S. intervention, it seems probable from everything I’ve read that a majority ( even if not necessarily a huge one ) did not. The Vietnamese in particular had a very long history of independance and resistance to would-be occupiers. Not just the 1945-1976 war. Also the long ‘Black Flag’ rebellion from 1883-1913, the Saigon, Binh Thuan and Phu Yen revolt of 1885-1886, the ‘terrorist’ activities in Hanoi and Hue 1905-1908, and the Duy Tan revolt of 1916 ( and that just covers the colonial period and leaves out the long, frequently unfriendly, history with China ).
All you would have done as shifted to an expanded theatre of guerilla warfare, probably now centered in the north ( and supplied directly through China which would have been even more problematic than the SV/NV border was ). The war would have continued to bleed on forever with no resolution.
If the U.S. military failed it was in the higher brass occasionally ( sometimes frequently ) making inaccurate predictions and assumptions - It wasn’t just the politicians that screwed up.
In terms of battlefield performance, though, I’d agree with you ( though I think a few strategic errors were made that cannot be fairly separated from the assesment of the military’s overall performance ).
I read a while ago that after the war, the communists rounded up and killed a large part of the educated class in south vietnam and executed them, as well as a large part of the defense forces and it’s supporters, and given the previous actions of communist regimes, I don’t doubt it.
People don’t know this, largely, because the media didn’t report it. But you wouldn’t expect them to, really, would you? “Well, folks, you know we’ve been saying how we should get out of Vietnam for all these years, and finally, it happened, and, well, thousands of Vietnamese were executed… um… our bad.”
When I get home later, I’ll try to find a cite for all this.
Maybe because US Army casualties were mourned for and glorified while killed Afghan civilians were labelled as regrettable yet unaviodable collateral damag one doesn’t have to worry about?
This entire “we’re the good guys and the others are evil” thing is just sooo convenient. It can justify anything.
You are absolutely right, Schnitte. The U.S. didn’t worry at all about civilian casualties in Afghanistan. That’s why it carpet-bombed Kabul and dropped a nuke on Khandahar. Limited airstrikes would have certainly caused less civilian casualties, but it would have taken more time, and those civilians didn’t count at all.
As for the US devoting more attention to its casualties, I agree it was horrifying. Sadly, the US is not alone in the digusting practice of paying more attention to its own citizens than those of other nations. I found the Canadian press’ obsession with the deaths of its soldiers in that “friendly fire” incident a few months back to be offensively jingoistic. And don’t get me started on those Indians - when they had that earthquake a couple of years ago, the Indian press reported it ad naseum - and completely ignored the hundreds of Filipinos who died in mudslides that same week! Who the hell did they think they were - thinking that their own people should get more coverage?! Absolutely vile, it was.
If I didn’t know your post was meant sarcastic, Sua Sponte, I’d completely agree with it.
Let me clarify a few things:
I know in democracies, the people choose governments as representatives of their interests.
Nonetheless, governments can’t do everything because it fulfils the nation’s interests without any regard to non-citizens. Everybody who says so basically says foreigners aren’t worth anythign (and sua Sponte, there is something of this attitude shining through your post).
The US is very eager in this. Let’s do whatever serves our cause, and let’s give a dam about the others. I admit they didn’t nuke Kandahar, and they didn’t carpetbomb Kabul either, but it should have become clear since the Gulf and Kosovo Wars that those “surgical” airstrikes that hit the Evil Government without doing any harm to the civilian population are nothing but a myth. Wars are dirty business, even if America is fighting them.
I don’t want to deny Americans or Canadians the right to mourn for their victims, but you shouldn’t be arrogant enough to forget non-fighting victims on the opposite side altogether.
Actually the “crap statements” are the ones made by the oh-so-superior Europeans who sneer at America’s attack on the Taliban , an evil government that killed the innocent, turned women into caged animals, and sheltered the people who murdered thousands of innocent American civilians.
THAT’S a crpa statement. Sorry, bub, but Al Qaeda and the Taliban ARE evile and the US IS the good guy. Our troops did their best to minimize civilian casualties in our just mission to apprehend or kill Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators.
America’s wartime conduct and care for civilians beats Europe’s hands down, especially Germany.
Of course not–the US government has done many questionable things, such as overthrowing governments we didn’t like, ignoring the genocide in Rwanda, and cuddling up to anti-communist dictators and kleptocrats like Marcos and Mobutu.
But Europeans like you seem to ignore the good we have done, like overthrow the murderous Taliban, rebuild Europe after WWII through the Marshall Plan, and accept refugees from all over the world, which is a lot more than Europe has done. When you examine your own record–like helping to ignite the Serbian War by recognizing Croatia too soon and taking no action to stop a new Holocaust in your own back yard–you’ll find you have no room to criticize the US.
anyway, this thread is about Vietnam. The US screwed up initially by not pressuring the European imperialists to give their former colonies in Asia their freedom after liberation from Japanese control. If France had not been so eager to crush native freedom fighters after the war, and if France had negotiated independence for free states in Southeast Asia, the Communist takeovers of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia could have been prevented. The US need never have been involved at all.
Where? Kindly point out to me where I stated, implied, inferred, or anything else that foreigners aren’t worth anything. If you can’t point it out, I expect an apology for this slur.
You claim that the US will do “whatever serves [its] cause,” but then you admit that it didn’t do things that would have served its cause. Kindly reconcile your two statements, if at all possible.
BTW, kindly provide a cite to support your assertion that anyone has ever asserted that “surgical” airstrikes won’t do any harm to the civilian population.
What they are designed to do is minimize civilian casualties - and compared to bombing tactics in earlier wars, they do just that.
I’m nominating this for The Most Obvious Statement of the Day award.
Again, kindly provide a citation that the US has “forgotten” Afghani civilian victims. If you give me an hour, I could probably provide links to hundreds of US news reports on Afghani civilian casualties.
Schnitte, there are scores of legitimate issues concerning which the US can and should be criticized. Try learning them, rather than making ludicrously overbroad, self-contradictory, and inaccurate statements.
Let me assure you I am not a tiny bit of a patriot, neither towards Bavaria, nor Germany, nor Europe nor anything else; in fact, I can’t stand patriotism, but that’s another thing. There is a lot of shit being done by the Old World’s* governments, including the German one, but that can hardly mean I totally forfeit the right to criticize the US government.
I never claimed the US has never done anything good at all either. Yet again, this doesn’t exclude me from saying when I think something is awry with it is doing. Agree?
Sua Sponte, you conclude I’m being self-contradictory because I said the US didn’t nuke Kandahar even if this would have been in their interest? While this is a nice turnaround of an exaggeration, I can only say don’t be ridiculous. You know what would have followed if Washington had taken this literally, so please let’s remain within the realm of reality. And you must concede Washington is pursuing US interests at other nations’ expenses more heavily than legitimate; I don’t refer this specifically to the Afghanistan War.
I’d be very grateful if I won that award you want to nominate me for; who’s the jury awarding it? You?
Sometimes, one must point out even the most obvious things; even they get into oblivion from time to time. But now I’ve used up my quantum of hackneyed phrases for the entire week, so please forgive me if I don’t get into this in detail.
About the thing myth of clean airstrikes, you must admit (which you, of course, won’t do, since it’s coming from that blockhead who should try to learn something in order to get the insight into the matter you have. Sorry, no cite for this.) that, while it’s well-known they don’t work, it’s one of the most basic things used to justify the bombings. The myth is being propagated because it was so necessary for justification purposes. I know about the minimization effects, and I also know (to anticipate some aspect that’s likely to come) about the food packages for the civilian population; but if you were an Afghan who has never ben affiliated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda in any way and of whom relatives were killed by an American bomb, those minimization effects aren’t worth anything. The victims were unjustly killed on the order of the US government, that’s the plain truth. If the American public mourned for those innocent victims of the war in just the same way it mourned for fallen US soldiers, I would apologize for my statement of Americans forgetting Afghan civilians; but regarding things the way they took place, those victims were nothing but statistics mentioned in the evening news. That’s true sarcasm, for to me it seems as if an American’s live is valued ways higher than an Afghan’s.
And I’m not using “Old World” as any kind of valuation here; I just want to avoid repetition.
Let me assure you I am not a tiny bit of a patriot, neither towards Bavaria, nor Germany, nor Europe nor anything else; in fact, I can’t stand patriotism, but that’s another thing. There is a lot of shit being done by the Old World’s* governments, including the German one, but that can hardly mean I totally forfeit the right to criticize the US government.
I never claimed the US has never done anything good at all either. Yet again, this doesn’t exclude me from saying when I think something is awry with it is doing. Agree?
Sua Sponte, you conclude I’m being self-contradictory because I said the US didn’t nuke Kandahar even if this would have been in their interest? While this is a nice turnaround of an exaggeration, I can only say don’t be ridiculous. You know what would have followed if Washington had taken this literally, so please let’s remain within the realm of reality. And you must concede Washington is pursuing US interests at other nations’ expenses more heavily than legitimate; I don’t refer this specifically to the Afghanistan War.
I’d be very grateful if I won that award you want to nominate me for; who’s the jury awarding it? You?
Sometimes, one must point out even the most obvious things; even they get into oblivion from time to time. But now I’ve used up my quantum of hackneyed phrases for the entire week, so please forgive me if I don’t get into this in detail.
About the thing myth of clean airstrikes, you must admit (which you, of course, won’t do, since it’s coming from that blockhead who should try to learn something in order to get the insight into the matter you have. Sorry, no cite for this.) that, while it’s well-known they don’t work, it’s one of the most basic things used to justify the bombings. The myth is being propagated because it was so necessary for justification purposes. I know about the minimization effects, and I also know (to anticipate some aspect that’s likely to come) about the food packages for the civilian population; but if you were an Afghan who has never ben affiliated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda in any way and of whom relatives were killed by an American bomb, those minimization effects aren’t worth anything. The victims were unjustly killed on the order of the US government, that’s the plain truth. If the American public mourned for those innocent victims of the war in just the same way it mourned for fallen US soldiers, I would apologize for my statement of Americans forgetting Afghan civilians; but regarding things the way they took place, those victims were nothing but statistics mentioned in the evening news. That’s true sarcasm, for to me it seems as if an American’s live is valued ways higher than an Afghan’s.
And I’m not using “Old World” as any kind of valuation here; I just want to avoid repetition.
don’t you think your chances of forming friendships with people opposed to the US invasion were pretty small?
KNOW YOUR ENEMY, KNOW YOURSELF AND YOU WILL WIN 100 BATTLES
SUN TZU
i think it could be argued that if you do not know your enemy you cannot know yourself. i bet willingness to kill people has a high risk of self-delusion. the vietnamese took unacceptable losses to win that war. unacceptable by the standards of americans or europeans. the United States is really a european country.
there was a documentary on The Learning Channel about Sun Tzu’s ART OF WAR with interviews of Westmoreland and Giap. Westmoreland talked about his WWII experience against the germans vs the chinese in korea.
he said, “The Chinese, they were different.” i guess the vietnamese were different too.
beware of people that don’t think like you. the strategies and tactics will be different. globalization makes for more contact with such people. the internet may even help.
And why wasn’t nuking Khandahar within the realm of reality? MAD is no longer a factor; Russia wasn’t going to launch at the US had we nuked Afghanistan. Perhaps the reason the US didn’t use nukes is because there are certain things the US feels morally constrained not to do, even if, from a utilitarian standpoint, they would serve US interests.
But anyway, let’s move away from nukes. I also mentioned carpet-bombing Kabul. A massive bombing campaign, a la Coventry or London, would have very likely corrected the greatest failing of the Afghan campaign - the failure to capture or kill bin Laden and Mullah Omar. And a conventional campaign would have avoided the taboos involved with nukes. But again, the US didn’t do it, because it would have been morally wrong.
I “must” concede nothing. Provide me with specific examples, and I will agree or disagree (and you would very likely be surprised at what I would agree with; I am very critical of US foreign policy.)
What are “clean airstrikes”? I’ve never heard of them. We were talking earlier about “surgical airstrikes.”
What do you mean “don’t work”? Do they wholly avoid civilian casualties? Of course not… Do they cause less civilian casualties than an indiscriminate bombing campaign? Of course they do, and that’s all they are intended to do.
What myth? As far as I can tell, you are the only person who was ever informed that surgical airstrikes don’t ever kill civilians. If an agent of the US government was the one who informed you of that, I apologize for the misunderstanding on the part of the American people.
You have really got to break out of your stereotypical viewpoints of Americans - I had no intention of bringing up food packages.
But anyway, as for your point - you are absolutely correct. However, for the relatives of the Afghani down the block, who wasn’t killed because the U.S. did not indiscriminately bomb, it meant everything.
Sez who? The Just War Doctrine and international law require that a belligerent take all militarily appropriate steps to minimize civilian casualties and that the belligerent not deliberately target civilians (jus in belli). So, while the victims were in fact killed on orders of the U.S. government, those killings were, under both moral theory and international law, not unjustified, illegal or immoral.
Hate to disappoint you, son, but to most Americans, the US casualties are also simply statistics. Walking around the office on days when it was reported that US servicemen or women died in Afghanistan, I didn’t notice anyone wearing black or wailing or gnashing their teeth.
No doubt the friends and relatives of US casualties mourned their losses, and no doubt selfishly :rolleyes: didn’t take the time to mourn Afghani casualties. But your beef is with them, not with the US as a whole.
And why wasn’t nuking Khandahar within the realm of reality? MAD is no longer a factor; Russia wasn’t going to launch at the US had we nuked Afghanistan. Perhaps the reason the US didn’t use nukes is because there are certain things the US feels morally constrained not to do, even if, from a utilitarian standpoint, they would serve US interests.
But anyway, let’s move away from nukes. I also mentioned carpet-bombing Kabul. A massive bombing campaign, a la Coventry or London, would have very likely corrected the greatest failing of the Afghan campaign - the failure to capture or kill bin Laden and Mullah Omar. And a conventional campaign would have avoided the taboos involved with nukes. But again, the US didn’t do it, because it would have been morally wrong.
I “must” concede nothing. Provide me with specific examples, and I will agree or disagree (and you would very likely be surprised at what I would agree with; I am very critical of US foreign policy.)
What are “clean airstrikes”? I’ve never heard of them. We were talking earlier about “surgical airstrikes.”
What do you mean “don’t work”? Do they wholly avoid civilian casualties? Of course not… Do they cause less civilian casualties than an indiscriminate bombing campaign? Of course they do, and that’s all they are intended to do.
What myth? As far as I can tell, you are the only person who was ever informed that surgical airstrikes don’t ever kill civilians. If an agent of the US government was the one who informed you of that, I apologize for the misunderstanding on the part of the American people.
You have really got to break out of your stereotypical viewpoints of Americans - I had no intention of bringing up food packages.
But anyway, as for your point - you are absolutely correct. However, for the relatives of the Afghani down the block, who wasn’t killed because the U.S. did not indiscriminately bomb, it meant everything.
Sez who? The Just War Doctrine and international law require that a belligerent take all militarily appropriate steps to minimize civilian casualties and that the belligerent not deliberately target civilians (jus in belli). So, while the victims were in fact killed on orders of the U.S. government, those killings were, under both moral theory and international law, not unjustified, illegal or immoral.
Hate to disappoint you, son, but to most Americans, the US casualties are also simply statistics. Walking around the office on days when it was reported that US servicemen or women died in Afghanistan, I didn’t notice anyone wearing black or wailing or gnashing their teeth.
No doubt the friends and relatives of US casualties mourned their losses, and no doubt selfishly :rolleyes: didn’t take the time to mourn Afghani casualties. But your beef is with them, not with the US as a whole.