# Why so Little Hate for the US Soldiers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 3, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727 "2011-07-03T16:47:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/81 "2011-07-04T13:23:28Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But shooting some of everybody, napalming some of the others and then leave so that the not-freedom can happen anyway does.. not ? Whut ? What kind of insane troll logic\* are you operating on here ? > > America lost Viet-Nam. There’s no debate there. > The US fought, and then it stopped fighting, and the people the US was fighting got what they wanted, which the US was fighting them about in an attempt to deny it from them. Then it didn’t any more. And its enemies had what they were going to have before the US decided to fight them. But that the US couldn’t prevent them from having in the end, on account of deciding not to fight further and going back home. > > Which part of this whole process, which for lack of a better neologism we shall call “losing a war”, eludes you ? > > - (to clarify to mods: I’m not accusing Magiver of being a troll, I’m using [an idiom](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneTrollLogic)) We didn’t “lose”. The Hanoi government signed a treaty that gave us everything we wanted. Except they had no intention of honoring it, and the Democrats in congress didn’t either. How dare Nixon actually win LBJ’s foolish war. The Saigon government might have survived, if Congress hadn’t cut off all military aid to it in 1974. Kind of hard to fight off a full scale attack when you are out of ammo and spare parts. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/82 "2011-07-04T13:31:24Z")
Ah, I see. That whole “Vietnam Syndrome” I heard about growing up was actually the public’s reaction to the deficiencies of the Paris Peace Accords. Damn our diplomats and their striped pants! Shame on those Foggy Bottom-dwellers, if they only knew the pain and anguish they caused our country! I shall never again make the mistake of thinking that we lost 58,000 young men in a war that both Johnson and Nixon knew was unwinnable. And henceforth, as I pass the Vietnam Memorial, I will understand the true nature of that monument and the thoughts in the hearts of all the pilgrims who visit there: “We were THAT close to winning, and we shoulda kept fighting.” ---
**Author:** ![Recovering\_Republican](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@Recovering\_Republican](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recovering_Republican)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/83 "2011-07-04T13:40:36Z")
THe soldiers fought bravely, the politicians sold them out, which is what they usually do. Of course, the war was winnable, as demonstrated by the fact Hanoi came to the table and signed a treaty. We just didn’t enforce it. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/84 "2011-07-04T13:46:25Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > THe soldiers fought bravely, the politicians sold them out, which is what they usually do. Of course, the proper thing to do is to send more men to die so that the honor of the men already killed isn’t dishonored. > [@](#): > > Of course, the war was winnable, as demonstrated by the fact Hanoi came to the table and signed a treaty. We just didn’t enforce it. Didn’t enforce it… by going to war again? And if going to the bargaining table is evidence of North Vietnam losing, the US going to the bargaining table is OBVIOUSLY a position of strength. OBVIOUSLY. We all know that the only reason the US engages in diplomacy is because we are WINNING SO MUCH. We sleep like an F-4 fighter! We eat tiger meat for breakfast! We make Charlie Sheen look like a loser… except when he was in that Navy SEAL movie, that kicked ass. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/85 "2011-07-04T14:12:59Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Soldiers were loudly derided as baby-killers, spat upon in the streets, forced to hide their military uniforms when visiting relatives stateside, that type of thing. It’s my understanding that actual incidents like this are extremely rare. Even rarer than successful communist states. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/86 "2011-07-04T15:09:08Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > If we didn’t lose the Vietnam War, how come Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City? > > Saying that we could have won if only so-and-so had happened isn’t the same thing as winning. In fact, it’s the opposite of winning, which is losing. We didn’t lose any battles, South Vietnam lost because we pulled out and also cut off all aid. > [@Marquez](#): > > Are you George W Bush? Freedom to do what or for what purpose exactly? What about all the coups against democratically elected leaders? Were these countries not practising ‘freedom’ already? I would look to corruption in your own country first, this is why the US is currently getting fucked in the A by Halliburton and Lockheed and why you have a budget crisis. > Yeah you’re absolutely right but don’t pretend it was for altruistic reasons. > > Everything the US has done has been so it can carry on hogging the biggest bone and staying in the biggest kennel. Which is fine, all empires do this. The American Empire is necessary for world peace. > [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > We didn’t “lose”. The Hanoi government signed a treaty that gave us everything we wanted. Except they had no intention of honoring it, and the Democrats in congress didn’t either. How dare Nixon actually win LBJ’s foolish war. > > The Saigon government might have survived, if Congress hadn’t cut off all military aid to it in 1974. Kind of hard to fight off a full scale attack when you are out of ammo and spare parts. I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Marquez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Marquez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marquez)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/87 "2011-07-04T15:17:58Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The American Empire is necessary for world peace. Through waging war? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/88 "2011-07-04T15:19:11Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > We didn’t lose any battles, South Vietnam lost because we pulled out and also cut off all aid. IOW, you got demoralised and retreated. You lost. > [@](#): > > The American Empire is necessary for world peace. The American Empire is an enemy of world peace. > [@](#): > > I agree. I agree too. If it hadn’t been for the politicians stabbing the soldiers in the back, there would never have been such a shameful peace treaty. As a non-consequence these monsters would not have risen to power, I suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/89 "2011-07-04T16:42:42Z")
> [@Recovering\_Republican](#): > > We didn’t “lose”. The Hanoi government signed a treaty that gave us everything we wanted. You guys wanted to withdraw all military personnel out of South Viet Nam all along ? Man, talk about taking the scenic route, huh ? I guess it was one of those humorous NSN mix-ups, when the company quartermaster thinks he’s ordering a case of pencils and winds up with a \*casus belli \*made out of whole cloth, a 10 years-war and a randomized draft. Funny mistake in retrospect. > [@](#): > > The Saigon government might have survived, if Congress hadn’t cut off all military aid to it in 1974. And if Napoleon had not lost his army to the Russian winter, and had had access to ray guns, he would have taken Moscow that one time. I think the history books deem him the loser of that one to this day. Which I think is all sorts of outrageous - I mean, he was _that_ close and that oughta count. If he hadn’t lost, he would have totally won. [QUOTE=Qin Shi Huangdi] We didn’t lose any battles, South Vietnam lost because we pulled out and also cut off all aid. [/QUOTE] Yes. In other words, you had enough, pulled out and then the North won. And it was the _right_ decision, too - the wrong decision was to “fight for freedom” (_ptooie_) in the first place, by propping up a corrupt autocrat who cancelled pre-approved nationwide re-unification elections when it looked like he was going to lose them, and a military junta after him. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/90 "2011-07-04T17:11:47Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > The same military is involved in the same kind of wars, slaughtering people halfway around the world for entirely murky and dubious reasons. And yet, all the hate seems to have disappeared… Pretty much, the Taliban, in light of their _active_ support of Al Queda, did attack us. Of course, in that case, we didn’t invade any nation, we came in on one side of a civil war. No nation of significance recognized the Taliban as the legit government. I admit that the reason we were in Iraq does not bear any such justification. True, Saddam was a evil rat bastard who used nerve gas on his own people, but still, our stated justifications for the second invasion were doubtful in the extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Marquez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Marquez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marquez)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/91 "2011-07-04T17:18:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Pretty much, the Taliban, in light of their _active_ support of Al Queda, did attack us. The Saudis support Al-Qaeda and the US supports the Saudis so maybe you should start attacking yourselves? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/92 "2011-07-04T17:25:54Z")
> [@Marquez](#): > > The Saudis support Al-Qaeda and the US supports the Saudis so maybe you should start attacking yourselves? Note I said "_active"._ And there’s a difference between individuals and a government. ---
**Author:** ![Marquez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Marquez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marquez)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/93 "2011-07-04T17:42:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Note I said "_active"._ And there’s a difference between individuals and a government. I think the link between members of the Saudi royal family and Al-Q is pretty well-established. For example: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/94 "2011-07-04T18:02:03Z")
I love it when people cling to the idea we won or could win. We fight against nations with no navies, no air force . We fly the skies with no defense against our planes. We bomb when and where we feel like. But we come home empty handed. Our country is morally and financially bankrupt afterwards. Countries fight very hard against foreign invaders. Patience and attrition are on their side, especially when we can not even define what a victory is. When will we ever learn? ---
**Author:** ![lilbug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b487fb/32.png) [@lilbug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilbug)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/95 "2011-07-04T18:16:53Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Commissar says he’s a “Soviet” immigrant who came over to the US as a teen and has since become a thorough and enthusiastic communist supporting the invasions of Afghanistan by the Soviets and the slaughter of dissidents at Beijing. > > Nevertheless, he is thoroughly Americanized to the point where he’s made mistakes regarding Russian culture that no Russian immigrant I’ve ever met has made. > > As to committing atrocities; well he certainly has no problem with them being committed, only if they are being committed by westernors. > > In fact, he’s even said genocide might be justifiable. Ah-ha, I knew there was something behind this. Immigrants who come here and enjoy the freedoms, at the same spewing hate and condemnation toward our country…the height of hipocracy. > [@](#): > > To the OP’s question, I think the thing is, Soldiers don’t make the policy. They salute and march, and that is what they should do. > > If you are against the war, you should be angry at the politicians who start them, and angrier still at the ones who ran on platforms of ending them, and don’t. I pretty much pointed this out earlier, straight from a vet’s mouth, but in my experience folks like this are so consumed in spewing hate they do not, will not, hear reason. Total waste of oxygen here. Happy 4th of July everyone! Display your red, white and blue proudly. God bless America and God bless our Troops! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/96 "2011-07-04T18:17:39Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But shooting some of everybody, napalming some of the others and then leave so that the not-freedom can happen anyway does.. not ? Whut ? What kind of insane troll logic\* are you operating on here ? > > America lost Viet-Nam. There’s no debate there. > The US fought, and then it stopped fighting, and the people the US was fighting got what they wanted, which the US was fighting them about in an attempt to deny it from them. Then it didn’t any more. And its enemies had what they were going to have before the US decided to fight them. But that the US couldn’t prevent them from having in the end, on account of deciding not to fight further and going back home. > > Which part of this whole process, which for lack of a better neologism we shall call “losing a war”, eludes you ? > > - (to clarify to mods: I’m not accusing Magiver of being a troll, I’m using [an idiom](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneTrollLogic)) America didn’t own Vietnam. It wasn’t ours to gain or lose. As I said before, had we wanted to it was 5 minutes away from total destruction. It wasn’t a war in the sense that we were under threat or wanted to conquer land. We took sides in a civil war. It’s not a win to destroy the people you’re trying to help. It’s no different than the current attempt to remove Gaddafi from Libya. One submarine could easily reduce the country to a smoking hole but that’s not our intent. Yes, we failed in this attempt. To consider it a loss in this context is a bit of a misnomer given the topic of this thread. We are proud of those who served in Vietnam. Their cause was noble just as it was in Korea. The South Koreans are free and prosperous and that is in stark contrast to North Korea which is a prison-state hellhole. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/97 "2011-07-04T18:26:58Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Um, because they are friends of ours and our children? Because we believe they are mostly doing good? In that case, your should be even _more_ willing to engage in some massive strategical hating! While the Western media now tends to ignore developments in the war zones, I personally have been paying close attention. Let me tell you: it’s not looking good for your “friends” and “children” deployed overseas. The Afghani insurgency, in particular, has been moving them down like grass for the past couple of years. You can see some good casualty breakdowns here: [http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx](http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx) Hence, if you really are this concerned about these soldiers, then you should do everything in your power to bring them home. If my hypothesis is correct, hate can be used as a social weapon to undermine the war effort, thus speeding up the withdrawal. As a result, more of your “friends” and “children” come home on their own feet, and fewer come home without them. I think that that’s worth a little hate. > [@marshmallow](#): > > I’m still trying to figure out how if you’re trying to effect institutional change in the U.S. or its broader culture, why would you demonize the soldiers in particular? Because _not_ demonizing them is clearly not working. There simply is no anti-war discourse any more, as society is saturated with nothing but upbeat war-mongering propaganda. We don’t see news reports about how the occupation of Afghanistan is moronic and untenable; instead, we get sappy stories about the troops building orphanages in Kabul. We don’t talk about the atrocities being committed in our names; we talk about how we’re proud of these armed hoodlums for “serving their nation.” We don’t see the intense suffering caused by the soldiers; we see only the colorful ticker-parades when they come home. I strongly believe that this massive propaganda effort is warping our societal perception of reality. Hate is the antidote - it can balance out the war drums of the imperialists, thus enabling us to see reality as it is for the first time in a very long time. We have been indoctrinated to blindly adore the troops for far too long. It is time to relearn how to hate them, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/98 "2011-07-04T18:51:24Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > You might want to turn your ideology detector on yourself, if you believe that historical ignorance or revisionism is only practiced by the left. If you feel that I have demonstrated either, please feel free to point it out. I will endeavor to clarify. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/99 "2011-07-04T19:04:59Z")
> [@Evil\_One](#): > > If you feel that I have demonstrated either, please feel free to point it out. I will endeavor to clarify. No, I was speaking in general terms. You have only to read a newspaper to see abundant recent examples of historical ignorance and/or revisionism from people whom I don’t think you would characterize as having a leftist agenda. For example, on this July 4, I am looking in vain for the signature of John Quincy Adams on the Declaration of Independence, but Michelle Bachmann assures us that he was a founding father. And I will also note that England didn’t lose that war, it simply lost the popular will to continue it. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727/100 "2011-07-04T19:06:16Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Hence, if you really are this concerned about these soldiers, then you should do everything in your power to bring them home. If my hypothesis is correct, hate can be used as a social weapon to undermine the war effort, thus speeding up the withdrawal. As a result, more of your “friends” and “children” come home on their own feet, and fewer come home without them. I think that that’s worth a little hate. Well here’s the rub. We hate people who throw acid on little girls for the crime of wanting an education while at the same time taking little boys and turning them into killing robots against us. This is what Al Qaeda does in places like Afghanistan and Yemen. You started a thread to shit on soldiers during the 4th of July holiday because you can’t stand how badly communism has failed. Sucks to be you but you’re not fooling anybody. Communism is a joke at other peoples expense and while we tolerate your ability to speak freely in our society you’re rants fall on deaf ears. Feel free to visit a communist nation and speak against anything that annoys the government and see what that gets you. Or for that matter, just try to use the internet in places like China and experience first hand what it’s like to have big brother filter free speech for you. In the mean time, we will celebrate our freedom and those who fought for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-so-little-hate-for-the-us-soldiers/587727.md?page=6)