141–150 of 183 posts
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The comment was about mines left behind from the Vietnam war, not present day.
Actually the comment was about present-day 'the US'.
The primary reason we lost the war was micro-managing by Washington bureaucrats, and overly-limited rules of engagement. Keep in mind, our mission was to assist the South Koreans in defending a guerrilla war. For this reason, we never invaded North Vietnam, and initially refrained from going in to neighboring countries to attack the Viet Cong revolutionaries staging there. Nixon started bombing these countries, but by then, it was too little, too late, and he ended the war.
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To be fair, the Vietnamese communities in Southern California are stuck in a time bubble. Vietnam has changed dramatically since the Vietnam War (or War of American Aggression as it's called in Vietnam), but the Vietnamese diaspora's image of the country has not. It's not the same place, and the government - while nowhere near perfect - is not the same as it was 50 years ago. The country still has many problems, but…
You're using two data points when hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians were systematically slaughtered by Ho Chi Minh and his comrades. The propaganda is strong when the general public knows more about the head shot photo than the mass murders committed by communist Vietnamese regime.
A more neutral viewpoint could see the whole war as a series of gross violations and crimes.
For many, this incident is a metaphor for the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam: thuggish U.S. soldiers came to a country they didn't understand and killed everyone. This view lacks the context of the war. The U.S. and its allies were fighting the Cold War, a war against Communist Bloc hegemony. We were fighting against the expansion of Communism in South Viet Nam, trying to prevent The Domino Effect. The primary reason w…
I believe we who see that "metaphor" rather see it as the truth: US soldiers go to countries they know nothing about and kill everyone. I do not fancy being murdered. Killing people is wrong, plain and simple.
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Ken Burn's recent series on Vietnam is very well made and speaks with participants and stakeholders from across the ideological spectrum. Highly recommended: https://www.netflix.com/title/70202579
I know it's a popular series, and I haven't gotten my dad's response to it because he hasn't watched it, but many war veterans and South Vietnamese military members say it's not a very balanced documentary. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/29/veterans-angry-disapp... https://www.military.com/off-duty/television/2017/10/02/vete...
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It is ironic how that is a mirror image of fascist beliefs about military virtue. They wanted to give power to veterans so that wars could be started and won! They wanted to suppress the influence of weak willed peacniks. It is ironic that this could be reversed to imply that rationality means peace. Heinlein had some pretty fascist ideas, and books like starship troopers project that in a comfortable form. It is eas…
Heinlein's point was that one's vote is a huge responsibility, and that privilege must be earned: by demonstrably placing the needs of one's country above individual wellbeing. Thus only military veterans could participate in governance. Militarism doesn't automatically equate to fascism. There are further ideas in this: that, having experienced a war, a (typical) person would never again allow such a thing to happen…
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Maybe an apt time to mention the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_massacre
And I am sure there has been others. But you don't get to 100,000 civilians with US killings. There has been 100+ dead terrorist attacks almost on a weekly basis for years in Iraq to the point where they don't get reported in western media anymore.
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When the solider is out on the sharp end, they're goin g to make whatever policy is most likely to keep them alive modulo broad mission objectives. This had been true somewhere have been humans fighting. The time to consider the impact of this is before you deploy the solider. Ergo, to affect change, we must look at the government and not the solider.
But didnt he/she volunteer. Shouldnt then there be some conditional clauses to service- aka, i m only a soldier to this democracy, as long as it is acting in my missions in true self-defense against a unprovoked attack. Else- in theory, couldnt your goverment just rent you out to the highest bidder as mercenary and you would still have to do whatever this entity demands of you. This cart blanche of action, combined w…
The draft saw 2,215,000 conscripted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_S...
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Then never talk about any other group like "the Chinese", "the Russians" or "the Nazis" again either. Because these are also millions of diverse people too.
Then never talk about any other group like "the Chinese", "the Russians" or "the Nazis" again either. Because these are also millions of diverse people too. One of those things is not like the other, two of those things are kinda the same. Nazism is an ideology, a movement, so I’m going to move past that red herring. The rest though, good advice that I try very hard to live by. I’m not sure at what point you decided…