The Final Verdict on President Bush

[packer]

My mistake--slight brain fart!

It's Article 1 and Amendment 8.

Of course they don't say we "can't" wage war--they simply lay out the guidelines that the president and Congress should follow before we do.

[packer]

101, it was longer than a "decade" ago, but give me your best guess if we HAD stayed the course in Viet Nam and tried to "win" that useless conflict?

And a ballpark figure on how that 58,000+ dead Americans figure would have ended up at and how much of our tax dollars would have been wasted and what good it would ultimately have done the US of A?

[FightingFalcon]

packer said:

My mistake--slight brain fart!

It's Article 1 and Amendment 8.

Of course they don't say we "can't" wage war--they simply lay out the guidelines that the president and Congress should follow before we do.

Don't worry - we all get brain farts now and then ;D

But anyway....Er, Amendment 8 talks about Cruel and Unusual Punishment. How does that relate to war?

In Article 1 there is only one mentioning of the word "war" or conflict of any sort:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Congressional Powers:

"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

Again, absolutely no where in the Constitution does it say how/when/where/why we can wage war. It simply says Congress must declare war first, which they did in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Or did you not remember when Congress authorized President Bush to "use all means necessary" to disarm Saddam Hussein?

[101ABN]

packer said:

101, it was longer than a "decade" ago, but give me your best guess if we HAD stayed the course in Viet Nam and tried to "win" that useless conflict?

And a ballpark figure on how that 58,000+ dead Americans figure would have ended up at and how much of our tax dollars would have been wasted and what good it would ultimately have done the US of A?

UMMM, a decade before the Beiruit bombing, Packer.

Conflicts are useless by definition when you don't win them.

YOU brought up the "cut and run" act in Lebanon. The same thing that ANSWER and company would like to have us do in Iraq.

Now you're a smart guy. Answer your own question.

[101ABN]

packer said:

101, it was longer than a "decade" ago, but give me your best guess if we HAD stayed the course in Viet Nam and tried to "win" that useless conflict?

And a ballpark figure on how that 58,000+ dead Americans figure would have ended up at and how much of our tax dollars would have been wasted and what good it would ultimately have done the US of A?

UMMM, a decade before the Beiruit bombing, Packer.

Conflicts are useless by definition when you don't win them.

YOU brought up the "cut and run" act in Lebanon. The same thing that ANSWER and company would like to have us do in Iraq.

Now you're a smart guy. Answer your own question.

In case you don't get it, the whole point of war is to win.

[packer]

Okay 101, so tell me exactly how we could have "won" in Viet Nam? And if we had managed to do the impossible ("win" another nation's civil war) give me your best guess on how many American lives it would have cost (and how many $$$billions) and how many American troops would still be in that shithole?

And lastly and most important, do tell me what in the fuck we would have accomplished for the citizens of our country?

[101ABN]

packer said:

Okay 101, so tell me exactly how we could have "won" in Viet Nam? And if we had managed to do the impossible ("win" another nation's civil war) give me your best guess on how many American lives it would have cost (and how many $$$billions) and how many American troops would still be in that shithole?

And lastly and most important, do tell me what in the fuck we would have accomplished for the citizens of our country?

Wars are won in one fashion and only one, that is by reducing the enemy's capacity for war.

Properly fought it would have cost far less than it it did in both blood and treasure.

Benefits to the US would have included a major port and Naval Base in South Asia that would be useful
when China brings it's might to bear on Taiwan, Oil in the South China Sea, Bauxite ore, and a major free market for American goods. I could go on but there is little point, since your mind is already closed to the matter, having been sufficiently tainted by popular history.

[FightingFalcon]

packer said:

Okay 101, so tell me exactly how we could have "won" in Viet Nam? And if we had managed to do the impossible ("win" another nation's civil war) give me your best guess on how many American lives it would have cost (and how many $$$billions) and how many American troops would still be in that shithole?

And lastly and most important, do tell me what in the fuck we would have accomplished for the citizens of our country?

Allowing a country to slip into Communism would directly aid the biggest threat to our country and was therefore a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.

What is so hard to understand pack?

[Remey688]

packer said:

Okay 101, so tell me exactly how we could have "won" in Viet Nam? And if we had managed to do the impossible ("win" another nation's civil war) give me your best guess on how many American lives it would have cost (and how many $$$billions) and how many American troops would still be in that shithole?

And lastly and most important, do tell me what in the fuck we would have accomplished for the citizens of our country?

Packer,

I think we could have won the Vietnam War if the country had the support our guys in Vietnam deserved. What the left did circa 1964-74 in the US was a disgrace.

[packer]

So you guys STILL haven't figured out that the great "Red Threat" thing was mostly bullshit?

The fact of the matter is that we had virtually nothing to gain in Viet Nam and a whole bunch to lose---and we did!

And if we had "stayed the course" or "won" it would be even more of a mess than it turned out to be.

In historical context, Viet Nam was quite similar to the dumbass policy of John Foster Dulles when he talked the USA leadership into interferring in Iran's internal affairs based on our fear of the "Red menace" and the goofy "domino" theory. We installed and propped up an evil despot named Shah Pavlavi who did nothing except fuck his own people until the religious nut cases finally tossed him out of power. And we are seeing repercussions of that stupid policy to this very day.

[tits]

packer said:

Okay 101, so tell me exactly how we could have "won" in Viet Nam? And if we had managed to do the impossible ("win" another nation's civil war) give me your best guess on how many American lives it would have cost (and how many $$$billions) and how many American troops would still be in that shithole?

And lastly and most important, do tell me what in the fuck we would have accomplished for the citizens of our country?

various historical figures over the last 20 years. The outcome depends on who you or we are to believe.

Beginning in the early 1990s, several documentaries were made where the North’s leaders were asked a similar question. In one documentary by the BBC/French, Gen Giap and Col. Bui Tin both stated the Tết Nguyên Ðán of 1968 had thoroughly defeated them. That they discussed suing for Peace until “the American reporter Kronkite” had said that American had lost the war. That after February 1968, the “people’s army” chose to wage a war of attrition because “America did not have the stomach to win the war”.

In the documentary “Vietnam, the American Experience”, the then Gen Tin said that Nixon’s winter bombing of 1972 frighten them because it showed that America was willing to re-escalate the war. Gen. Tin stated that if America had wanted to invade at that time, the North would have surrendered.

In a third documentary on the Presidents presented in the mid 1990s, the discussion on Johnson centered on the transition of the Khruschev to Kosygin to Brezhnev Primer/Presidency. Though the Soviet’s made much saber rattling after the accidental near sinking of the two freighters following the March 1965 bombing/mining of Haiphong Harbor, they had made a decision not to openly oppose the US if they would invade.

It seems that hind sight is as unclear on this question as it was during the war. However; it could be argued that a total US (political, national, and military) commitment would have brought the North to the table in earnest and to a possible a surrender by 1968. By all counting that would have limited our KIA to less than 20,000.

But no discussion of an alternative outcome to the war cannot be conducted with a thorough understanding of the fear of a nuclear conflict with the Soviets. Though Kosygin never made any stupid bombastic comments like Khruschev or Brezhnev did blow a lot of bravado our way. According to MacNamarra, there were three near nuclear exchanges with the Soviet during the Kennedy years alone. Since both sides were apparently willing to destroy the world to protect themselves, Vietnam, as Afghanistan 20 years later were two bloody battle grounds where the outcome hinged not as much on the guerrilla warfare of the weak over the might of the powerful. Rather it was which Superpower was willing to take the beating the longest.

We lost few military conflicts in the war, but lost the hearts and minds of the Americans and therefore lost the war.

[FightingFalcon]

packer said:

So you guys STILL haven't figured out that the great "Red Threat" thing was mostly bullshit?

The fact of the matter is that we had virtually nothing to gain in Viet Nam and a whole bunch to lose---and we did!

And if we had "stayed the course" or "won" it would be even more of a mess than it turned out to be.

In historical context, Viet Nam was quite similar to the dumbass policy of John Foster Dulles when he talked the USA leadership into interferring in Iran's internal affairs based on our fear of the "Red menace" and the goofy "domino" theory. We installed and propped up an evil despot named Shah Pavlavi who did nothing except fuck his own people until the religious nut cases finally tossed him out of power. And we are seeing repercussions of that stupid policy to this very day.

The domino theory was indeed proven correct - this is what most people fail to understand. After Vietnam fell to Communism, the disease then spread to all of the surrounding countries and it DIRECTLY led to the Khmer Rouge.

The Vietnamese are still suffering under the chains of Communism while the surrounding countries are still under tyrannical rule.

The only thing we lost were those poor soldiers who died for absolutely nothing. Had we STAYED THE COURSE and actually made an attempt to win the war, we could have beaten the VC and protected an entire region of the world from Communism. But as it was, America was severely lacking a back-bone at the time.

As it is today.