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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (53941)	10/22/2002 2:34:35 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

"did our presence in Vietnam help anyone." Karen, this is the statement of yours that I'm mostly responding to: "it reaped upon the people of Laos and Cambodia a horror that never would have happened had we simply not gone into Vietnam." You directly implied that US involvement was responsible for the misery that befell Laos and Cambodia, and almost befell Thailand... I'm stating that, like all of the other nations that fell to Communist influence and power, these nations would have been WORSE off if the US had not become involved.. The war was THRUST upon the south, not vice versa.. It was Vietnam that literally occupied Laos and eastern Cambodia in order to build the Ho Chi Minh trail through those countries.. And it was Vietnam that invaded Cambodia in 1979, attempting to overthrow the Chinese supported Khmer Rouge regime, who's leader Pol Pot, was responsible for the genocide of over 2 million people. This was AFTER the US departed the region. And the Vietnamese remained in Cambodia until 1989.. Maybe Cambodia and Vietnam both would have been better off if the Chinese and Soviets hadn't been involved... Don't you think?? It certainly wasn't a case of the US "invading" either of those duly elected democratic nations... They were both pawns of the far more powerful communists from both China and the USSR.. I'm sorry I have to give you a history lesson on this Karen.. But you're the one making these inane statements, not I.. History is clear.. the most brutal regimes ever to have existed in the history of this planet have been the totalitarian communist regimes.. They have been responsible for more human tragedy and carnage than anything the US has been responsible in the 200+ years of its existence.. And they accomplished this devastation in less than 50 years, in most cases. So you still haven't answered how nine years of US troops fighting in Vietnam made it better off. How can I? We didn't "win".. We didn't even "play to win".. We just attempted to hold our ground and fight a war of attrition, while China and Russia enjoyed seeing US forces tied up in the region, expending our blood and treasure. But I CAN tell you that S. Korea is better off that North Korea.. Because WE DID WIN THERE..... Vietnam was a debacle for US policy and military strategy... Everyone knows that now.. But I do not accept the premise that the war was not "winnable".. Because we clearly were able to win the Korean conflict and that society is FAR MORE homogenous than was Vietnam's (where over 54 different ethnic groups make up the population). iruizh.tripod.com But you can't win a war when you permit the enemy to maintain their line of supplies/communications undisrupted.. And that's what we did when we failed to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. We gave the N. Vietnamese a free pass to stockpile troops, arms, and supplies in a sanctuary that was free from harassment until 1970, when the US invaded and destroyed these depots. Hawk