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

To: FaultLine who wrote (91554)	4/9/2003 1:47:26 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

nice post, Hawk. Thanks for pitching in. No problem.. I always get a kick out of uninformed, or misled, individuals trying to make comparisons between some current event and Vietnam. I mean, let's face it.. Vietnam was little different than any other war when one gets to the heart of the matter. It was a direct subversion, and later invasion, by Hanoi against the south. The VietCong infrastructure never really represented a signicant percentage of the population of South Vietnam. They supported an classic insurgency to destabilize the government.. And later, when that insurgent force was decimated during Tet, they switched to direct invasion by way of Laos and Cambodia. But it was stilll an invasion of the south by the north. It is how the US chose to fight (or rather not to fight) the war that becomes pertinent. The lack of political determination to prevent the North from being able to supply forces in the south via the Ho Chi Minh trail, lest we violate the Geneva Accords of 1962 guaranteeing Laotian sovereignty (which the North conveniently ignored). It was just stupid... But to claim that Vietnam was not "winnable" is just as ludicrous, IMO. It was merely a lack of will, or willingness to potentially escalate the situation by countering NV's violation of Laotian sovereignty. And whenever democracies fear engaging in brinksmanship with a totalitarian state, it's inevitable that we're left playing "their game"... Very much the "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile" analogy. Which directly applies to why we're currently engaged in military action in Iraq. France, Germany, and Russia were more than willing to give Saddam more than just an inch. Hawk