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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (121988)	12/23/2003 6:18:14 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Nadine Carroll; Re: "And what did happen when we lost in Vietnam?" Hey, it wasn't much fun to be in Vietnam under the Communists, and there were effects on the neighboring countries, but the historical fact is that the fall of Vietnam didn't hurt the US as much as the attempt to prevent Vietnam from falling did. There were riots in the streets of the US *during* the Vietnam war, but the aftermath of the war was a time of peace and prosperity here. And hey, no one is arguing that after our withdrawal from Iraq the country will become the "Disneyland of the Middle East". And I've already suggested that there will be knock-on effects on Iraq's neighbors, most especially including Israel. But none of that damages the US much, other than the possible problems with oil production. And by invading Iraq, we've already got the oil production problem started whether we leave or stay. Re: "Nobody is imagining bad consequences to losing." The only country you give a damn about is Israel, and sure, they're not going to like what happens after we pull out of Iraq. But that's tough titty for you. Your country had 50 years to find a peace with the Palestinians and you failed. Israel has to lie in the bed it made, but for the US, the sh:77y little fight in the Middle East is completely optional. -- Carl

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (121988)	12/24/2003 2:00:10 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

And what did happen when we lost in Vietnam? Nobody is imagining bad consequences to losing. If one were to engage in ranking bad craziness throughout history, having Communists take over your country is in a league all its own. We can debate whether Hitler was worse or not. On the cosmic scale, I'd say the Communists were a tiny bit worse unless you were a Jew. Having the mullahs take over is also pretty bad - but not as bad as Hitler, Lenin, and Pol Pot, it seems to me, nor on a par with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution on a percentage basis. On an absolute basis, the Cultural Revolution probably killed more, but then, there were more to kill. One of the greatest Communist achievements of the 20th century, killing people on a mass scale heretofore never even imagined. Who says Sharon and Bush are worse? My impression is that it's largely Communists (and Socialists), still hoping that if enough people will believe the Big Lies then finally they'll work. Did Zinni honestly never hear any intelligence that Saddam had WMD? How curious, because former president Bill Clinton, former first lady and present senator Hillary Clinton, and former Iraqi ambassador Joseph C. Wilson said that Saddam did have WMD of various kinds, at least chemical and biological. Mohammed El Baredei of the IAEA said no nuclear weapons program, but he seems to have been behind the curve in Iran, Libya and North Korea, no?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (121988)	12/24/2003 11:55:24 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

I opposed the war in Vietnam to the point of participating in the protests at the Washington Monument during the Second Nixon Inauguration. Later, watching the chaos of the fall of Saigon, seeing the flight of the boat people from Communist reprisal and re- education, contemplating the enormity of Pol Pot's regime, and watching the farce of George McGovern, whom I had supported, actually calling for intervention in Cambodia against Pol Pot (day late, dollar short), I came to wonder if I were wrong, and the problem was not strategic. I am still not sure that we should have intervened in the first place, but I do know that it is credible that if we had not exhausted the Communists, they might have taken not only South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but Thailand, Myanmar, and even India.......