Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (131657)	5/6/2004 12:45:53 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And something tells me that, via 20/20 hindsight, if the South Vietnamese knew then, what they know now, about how their next 30 years of their lives were going to turn out, they probably would have fought a hell of lot harder. Hawk it's hard to put into words how wrong I think you are. You can talk about the terrible things that happened, especially to the Montanyards, after we left. You ought, however, to consider the millions that died, the larger number that were displaced, humiliated, injured, lost family members and whose lives were literally ripped apart WHILE WE WERE THERE. In contrast to that, Vietnam has been a paradise for the last 25 years. Ask THEM if they want to go back to the "good old days" of the late 60s and early 70s when we were there to "take care of their defense." As far as your theories for how we should have fought a winning war, you keep talking about being "outflanked" and about "large defensive lines." You can't seem to wrap your thoughts around the concept that "flanks" and "defensive lines" didn't mean a damn thing then, and don't mean much in Iraq either. Go to Iraq. Enter a city. Who's the enemy? Where do you set up your "flanks?" Where do you establish your "defensive lines," what exactly would they accomplish? Remember no one is attacking you head on, no one is attempting to regain territory, no one cares that you hold ground, they're just looking for opportunities to kill you wherever you are. Go to a jungle so thick you can hardly see the sun and you sure as hell can't get around without a machete unless there's a trail. If your guys are 15 meters apart a guy who knows what he's doing can slide through unseen. Where are you going to set up some kind of wide area "flank" or "large defensive line." If you do set one up, it will last only as long as you keep your troops in place and what will if do for you? Those kind of conventional tactics were attempted in Vietnam and they FAILED miserably. Why do you think our ultimate strategy became one of "ATTRITION?" You know what they meant by attrition don't you; they meant body count. We were supposed to find and kill so many of them that they couldn't fight any more or wouldn't fight any more. That's why there was such an emphasis on the number of "enemy" we killed. I was there in 69-70. We had 4-500 thousand men in that country. We were losing hundreds of DEAD every WEEK. We were fighting the NVA and the VC viciously and in deadly aggressive attacks that put our soldiers at huge risk of death and injury, and IT WASN'T WORKING. The resistance was growing, their will to fight was not waning and it became clear to even the most hawkish that there was NO effective winning strategy short of probably razing that country into a desert. But still we hear from the armchairs that if we'd just had the "will" or if we'd fought without "one hand tied behind our backs" or if it wasn't for those war protestors, we could have "won" the Vietnam war. And now you talk about "flanks" and "defensive lines" as though it was a conventional war. It's time to face the sobering truth; there are objectives we cannot meet, there are missions we cannot accomplish, there are nations peopled by those with the will and the means to resist us at levels that will make us forever regret that we lacked the wisdom to understand that we cannot force our will on those who stand proudly as men and women of sovereign nations. It's not rocket science. We should, of all peoples, understand the deadly resistance of a people to having their destiny controlled by foreigners. Thanks for the heads up on the italics.