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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133125)	5/15/2004 10:11:33 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

And interesting article by Jack Kemp that explains exactly what I believe we need to accomplish in the Mid-East: Message 20132328 Hawk

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133125)	5/15/2004 11:09:35 AM
From: Dr. Id	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

No.. what you believe is that we should have just CAVED IN AND NOT CONFRONTED COMMUNIST EXPANSIONISM IN INDOCHINA. You would have quite satisfied to permit the entire peninsula to fall to them... And what has been the result of N. Vietnam winning the war? Have the dominoes fallen? Is the region occupied by dangerous communists who are bent on our destruction? I know many people who have visited Vietnam. They say it's a lovely country, and that the people are incredibly friendly and gracious hosts (which is kind of surprising since we killed a few million of them...) Would Vietnam have been better off with one of our versions of foreign "Democracy"? (i.e. Guatemala) I can't believe that you're still using the old Vietnam argument. Even McNamara admits that it was a huge mistake. And he should know better than you (with all respect...).

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133125)	5/15/2004 2:03:03 PM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

a side remark - re >>What's counter-productive, you naive creton...<< etc, I had to look up creton and btw it's misspelled, should be cretonne ... So for all those wondering about this strange unknown expression, here's the epitheton, translated as per The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: >>What's counter-productive, you naive, heavy unglazed cotton, linen, or rayon fabric, colorfully printed and used for draperies and slipcovers<< vow...

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (133125)	5/17/2004 12:07:38 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; You're obviously beginning to froth at the mouth. Yes, it's pretty clear that we're going to be pulling out of Iraq fairly soon, but don't you think that blaming me, a right wing Republican, for "the past 50 years" of the actions of despotic regimes is a bit much? I wasn't old enough to vote for most of that, LOL. And my comment on "great power" was in agreement with your statement that if we'd wanted to, we could have gone into Laos. Your fantasy solution, "going into Laos" wasn't in the cards because we were already overextended in Vietnam. Now, we're overextended in Iraq and guys like you will be talking about how we should have gone into Syria, Iran and God knows where else, (and if you'd been in charge, we would have won). It won't fly. This was a fairly right wing Republican administration, and if they couldn't make the pacification of Iraq stick then no administration could. I doubt that anyone listens to what the Neocons say for a sufficent time into the future that the name "neocon" will eventually drop from use. Instead, there will be some other pack of fools who think that they understand war, but only understand how to salute a flag. Re: "And so long as they were willing to fight in a no-holds barred manner because their country was not at EQUAL RISK OF BEING INVADED by the South in retaliation, and we fought with our hands tied behind our backs, the South Vietnamese were not going to win that war." If we had invaded North Vietnam, the war would not have ended. Even ignoring the strong possiblity of direct Chinese intervention, the Communists had already solved the problem of getting foreigners to leave North Vietnam once or twice. They would have simply pulled out the old play books and run the same guerilla war against us that they did once before against Japan and then France (and before that, against Siam, China and who knows else). We would have been faced with the task of attempting to pacify a country now 2x as large as South Vietnam, and would have ended up with proportional casualties (before we gave up just like the French did). But it likely would have ended the war earlier because our lack of sufficient forces (and will power) would have been evident earlier. Re: "What's counter-productive, you naive creton, is WHEN WE FAIL TO MEET FORCE WITH FORCE and permit the enemy to have an advantage of interior lines and safe havens." "Naive creton"? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Why should I debate you when you just blithely ignore the military fact that the Communists only needed about 15 to 60 tons of supplies to keep a stalemate in South Vietnam per day. Even in the complete absence of safe havens and no lines at all, much less interior ones, they'd have kept fighting. Closing the borders of a country like South Vietnam, or the combined borders of South Vietnam and Laos, to an infiltration that only needs 15 to 60 tons per day is utterly impossible. If it were possible to stop that level of infiltration, the Indians would have been able to stop the Pakistanis from infiltrating across the border into the Moslem areas there. The US would have won the War Against Drugs. -- Carl