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: Nadine Carroll who wrote (239895)	8/25/2007 8:59:16 AM
From: SARMAN	Respond to of 281500

Nadine, you are hypothesizing again. History of Vietnam is still fresh in people's minds. Iraq is the present. Lets see now, Saddam killed, for the sake of argument, 100k Kurdish people, yet Iraq was still stable, people had homes, electricity, food, schools, security, etc. etc. etc. American decide to go into Iraq for one reason or another. What do you think happened to Iraq? Let me help you draw some conclusions "Vietnam". Thus, we can conclude that whenever, the US stick it figures, lots of people get killed.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (239895)	8/25/2007 10:00:16 AM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If americans supported the south vietnamese the way the russians supported the north, vietnamese folks would have indeed died but the US just like the russians would not have had any casualties. Its when helping a country fight communism, or in the iraq case saddamism, becomes participation in what is mostly a civil conflct is when things go wrong for us. Vietnam, north and south, is indeed more of a country than iraq is and american troops only exacerbated the struggle and made it bloodier than it had to be. And of course when we pulled out scores were going to be settled. If we had stayed out, north would have won earlier and the post war price would have been much less. You play these games of mental masturbation nadine on vietnam and now iraq and all you can come up with a gratuitous insult for the opposing poster? Apparently as i am finding out very recently a linear connection between vietnam deniers and iraq war proponents that makes me very uncomfortable. LBJ=GWB Maybe its the water in Texas that does this to people. Or is the MacNamara/Rummy similarities on how not to run a war?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (239895)	8/25/2007 12:09:13 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 281500

You get it wrong, as always Nadine. As Americans, we are responsible for the deaths caused in our name. As Americans, we are concerned that the deaths caused in our name are justified and serve some good purpose. As Americans, we are concerned when the actions our government takes directly or indirectly leads to unnecessary death or suffering. I can't be responsible for what the insurgents do, or AQ does - I don't vote for them. What they do doesn't justify what MY government does. Two wrongs don't make a right.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (239895)	8/25/2007 3:41:54 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<Nobody dies in your book unless America gets involved.> In the case of Vietnam we most certainly enjoy the lion's share of the blame. The issue of creating a unified Vietnam could have been solved diplomatically and/or via the ballot box -- except for one thing: The US could not accept the Vietnamese deciding their own fate. The US could not allow Vietnamese to vote for unification and to elect Ho Chi Minh as their national leader. The US pushed Ho into a position where he needed the Soviets to help get rid of us. We sent troops and bombed the crap out of Vietnam. Russia helped Ho unify Vietnam -- how he did it was largely our choice, and we chose the route of requiring millions of Vietnamese to sacrifice their lives to thwart our design for their country. US intervention is not evil because it is the US -- but nor is it good just because we are flying the American flag. Where the US sees its interests colliding with the interests and will of the people of other countries, we have an unfortunate habit of propping up corrupt regimes and overthrowing regimes that enjoy popular support. When we do this, innocent people die because of our actions, and in the long run we lose.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (239895)	8/26/2007 7:57:48 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If America hadn't been involved, it would have been only Vietnamese killing millions of Vietnamese with the backing of the USSR - and we all know that you don't give a damn about those people! Nobody dies in your book unless America gets involved. Not really. The French deadenders who we supported in the south wouldn't have stood a ghost of a chance against the vast majority of Vietnamese who supported Ho. That was why the US decided the "cancel" the elections that had been acheduled to take place under the Geneva Accords of 1954 and pretend that the South was actually a "country"--everyone knew that Ho would win a countrywide with 3/4 of the vote. Yes, there probably would have been some deaths and imprisonments in any case, but without US support, it would have been over pretty quickly and nowhere near the amount of killing that took place over the ext 25-30 years. And if there had been a sane American administration, Ho wouldn't even have necessarily been a Soviet ally (and certainly would not have been a Chinese ally). He more plausibly would have been a neutral, trying to get support from both sides. And, if the US hadn't intervened, Cambodia and Laos wouuldn't have been savaged either.