Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 5, 2007 0:15:40 GMT -4
Achieving a consensus is important in a democracy, and that's exactly what congress did when they voted - overwhelmingly - to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. That is also what they do every time they vote to further fund the Iraq war.
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Feb 5, 2007 7:35:46 GMT -4
Any evidence to support this claim? I go primarily by the opinion of my grandfather, who served on the staff of the Joint Chiefs - specifically on the section of the staff concerned with Vietnam, later as commander of the 79th Engineering group in Vietnam, then as Director of Engineering of the Engineer Command Vietnam, and finally as deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army. He is very much of the opinion that Robert McNamara (who he refers to as a "treasonous liar") is the man primarily responsible with the loss, and Lyndon Johnson to some degree by having supported McNamara. In '67 my grandfather prepared a paper for the Joint Cheifs that predicted that casualties would eventually reach 55,000 (actual number 58,000), that the war would drag on for another five to seven years (which it did), and that the congress, the press, and the people would tire of supporting the war and as a result we would withdraw and leave the country to the enemy (which we did). His advice was essentially a heaving bombing campaign followed by ground troops occupying Hanoi and North Vietnam. The paper met an immediate political backlash and was never actually presented to McNamara. My grandfather regards Strategy for Defeat by Admiral Sharp, and Dereliction of Duty by H.R. McMasters to be accurate accounts of the war. All due respect to your grandfather aside I’m not sure how viable, effective or humane such a strategy would have been. It would have lead to tens or hundreds thousands of additional civilian deaths. It probably would have lead to additional troop losses The US and its allies couldn’t control South Vietnam so imagine if they tried to do so in the North. They probably could have marginally controlled some cities (like the US in Iraq, the Soviets in Afghanistan etc) but not the countryside. I doubt it would have ended the war it probably would have extended an already bad situation over a larger area. It’s doubtful the US population would have backed an invasion and occupation of North Vietnam. The Soviets and Chinese entered the Korean War after the US and it allies crossed into North and approached the capital (that’s why Macarthur got sacked). I couldn’t find much info about Sharp’s book on the Net but I did find this abstract of a review from a DOD website: Abstract : This analysis examines the utility of Admiral U.S.G. Sharp's book, 'Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect,' as a guide to the future employment of air power in a limited war. Admiral Sharp asserts that by showing how U.S. air power was misused in Vietnam he can justify its utility in future wars. The first part of the analysis examines Admiral Sharp's conclusions using the works of Carl von Clausewitz ('On War') and Sun Tzu ('The Art of War') to determine their theoretical validity as basic principles applicable to air power. The second part of the analysis examines Admiral Sharp's conclusions about the effectiveness of air power by reviewing the results of air actions in World War II, Korea, as well as Vietnam. The analysis concludes that Admiral Sharp's book is not a useful guide to future air power employment. stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA192454 Col. McMaster's it seems never served in Vietnam (he graduated from West Point in 1984) and doesn’t seem like his book pushed the “the Vietnam War was winnable” thesis backed by Sharp and your grandfather but rather that involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. Many critics of the war apply his analysis to Iraq www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vietnam/dp/customer-reviews/0060929081 www.commondreams.org/views05/0502-22.htm www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/04/19/rumsfeld_bush/ True and I must admit I’m basically hand waving but numerous informed opinions disagree with his analysis, in fact the overwhelming consensus seems to be US got it self into a situation with little prospect for success. Achieving a consensus is important in a democracy, and that's exactly what congress did when they voted - overwhelmingly - to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. That is also what they do every time they vote to further fund the Iraq war. Congress authorized giving Bush the threat to use forced based on cooked intelligence and the President’s false promise to avoid war unless given no other alternative. You’re right about approving funding but Rove and Bush etc would accuse members of congress voting against funding of abandoning the troops and forcing a defeat on America. I agree pulling up stakes immediately probably wouldn’t be the best thing; hopefully there would be a way to stabilize things a bit beforehand, engaging Syria and Iran whose neighbor we invaded and destabilized probably isn’t a bad idea.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 5, 2007 11:58:10 GMT -4
All due respect to your grandfather aside I’m not sure how viable, effective or humane such a strategy would have been. It would have lead to tens or hundreds thousands of additional civilian deaths. Considering how many civilians died after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam (including those killed under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia), and in the years of Communist misrule since I'm not sure that not bombing them was the humane course. And remember that this was the suggested course in 1967, before the Tet Offensive. Certainly they would not have after the Tet Offensive, when the media turned a North Vietnamese military defeat into a victory. No, the measure authorized the actual use of force, not just a threat. All investigations into whether intelligence was falsified or "pushed" by the Administration have failed to provide evidence of such. I personally beleive that the President knew no more than members of congress, especially those on the relevent committees (Senate Intelligence Committee, House Intelligence Committee, etc.). It does indeed appear that the intelligence was flawed, but calling it "cooked" is inaccurate. Just because it's not politically viable to cut and run doesn't mean that everyone in congress is thinking of only their own jobs each time they vote to fund the war.
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Feb 6, 2007 13:23:23 GMT -4
All due respect to your grandfather aside I’m not sure how viable, effective or humane such a strategy would have been. It would have lead to tens or hundreds thousands of additional civilian deaths. Considering how many civilians died after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam (including those killed under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia), and in the years of Communist misrule since I'm not sure that not bombing them was the humane course. And remember that this was the suggested course in 1967, before the Tet Offensive. Provide documentation for the number of civilian death in Vietnam after the US attributable to the actions of the government. It is widely believed that but for Nixon’s bombing campaign the Khmer Rouge might not have risen to power or become sofanatical. Cambodia and Vietnam were and are separate countries the US could have continued giving aid to the former and there is no guarantee bombing the later would have prevent the toppling of the Cambodian government. I doubt they would have even before hand. I don’t think it’s fair to blame the press for the US’s defeat. While the NVA and VC suffered heavy losses during the Tet offensive and failed to capture and hold their objectives it wasn’t defeat for them in the sense they lost territory. It showed the US’s precarious position, the VC were able strike at numerous targets in South Vietnam including the US embassy in Saigon whose grounds they controlled for several hours. Before that the public believed “we” were making progress and there was “light at the end of the tunnel” the Tet offensive but a lie to such illusions. Many Americans wondered as “uncle Walt” (Walter Cronkite) famously did on air "What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war." That was bad word choice on my part of course congress authorized the use of force a thread of force made without an actual authorization to use would be useless. What I meant was that Kerry and other Democrats said they only did so believing that Bush would only use force given no other recourse as promised and hoped the threat of an invasion would pressure Saddam into compliance. I only know of two investigations. One by the CIA itself which surprise surprise didn’t find any evidence the intel was “falsified or pushed”. The other was theRepublican controlled Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) whicn split along party lines about whether or not the administration pushed intelligence. The Republican chairman put off examining that question, according the new Democratic chairman due to pressure from Dick Cheney. It’s naïve to say congress had access to the same intel the president did the NSA, CIA, DIA etc answer to him he chooses their leaders even after the invasion the SSCI didn’t have access to the pre-war Daily Presidential (Intelligence) Briefs. There are various indications the administration cooked or pushed the intelligence. One Downing Street Memo indicated “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” . Another detailed how Bush and Blair planned to justify invasion in case inspectors found no evidence of WMDs. Bush proposed painting a USAF U-2 in UN colors andtrying to provoke a shotdown (that this obviously wouldn’t work because the UN would deny the palne was theirs only idicates what an idiot Bush is) Tyler Drumheller, the CIA official who was responsible for covert operation in Europe at the time, told CBS News (in a 60 minutes interview) that ‘former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri’ ‘who provided the US spy agency with other credible information’ told them “that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," but “the (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested," [single quotation marks ‘ ’ indicate direct quotes from a Reuters account of the interview double quotation marks “ ” indicate direct quotes from Drumheller] www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/white-house-knew-there-were-no-wmd-cia/2006/04/22/1145344306427.htmlThe accounts or Richard Clarke and Joseph Wilson give further credence to the theory that intelligence was deliberately skewed. But I’m sure that’s why many of them do. Ideally Bush wouldn’t force such an option on them by perusing a less disastrous policy.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 6, 2007 14:17:07 GMT -4
Provide documentation for the number of civilian death in Vietnam after the US attributable to the actions of the government. No. I've already admitted that I'm just passing on the opinions of others here. I wasn't around at the time and the Vietnam War as a whole doesn't really interest me too much - I find it too depressing to make an object of serious study. If you're interested in finding exact numbers I'm sure you can, but I'm not. I would be lost in any serious debate about Vietnam. From what I understood the power vacuum left by the withdrawl of the U.S. from the area lead to many, many civilian deaths. And of course they must be telling the truth about what their motives were at the time, right? Even though there is enormous political advantage to be gained in claiming to have been fooled into voting for a now-unpopular war? Not exactly the same intel, but I believe the President wasn't withholding anything. The allegation that "Bush Lied" depends on the premise that the President knew that the intelligence being presented to the nation was flawed, and there's little real evidence to that effect. Internal memos from individuals within agencies pointing out flaws in the intelligence make little difference if they didn't appear in the agency's briefs to the President. Sounds like an urban legend to me.
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lenbrazil
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Post by lenbrazil on Feb 6, 2007 21:16:08 GMT -4
What I meant was that Kerry and other Democrats said they only did so believing that Bush would only use force given no other recourse as promised and hoped the threat of an invasion would pressure Saddam into compliance. And of course they must be telling the truth about what their motives were at the time, right? Even though there is enormous political advantage to be gained in claiming to have been fooled into voting for a now-unpopular war? They could be lying but there is no evidence (that I’m aware of) they are. There is significant evidence that Bush lied when he said he would only go to war unless there was no other choice but rather that he had decided on regime change early on. This was based on the naïve belief the US etc would be welcome by the Iraqis. Any indication he wasn’t aware of those doubts? Wilson and Clarke indicate he was pushing for excuses to invade. The memo quoted below indicate he wanted to invade even if inspectors found no evidence of WMD’s and was willing to use deceit to justify war. The CIA official indicated the report reached the White House just as Wilson indicated his report did. If I were Bush and I discovered that this vital information had been withheld from me I would have been extremely pissed off and heads would have rolled. There is no indication this happened. Unfortunately it’s not and Bush really is that dumb and duplicitous. From the NY Times Note - quotation marks above indicate direct quotes from the memo. Joseph Wilson was right it seems he wrote: "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence was twisted to exaggerate the threat....The CIA asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story, in early March (2002) I arrived back in Washington, and submitted a detailed briefing to the CIA. There should be at least Four documents in US government archives confirming my mission."...In July Wilson said.."It really comes down to the Administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs the question, WHAT ELSE ARE THEY LYING ABOUT?" I think the fact that you never heard about the Bush Blair memo puts the lie to your notion that the press is anti-Bush if they were Bush proposing to intentionally deceive the citizens of the country he was elected (eeer appointed) to serve would have gotten far more attention.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2007 12:50:20 GMT -4
There is significant evidence that Bush lied when he said he would only go to war unless there was no other choice but rather that he had decided on regime change early on. This was based on the naïve belief the US etc would be welcome by the Iraqis. Regime change was the policy of the U.S. government towards Iraq since the Clinton years, when Saddam tried to have George Bush senior assassinated. Only the methods differed (sanctions from Clinton, military action from Bush). We don't know if the war was unavoidable. President Bush gave Saddam 48 hours to leave the country with his sons to avoid war, but Saddam didn't take him up on his offer. No one can positively say that we would have invaded had Saddam packed it up and left. I don't think the New York Times memo is credible (at least credible enough) to form an iron-bound case that President Bush wanted to deceive the American people. Joseph Wilson was a Bush critic long before his trip to Niger (which assignment he received because of his political connections, not because he was very well suited to the mission at hand). As far as I konw the British government still maintains that the intelligence President Bush quoted in his State of the Union address that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium in Africa was accurate.
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rocky
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Post by rocky on Feb 8, 2007 14:49:41 GMT -4
There's a lot of confusion about why we were in Vietnam. As far as I can tell it was the classic case of a de-facto colony trying to become independent. www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html(excerpt) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Vietnam War is a classic example of America's propaganda system. In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and so on-- there was a lively debate about the war. It was between people called "doves" and people called "hawks." The hawks said, "If we keep at it we can win." The doves said, "Even if we keep at it, it would probably be too costly for use, and besides, maybe we're killing too many people." Both sides agreed on one thing. We had a right to carry out aggression against South Vietnam. Doves and hawks alike refused to admit that aggression was taking place. They both called our military presence in Southeast Asia the defense of South Vietnam, substituting "defense" for "aggression" in the standard Orwellian manner. In reality, we were attacking South Vietnam just as surely as the Soviets later attacked Afghanistan. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.plp.org/vietnam/vn6.htmlwww.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vietnam.htmlwww.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vietnam_to_yugoslavia.htmlwww.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/chomskyin1282.htmlwww.plp.org/vietnam/vn2.htmlwww.plp.org/vietnam/vn1.html#TOCwww.vietnamese-american.org/contents.htmlA lot of people from Asia have told me that most small countries in the area have American puppet governments that let American companies take their resources for almost nothing and let the same American companies exploit their ecconomies. If American companies don't outright own plantations and farms in those countries, the government doesn't impose quotas on exports that would keep food prices reasonable for working class people as they would do if they weren't puppet governments. That's good for the countries such as the US who buy the food. Sometimes American companies outright own almost all of the farmland in those countries. I've been told that Dole and Del Monte own almost all of the pineapple plantations in the Philippines. These puppet governments let foreiners own the hotels along the coast so all the profits go back to the countries where the hotel owners live. That's part of what this guy was referring to when he wrote this article. www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.htmlHe isn't around anymore. www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=who+killed+steve+kangas&btnG=Google+SearchI guess he explained things too clearly for his own good. Tailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines all have American puppet governments that let the US exploit their ecconomies. If Japan had won the Pacific campaign during World War Two, all of those countries would have had Japanese puppet governments that would have let Japan do those same things. Outside of the US World War Two is called an inter-imperialist war. Part of the reason for our being in Vietnam was to send a message to the people of those other countries that if they tried to do the same thing (free themselves from being part of an empire--the victim part), they would end up fighting the American military machine and would ultimately fail. The people of South Vietnam didn't want us there any more than the people of North Vietnam did. I don't know exactly what happened when we left in 75 but I'm sure they were all glad to see us go (except for the one's who'd collaberated with the enemy of course). When the German army was driven out of some countries it had been occupying , most of the collaborators were executed. Similar things probably happened in Vietnam. I don't know all of the details of course.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 8, 2007 16:08:46 GMT -4
Don't you love people that have no idea of real history and try to revise it all to fit their views?
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 8, 2007 16:20:27 GMT -4
Have Democratic leaders changed their position on the Iraq war becuase of policital expedience?
Mrs. Clinton, October 10, 2002: "The facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt," she declares, citing Saddam's record of using chemical weapons, the invasion of Kuwait, and his history of deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors. "As a result, President Clinton, with the British and others, ordered an intensive four-day air assault, Operation Desert Fox, on known and suspected weapons of mass destruction sites and other military targets," she continues, adding that Saddam "has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members." "I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 U.N. resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998." December 15, 2003 "I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote." April 20, 2004 "I don't regret giving the President the authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." And regarding whether she was 'fooled': "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton Administration to the Bush Administration. It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared about the weapons of mass destruction." November 2005: "If Congress had been asked [to authorize the war], based on what we know now, we never would have agreed." "It is time for the President to stop serving up platitudes and present us with a plan for finishing this war with success and honor--not a rigid timetable that terrorists can exploit, but a public plan for winning and concluding the war." January 17,. 2007: (After the President presented his plan for increasing the troop presence) "I don't know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work. And in the absence of a commitment that is backed up by actions from the Iraqi government, why should we believe it?" January 27, 2007: Mrs. Clinton demands that President Bush "extricate our country from this before he leaves office." And she promises that, if elected, she will end the war quickly.
So she beleived the weapons were there when her husband bombed Iraq, that congress and the Clinton administration had the same intelligence President Bush had at the time of the vote, and charged President Bush to present a plan for winning the war without a timetable. Later she has played to the perception that the President decieved congress (although she hasn't stated it outright) and gave him a strict deadline to withdraw troops.
It's fairly obvious to me that this shift in position correlates very well with the downturn in the polls on the conduct of the Iraqi war, and Mrs. Clinton's own efforts to gain the Democratic nomination for 2008.
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Post by Grand Lunar on Feb 8, 2007 17:08:15 GMT -4
Hey Rocky, did you find all that info you wrote on the website you love to look at, or did you just pull it out of your head right then and there?
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Post by gillianren on Feb 8, 2007 18:04:25 GMT -4
The people of South Vietnam didn't want us there any more than the people of North Vietnam did. I don't know exactly what happened when we left in 75 but I'm sure they were all glad to see us go (except for the one's who'd collaberated with the enemy of course). "Collaborated with the enemy"? So, what, if you weren't a Communist, you were collaborating with the enemy? If you held a Western degree? If you espoused a different variety of Communism than the official one? My Gods, reading Doonesbury cartoons of the era gives you a clearer perspective on what it was like for the Vietnamese people of the time than you do!
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Post by Ranb on Feb 9, 2007 10:08:41 GMT -4
Tailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines all have American puppet governments that let the US exploit their ecconomies. If the Philippines had a puppet government, the US would still be paying 200 million bucks a year to lease military bases, but guess what, the Filipinos refused to renew the lease. Thailand has a government run by the military, before that it had a democratically elected one that was too corrupt and incompetent to prevent the coup. It is/was not a puppet government. I do not know enough about Malaysia and Indonesia to comment on them. Ranb
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Post by twinstead on Feb 9, 2007 11:55:27 GMT -4
It appears Rocky is quite adept at putting an anti-American spin on pretty much anything.
LOL of course it is, Rocky my ideologue buddy, but you should have added that it's known as that to people who hate America and don't study history. Otherwise, that's one of the dumbest statements concerning any historical event I've ever heard.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 9, 2007 12:41:19 GMT -4
I never heard WWII called an "inter-imperialist war" in the Netherlands. In fact, the Dutch seemed quite grateful that the US had fought hard to liberate the country. As a general rule they (the Dutch) weren't very happy under Nazi rule.
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