Vietnam War at 50: Have We Learned Nothing?

[Deleted]

We NEED to go back. The only way to fix what we broke, is to go back and kill every fucking terrorist. Then set up schools, roads, jobs, and defense. Stay for 2-3 generations to ensure prosperity. Then leave when the power is in the hands of children not raised under such a horrible regime of extremists. All the while, European countries need to pull their head out of their collective asses and FORCE the migrants and refugees to adopt, and adhere to western values. Do not erase their religious freedom, but do not tolerate it being used to enforce the barbaric practices of what MUST become the OLD Islam. Reform the religion itself, or destroy it entirely. Those are the only two choices.

Well, you could also just give China/Russia the green light. They keep that they take. Shit'll be over in a year and Chinese nationals will be moved onto the "Red Desert" as we'll surely call it after what they do.

Going from "destabilizing the non religious regimes in place while supporting the most extreme view of islam" to "40-60 years of occupation till they get it right" is a big jump.
Im sure there are ways in between.
Hold on... by "back" you meant vietnam?

[Skroe]

Yeah. Bosnia and the Kosovo are such a paradise now. Region is a total mess. Imagine Detroit on a national scale. Great success. And hey, South Korea is now an amazing haven of safety, with the big nuclear theme Park up there. Really amazing.

As opposed to what the Baltics were a decade ago?
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...bosnia-balkans
http://metro.co.uk/2014/11/26/rebuil...ajevo-4963147/

Second link has photo sliders. Take a look if you got the balls.


And South Korea? One of the world's largest economies, an energetic democracy, and one of the world's most developed nations? Not a success? Really?


You do realize I picked my examples carefully right? I anticipated somebody like you would come along and try to undermine their success in a pathetic attempt to be right.

The truth of the matter is, intervention is a mixed bag. Sometimes, in the right conditions, with a lot of luck and a lot of time, it works. South Korea was a military dictatorship through the 1980s. It and north Korea had similar standards of living through the 1970s. South Korea as we know it is a late 1980s through the present thing. Sometimes, interventions fail as we've seen in Iraq, in Libya and elsewhere.

THe problem is absolutionists like yourself want something so complex as to the question if a country can succeed and thrive in time if an abusive government is removed to have a uniform answer. How can something with so many countless requirements to succeed or fail be "always succeed" in the neocons case, or "always fail" in yours and the anti-interventionists case.

It must always be on a case by case basis, based on political and economic conditions in the region and the world at the time. Right now, for example, intervention in North Korea (see a thread from last week) would be a disaster. Would it have been in the 1970s? Maybe a lot less so Maybe 30 years from now? Who can predict.

[Beruis]

Going from "destabilizing the non religious regimes in place while supporting the most extreme view of islam" to "40-60 years of occupation till they get it right" is a big jump.
Im sure there are ways in between.
Hold on... by "back" you meant vietnam?

Obv, there's oil in them there Jungles. PROTECT IT FOR FREEDOM.

Another way would be to go Hiroshima and Nagasaki on them. The entire civilized world wouldn't like that though. Also might cause the "peaceful" majority to take up arms against us for threatening their religion of "peace" by blowing up some extremists.

[Deleted]

Obv, there's oil in them there Jungles. PROTECT IT FOR FREEDOM.

Another way would be to go Hiroshima and Nagasaki on them. The entire civilized world wouldn't like that though. Also might cause the "peaceful" majority to take up arms against us for threatening their religion of "peace" by blowing up some extremists.

Yeah those terrorists wouldnt like you nuking them. Damn muslims.

/sarcasm

[Skulltaker]

As opposed to what the Baltics were a decade ago?
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...bosnia-balkans
http://metro.co.uk/2014/11/26/rebuil...ajevo-4963147/

Second link has photo sliders. Take a look if you got the balls.


And South Korea? One of the world's largest economies, an energetic democracy, and one of the world's most developed nations? Not a success? Really?

I don't need to take slideshows. I've been there. I have relatives in both Croatia aswell as as Serbia. Stuff was rebuild. That's the accomplishment? Big deal. The gouvernments are still corrupt and take from the poor. Prices are rising steeply, and more and more people cannot make a decent living from a full time job. They simply exchanged one fucked-up gouvernment for another.

And what is South-Koreas big economy worth? Again, nothing, as long as there are millions of people suffering a couple of kilometres north. Living under the constant threat of war. That's not succes, that's settling.

[satimy]

Who here is a neocon. Certainly not me. Do you even know what a neocon is without looking it up? I bet you don't. I'm not even an interventionist. But I am a fact based person, and the fact is, the modern international security situation (the last 15 years) has few, if any lessons that can offered up by Vietnam. Everything is different. The countries. The economics. The regions. The politics. The military forces. The motivations. You have to twist Vietnam to be unrecognizable to offer lessons.

Ron Paul's post is this: "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it". He forgets the next sentence though: "But do mind the significant differences, because sometimes history simply is very different. ".

Thing is, most people don't care for differences. Folks who want, for gross political reasons, to contort every intervention, every time the US has used it's military might into another Vietnam are no better than Dick Cheney predicting World War II style troops being greeted with flowers. They're two sides of the same deeply prejudiced coin. In the end, everybody want's those prejudices confirmed.

To Ron Paul, every war, every conflict, every intervention being a "Vietnam" serves the end of illustrating the futility of the US doctrine of "forward defense" which in turn implies that we should abandon it, which would in turn lead to a massive cutting of defense expenditure, which would in turn shrink government, which is the only thing he cares about. There is no such thing as a libertarian United States that has a powerful military, because the military is among the largest federal organs.

At least he is politically consistent.

Also you want a success? Bosnia and Kosovo. There you have your one. Want a second? South Korea.


Anyway, I'm happy to attack Ron Paul at every turn. His libertarian quackery was as out of place and as poorly thought out years ago as it is today.

Bosnia and Kosovo a success? If that's the best example you can give then you are just illustrating the failures of neo conservative interventionist foreign policy.

South Korea a success? Is that a sick joke. North Korea is a disaster, the war never ended and we spend billions of dollars peace keeping. South Korea is a waste of fucking money, if they can't defend themselves at this point they deserve to be conquered

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That's a rather broad reading of realism to say the least.... but this isn't about realism in the slightest. It's not even really about foreign or security policy.

This is about not trying to twist Vietnam into something it isn't, in order to weaponize it in a political argument.

You realize Vietnam was started under false pretenses right? The gulf of Tonkin?

[Macaquerie]

Obv, there's oil in them there Jungles. PROTECT IT FOR FREEDOM.

Another way would be to go Hiroshima and Nagasaki on them. The entire civilized world wouldn't like that though. Also might cause the "peaceful" majority to take up arms against us for threatening their religion of "peace" by blowing up some extremists.

You know, if we do end up nuking the Middle East, that the entire region will end up developing this neutered and oddball culture based around cutesy cartoon characters and weird fetish porn, and over the years people in the West will come to admire that culture and we'd have a generation of ME-aboos growing up talking about how scimitars are the best swords ever and such.

[Deleted]

Bosnia and Kosovo a success? If that's the best example you can give then you are just illustrating the failures of neo conservative interventionist foreign policy.

South Korea a success? Is that a sick joke. North Korea is a disaster, the war never ended and we spend billions of dollars peace keeping. South Korea is a waste of fucking money, if they can't defend themselves at this point they deserve to be conquered

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You realize Vietnam was started under false pretenses right? The gulf of Tonkin?

Youre talking to the guy that was praising Iraq's new democracy

[Deleted]

South Korea a success? Is that a sick joke. North Korea is a disaster, the war never ended and we spend billions of dollars peace keeping. South Korea is a waste of fucking money, if they can't defend themselves at this point they deserve to be conquered

If this is your objective measurement for a successful country, then I guess most of the small well-developed and high-HDI European countries must be utter failures, since they have such a low military spending that they rely on NATO/US military for security.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Obv, there's oil in them there Jungles. PROTECT IT FOR FREEDOM.

Another way would be to go Hiroshima and Nagasaki on them. The entire civilized world wouldn't like that though. Also might cause the "peaceful" majority to take up arms against us for threatening their religion of "peace" by blowing up some extremists.

Irony is when you advocate killing millions of innocent people and then call other people "extremists"

[Beruis]

Irony is when you advocate killing millions of innocent people and then call other people "extremists"

I bet you think nuking Japan was a bad thing to do and wasn't the absolute last resort. I bet you think America just up and decided to kill millions of innocents one morning. These people had no idea right? Just woke up to a nuclear bomb.

Plz misinterpret harder.

[Mayhem]

I bet you think nuking Japan was a bad thing to do and wasn't the absolute last resort. I bet you think America just up and decided to kill millions of innocents one morning. These people had no idea right? Just woke up to a nuclear bomb.

Plz misinterpret harder.

Nonsense, everyone knows in war civilians deserve to die! It´s the right thing to do.

[Beruis]

Nonsense, everyone knows in war civilians deserve to die! It´s the right thing to do.

I don't get it. Is this /s or do people not know history?

[Breccia]

The fact that we didn't learn anything from the Korean and Vietnam wars is evident by the fact we had both.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I bet you think nuking Japan was a bad thing to do and wasn't the absolute last resort. I bet you think America just up and decided to kill millions of innocents one morning. These people had no idea right? Just woke up to a nuclear bomb.

Plz misinterpret harder.

If I misinterpreted what you said...please, explain exactly what you meant. You are talking about using nuclear weapons to blow up some extremists, are you not?

[Mayhem]

I don't get it. Is this /s or do people not know history?

Judging by your answer, i´ll go with b).

[Gheld]

Like I've said on numerous occasions. We live in the most violent society the world has ever seen. We've just compartmentalized most of that violence, and gotten much better at the necessary moral acrobatics to dismiss the blood on our hands.

[satimy]

If this is your objective measurement for a successful country, then I guess most of the small well-developed and high-HDI European countries must be utter failures, since they have such a low military spending that they rely on NATO/US military for security.

From the position of the is taxpayer they are fucking mooches.

[turboether]

Yeah, when was the last time society and not single individuals in power voted pro war?

GWB's second term.

[Deleted]

But if there are fewer wars, how will our arms dealers make a living?

Pretty much this.
One uplifting thing about it is the fact those death merchants make that money in order to use it.
Cant really use money without civilization that accepts it.
That is why the only wars that will occur from now on are staged proxy wars waged in 3rd world blowholes.
Only thing to worry about is to avoid capital cities where terrorism can happen that will be used as an excuse for another proxy war.