The diary below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal
Saturday night I saw Emilio Estevez's movie "Bobby" at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema. The movie timed with Robert Kennedy's 81st birthday on November 20th has focused attention on his life, values and the times he lived. Also one can't help but compare the turbulence RFK tried to heal with our lives today.
The movie itself is effective because the focus is not on Kennedy specifically. Instead it captures the sensibilities of numerous intersecting characters at the Ambassador Hotel that fateful day. Hence the movie provides viewers with a snapshot of our country at that time and closes with a sentimental montage of RFK footage. I was teary eyed along with the other patrons.
Afterwards I pondered why I was moved. Robert Kennedy died a year before I was born. True, I read a great deal about him, saw numerous documentaries and intellectually understood his historical impact.
Nonetheless I'm a member of Generation X and wasn't alive to process the Civil Rights struggles or the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and RFK. The Vietnam War ended when I was an infant and nobody in my family died in the jungles of South East Asia. The Beatles had far more of an impact on my life personally than Robert Kennedy.
Yet I was always drawn to him. After the movie I realized what fascinated me about Kennedy was his personal evolution and life journey. Robert Kennedy is enshrined in the pantheon of martyrdom. But the man is far more compelling than the legend.
Imagine you're born into the Kennedy family. Your father is powerful, ambitious and wealthy. Irish immigrants and Catholics were stigmatized in America but Joe Kennedy was a self-made man. He served FDR as America's ambassador to England during the Nazi Era. He made many enemies and was later discredited as a defeatist and isolationist.
Yet Joe Kennedy still managed to influence events and pushed his eldest surviving son to the White House. Your eldest brother, Joe Kennedy Jr. died in World War Two and he was the sibling your clan had the highest expectations for. So instead the torch is passed to your brother John and he becomes President. Think about that. It's established that you're supposed to do big things.
Hence it is the quest for power and recognition that drives you in your formative years. Naturally you become somewhat ruthless and detached. If it serves you to perform work for Joe McCarthy you do it. And you become your brother's enforcer as he achieves the pinnacle of power.
You're rich and successful. Big brother makes you his Attorney General. Everybody knows you're second in command at the White House. The President's number one confidant and most influential advisor. You play an indispensable role during the Cuban Missile Crisis and go after Jimmy Hoffa. You also play a key role in helping your brother make history regarding Civil Rights.
Might you become a little bit arrogant at that point? Perhaps you start to feel invulnerable and hubris sets in. Along the way you make mistakes and abuse power. You're involved in assassination plots against Castro and covering up your brother's indiscretions.
But you've gotten away with it. Your brother has accomplished some important things and it's easy to rationalize you're using power for a higher purpose. You're making enemies but you have the ultimate shield: your brother is President and his political standing is strong.
And then it's gone. Your brother defined your identity. In death he becomes a mythic icon. You no longer enjoy his protective shield and the burdens of expectations are thrust upon you. You are the new crown prince of Camelot and obliged to fill the role. Insecurity and vulnerability are not an option.
Some might become more detached or live in denial. You go through a period of grief and paralysis. The nation lost a President but you lost your brother and intimate collaborator. Crowds cheer for him through you. You've become the symbolic conduit to a ghost. Talk about a mid-life crisis? Where is my place you wonder?
Your brother's widow turns you onto the classic literature of ancient Greece and a spark is lit. Slowly you climb your way back and with a softened perspective. Vulnerability becomes your strength. You're not just ruthless Bobby anymore. There is more to power than its own sake.
The Senate becomes a platform and access point to explore the underside of American life: poverty, struggle and famine. You're transformed into the tribune of the underclass and embrace the role. The role suits you. All that combative energy you used against big brother's enemies and organized crime is focused on the cause of peace, justice and dignity for all human kind.
The Presidency beckons. Those who reside in Camelot yearn for the restoration of the throne to its proper place. Part of you is seduced by the expectations of dynasty. You are human after all. Mostly you feel the burning hopes of those who see you as the vessel of their dreams. When people reach out to touch you it's not solely for your brother anymore. You've become a human kaleidoscope: Americans of all kinds view their desire to become whole through you.
You attract citizens ready to follow the banner of segregationist George Wallace and followers of Martin Luther King. Older people who crave order and inspired youth envision their salvation through your candidacy. Migrant workers, Native Americans and the poor believe you're the one who understands their need for respect and dignity.
And there is the horrible war. The country is losing faith and wants an honorable exit. Civil unrest intensifies as America's social fabric unravels. Your soul mate Martin Luther King is gunned down like your brother. A crowd is engulfed by grief and ready to erupt in violence. You remind them that you lost too and want no more senseless killing.
All this is happening and to millions you're the singular figure that can heal, soothe and deliver peace. How can others feel despair or hopeless when you're quoting George Bernard Shaw:
"Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?"
And you're taken from us and all that promise is left unfulfilled. Killed senselessly just like your brother and Martin Luther King.
So I watched a movie named after someone I never knew who died before I was born. And walked away in tears.
Was RFK for the war before he was against it?
(#13793)One wonders what RFK had to say about the execution of the Diem Brothers?
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Timmy, yes - RFK was
(#13795)He was, by most accounts, in on virtually all the Kennedy Administration's significant planning: Vietnam included.
A fascinating interview with RFK (April 1964) can be found here : hardly (at that point, anyway) the views of an "anti-war" type.
But when the subject of the Diem coup comes up, Kennedy dissembles around the subject - obviously not wanting to answer.
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parentFYI: re "the horrible war"
(#13668)RFK was a major backer of US involvement in Vietnam, just like his brother. (While there were only about 16,000 troops there when JFK was assassinated, he knew before we went in that more than 200,000 troops likely would be needed.) As the war became less popular, RFK gradually backed away from that position.
The Left did not want "an honorable exit" from the Vietnam War: they wanted the US humiliated.
Perhaps minor points in the context of your diary, but important historically.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
I didn't live through Vietnam,
(#13688)but I'd be very interested in a cite from a significant lefty leader -- in Congress or in civil society -- which explicitly sought the humiliation of the United States, instead of viewing it as the inevitable result of failed policy.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentI believe it was the vote not to live up to our obligations
(#13778)and to cut funding for the South which lead to its eventual demise.
With respect to the opening of the war, the Diem Brothers and their demise sets the opening act whereas cutting the South off would be the closing act.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
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parentSignificant and lefty leader are hard to reconcile. :)
(#13697)However, it's obvious that there's unlikely to be such a blatant statement by anyone of significance so that's an easy call for you to make.
Much as today. No one of any account did or will acknowledge seeking the humiliation of the US; yet they believe in "the inevitable result of failed policy" and they can quietly hope...
Hard for anyone to avoid hoping their prediction comes true.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentIntellectual vanity
(#13699)There's a difference between intellectual vanity and sedition, I guess is what I'm saying.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentAgreed. Today's MSM is a good example
(#13703)Compare these two articles:
LINK
LINK
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentHm.
(#13729)One of those articles seems a bit . . . hometown-ish, if you get my drift.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentYes and the other comports with your view and that of the
(#13731)MSM and therefor is accepted unquestionably...
No surprise there. :)
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentNeither was accepted unquestionably.
(#13736)I don't feel like I have a good handle on what's going on in Afghanistan, and I know I can't trust the Traditional Media outlets to give it to me. So there we are.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentOne just has to filter the media. I find that cruising the
(#13744)blogs, particularly the Milblogs is informative. You still have to filter, though...
I try to find three or four conflicting stories from competing sources and amalgamate. Based on later reportage and what seems to have occurred, that appears to work failry well. Probably about 60-70% effective. No way to get to 100% accurate in this day and age -- probably never has been...
Nor will be. :)
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentBut you really need milblogs
(#13810)from the other side as well....
Its just a model, you wouldn't want to bank on it.
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parentTrue, plenty of the out there. I don't care much for
(#13871)Riverbend but I check her frequently -- among others. I even read Counterpunch... :)
Recall I said multiple and preferably competing sources.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentA facile cliche, tomsyl
(#13680)"The Left did not want "an honorable exit" from the Vietnam War: they wanted the US humiliated."
A small fringe, maybe: and pace the retroactive revisionist reminisces of so many folks regarding the Vietnam era, the level of "anti-war" sentiment throughout most of the late '60s was never as large (among the general public) as it would later be remembered - and the hardcore of anti-war activism (presumably this being "The Left" you are referring to) was even smaller still. But considering the seemingly endless round of US casualties (for seemingly unattainable goals) the Vietnam conflict produced, public attitudes, even among the generality of the "Left", tended to support, in surprisingly large numbers, the US' war effort for a long time: not really turning "anti-war" until nearly the endgame of the conflict. Hence Nixon's obsession with getting a "peace agreement" (cease-fire) before the 1972 elections, and visibly winding down American involvement - and McGovern's electoral failure in trying to exploit what was, by then, yesterday's issue.
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parentReview your history, Jay C.
(#13691)The "small fringe" you refer to included many of the "heroes" of the anti-war movement - people like Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, Ramsey Clark, Arthur Kunsler, Susan Sontag, Theodore Draper, Daniel Ellsberg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Robert Drinan, Noam Chomsky (surprise!), Bertrand Russell and many others. And they were actively rooting for the fall of South Vietnam long before 1972, claiming that the citizens of that country would be far better off under the Communists than under Thieu. Even today, few of them have the courage or moral fiber to admit how horribly wrong they were.
And I'm surprised to hear you repeat the myth that Nixon was obsessed with the supposed need to have a peace agreement with the North prior to the '72 elections. While a tentative agreement had been reached by the end of October 1972, Thieu had refused to sign, and polls showed Nixon would cream McGovern regardless of whether there was in fact a signed agreement. (Of course, he did.) Blueprints for the Christmas '72 bombing campaign against the North had already been drawn up before the election. The only thing accurate about your summary is that McGovern was widely perceived as too much of a dove and a quitter by the voters, but do you really believe that's the only (or even the primary) reason he lost the election by such a landslide?
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentHistory reviewed by memory, tomsyl
(#13725)Even if you count the names you cite as "heroes of the anti-war movement", you've managed to list a grand total of eleven (twelve if you include McGovern) - and even back in the '60s these people were viewed pretty much as fringe radicals (or sympathizers thereof); and their influence on actual policy was mostly nil - despite a great deal of retrospective self-aggrandizement - at least until about mid-1971 or so (IIRC), when the tide of US public opinion finally tipped to a generalized "anti-war" position (and even then not by much). With which Nixon's policy of "Vietnamizing" the war, and its concomitant reduction of US casualties had a great deal to do.
I may have been unclear in my comment above, though; I did not mean to imply that a "peace agreement" (i.e., a "formal" treaty, or whatever) was the Nixon Administration's main "obsession" about Vietnam. But it's hardly a "myth" that Nixon and his gang, having made their "secret plan to end the war" a mainstay of their first Presidential campaign in 1968, would seek to defuse Vietnam as an issue in their second (1972); and that the only way to do that was to implement a policy (ANY policy) that would reduce US combat deaths/injuries (the only thing the American public really cares about). Of course, it took them nearly four years; but in the end, their strategy worked.
Oh, and fwiw, I agree with you entirely about George McGovern a candidate: even if Nixon hadn't managed to take the Vietnam War off the table as an issue in 1972, he would have still won reelection - and probably by nearly as huge a margin. But it certainly didn't help his prospects that McGovern was perceived (correctly, imo) as the "candidate of the anti-war Movement" - a movement, which by Election Day '72 was well on its way to becoming yesterday's news
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parentHistory reviewed by revisionism...
(#13732)Without wasting time on the petty politics and stupid domestic fomentation around the issue, many miss the fact that after seven years of trying to fight a land war in Europe while stumbling around in the rice paddies of SE Asia, the Army finally got its act together when Westmoreland left and Abrams took over and settled down to fight an insurgency in thsoe rice paddies. It did a good job. Too late to sway Congress but a good job.
That was the start of "Vietnamization." Nixon merely picked it up and ran with it, accelerating parts that were politically (domestically) palatable.
The start of that process? June 1968 -- before Nixon was elected.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentSo how come they lost.
(#13811)And given the industrial power of the south how come
it could not resist the north ? Capitalism versus state
planned failure?
I think that its all lost again in Iraq, the problems
that will eventually bring about the collapse of the
military involvement are not going to be addressed. The
Iraqis shot at us when we arrived and they'll shoot at us
as when we leave all thats changed is we set them back
another 20-30 years like we did with Vietnam.
Its just a model, you wouldn't want to bank on it.
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parentOh, and I forgot (3) Russia and China
(#13883)who heavily backed the North. Or did you think the North Vietnamese built their own MIGs, SAMs and AK-47s? They didn't even have the technology to build artillery pieces without importing the necessary machine tools.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentRussia backed the North, not China
(#13889)China didn't support Vietnam, but they liked us mucking around in the neighborhood even less. They used the situation to screw with us while not having themselves directly on the line. Hmmm - I guess history does repeat itself.
I blame it all on the Internet
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parentThen how did 20,000 Chinese support personnel
(#13897)get killed in Operation Rolling Thunder alone? I don't think Hanoi was doing much tourist trade at the time.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentI should have been clearer
(#13904)China's on again off again support of NV was not on the same level as the USSRs, and the NV were not comfortable with accepting large amounts of Chinese support. As soon as the war ended, their normal hostility towards each other returned. You are correct in that the Chinese did provide support, but more as a way of screwing with the US than because they wanted a strong Vietnam. The USSRs desire was for a client state on China's border, if you recall the USSR and China weren't getting along too well at the time. This paper was quite interesting in that regard:
Chinese influence in the DRV in the early 1970’s was almost non-existent. In 1975, in a meeting between each countries respective diplomats, ensuing allegations and accusations confirmed the removal of Chinese influence in the North Vietnamese communist party.
Soviet influence however remained extremely high with military and material aid continuing at large amounts. The North Vietnamese had become so enthralled with the Soviet model that in fact the Soviets were directly influencing the DRV as to when and what tactics they should be employing in their war against South Vietnam. This is defended a doubling of aid; from 165 million dollars in 1971, to 350 million dollars in 1972 in the anticipation of the Easter Offensive against South Vietnam. Evidently it was the Soviet Union that now controlled the influence game in North Vietnam.
I blame it all on the Internet
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parent(1) Ignoring mimitary planners and (2) a hostile press
(#13829)Bombing the North (manufacture/stockpiling of war materiel) and supply lines (the Ho Chi Minh trail) was very effective every time it was done, and repeatedly forced the North back to the bargaining table, but Johnson's micromanagement, Rules of Engagement that favored avoidance of negative publicity over the lives of US soldiers, and refusal to follow the advice of Westmoreland et al. blunted the effectiveness of this tactic.
The press turned the Tet offensive, which was a major victory for the South, into a defeat, fabricated stories to put the US military in the worst possible light, and swallowed the North's propaganda whole.
The US military had it's own faults in its delays in adapting to a jungle war against insurgents (ignoring the lessons of the Philipines) but it adapted; Johnson never really put military goals above publicity, and actually saw the war as a facet of his Great Society.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentDolchstosslegende, again. -nt-
(#13850).
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentGodwin, again n/t
(#13881)- reply
parentGodwin means . . .
(#13884)that the Right can Dolchstosslegende with impunity. Right? :-)
The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.
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parentA Duet!
(#13887)Keep looking--those fascists must be hiding under there somewhere!
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentWhat Kimmitt said
(#13890)#13888. Well said at that.
Its all the stringers fault and the evil AP that quotes them, right?
As far as cut-n-run, I fear the Shia will hit the fan before we can get two steps towards the door. (a) I oppose cut-n-run and (b) soon enough it will not be an option as Iraq dissolves around us.
The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.
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parentWas wrong. Nope, it's not the Stringers fault, they're
(#13917)(in their view) serving their nation and / or their religion and screwing with the ferenghi's mind by putting out disinformation and getting paid by the stupid Kaffars to do that. A double whammy. They're happy and I applaud them for it. Gotta admire them.
It is the fault of AP and any other outlet that doesn't check things. Period.
Haven't I seen you say it's a media war and we're losing?
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentAnd We'll Keep Mocking It
(#13892)Funny how the folks who are so quick to dismiss reminders of the mistakes of the 1930's are ready to invoke German cliches when it suits their needs.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentHeh! We need to violate Godwin's law
(#13893)in order to uphold it.
Well done.
The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.
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parentThat May Have Sounded Coherent. . .
(#13894). . .in your head, but it didn't come out that way when you typed it. Try again.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentKimmitt, that's a meaningless response.
(#13876)Is there something specific in what I've said that you disagree with? If so, what? Trite, faux-clever dismissals suggest you have nothing substantive to say.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentIt's the media's fault.
(#13888)If they hadn't stabbed us in the back, we'd've won Vietnam!
I'm gonna keep using the word every time someone blames some class of persons -- The Media, Liberals, Leftists, or whatever the relatively large class is -- for the failure of a policy, rather than the architects of that policy.
It's important to me that people understand how deeply ingrained this idea is in conservative thought, that their stuff would have worked if it weren't for those darn liberals/media/lefties/whichever. Blame whomever you like for a failure to enact policy -- that's where interest groups come in. But once one gets to enact one's policies, then one is responsible for them.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentOh Kimmitt, I Can't Believe We're Still Arguing Viet Nam...
(#13933)...it's over, we lost, things are going reasonably well there now. (Stop) End of Story.
Except, since this is an issue for me also...We killed upwards of 5.1 Vietnamese, that was enough.
The people that are arguing this with you couldn't even count this high...Sit them in a corner and the rest of their lives would be spent trying to count the Viet Nam Dead.
*****
Quick answer: Approximately 5.4 million total.
Regarding American casualties, see http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.htm :
The official number is 58,148 killed during service. An additional 114
were captured and died in captivity.
In the 5 years following the war, the suicide rate of veterans was 1.7 times the non-Veteran population, yielding an estimate of 9,000 suicides as a direct result of the war. After 5 years, suicide rates fall back in line with the general population.
(Testimony by Dr. Houk, Oversight on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 14 July 1988 page 17, Hearing before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs United States Senate one hundredth Congress second session. Also "Estimating the Number of Suicides Among Vietnam Veterans" (Am J Psychiatry 147, 6 June 1990 pages 772-776)
A total of approximately 67,000 Americans.
Also on the American "side" were 223,748 South Vietnamese soldiers killed, as well as 5,282 of other nationalities. (See
http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html for the breakdown)
A total of approximately 300,000 so far...
Vietnamese casualties are far less specific, and they were
deliberately falsified prior to 1995, leading to some of the
confusion. According to the Agence France Presse (French Press Agency) as reported on http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html , "...the true
civilian casualties of the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south. Military casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war. These figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese Communists to avoid demoralizing the population."
So approximately 5.1 million total Vietnamese casualites.
And a grand total of approximately 5.4 million.
Another reference coroborrating this number is at:
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/casualty.html
Search terms: vietnam war casualties
*****
Sometimes you just get tired of all the killin`...you know?
Here's a million dots on one page:
http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir2/lots_of_dots/million_dots.html
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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parentOf course we're still arguing Vietnam
(#13956)Iraq was supposed to be the QED.
I don't know how many more people we have to kill -- and countries we have to destroy -- until the conservative apologists for Vietnam finally manage to blame those making decisions for the results of those decisions, but this discussion is apparently something we need to have.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentHow condescending, Those who don't know history
(#13978)are condemned not only to repeat it, but to blunder every time they try to argue about it.
I don't see any "conservative apologists for Vietnam" here. To the contrary, and as I've pointed out to you more than once, it was the Democrats who started and expanded that war, and the Democrats who deserted the South Vietnamese and left them to their fate. I presume you understand the war to at least that level. To the extend it has any relevance, I blame each and every one of them for their screw ups.
But I got no dog in this fight; your party shot itself in the foot, then died performing emergency surgery on itself. Even the funeral was botched.
Your blind spot seems to be your inability to comprehend that the press had an agenda of its own, a Mission from God to end the war at any price, which put it at odds with those same Democrats that had screwed things up so badly. The press reported NV propaganda as fact, changed/falsified information to reflect their agenda, and refused to report important news (like the Tet victory) when it clashed with their agenda. As Ken White put it in detail in comment no. 13914, the press failed to do the job they so often brag that they are doing: to simply tell the truth as best they know it.
There is an important lesson here for people like you, who seem to hold the press on a pedestal and believe that it can do no wrong. For your own good, instead of blithely defending your press heroes, you should study their performance during Vietnam, as it will help remove your blinders.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentBlame The Democrats!!
(#13999)Although, to be more accurate (honest?) you'd have to blame the American people. Sorry. That's just the way it was.
“Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés move us, because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion." - Umberto Eco
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parentSure...
(#13984)...we'll study the press.
You study the Pentagon Papers.
Meaning, that if we idealize the press, and maybe we do, you idealize the military. This is the key to conservative Vietnam revisionism. It shifts the blame to the press, to the politicians, or to the weather in Washington DC, but the Pentagon's discredited leadership (i.e. proven lies), and Rand's deeply flawed formulations of limited warfare are never mentioned.
The last bears examination. A frequent conservative gripe is that the military were limited. Yet, that was the whole friggin' point of fighting "limited" conflicts. It was a formulation devised as early as the late 1940's. Look at Willian Kaufmann's writings during the mid 1950's. War was to be used to "send messages", and was to be limited to a specific area. The whole point was to avoid risking a nuclear exchange. This thinking was developed during the Eisenhower years. Vietnam was born in the mind of Rand 10 years before it happened, but Rand thought of the dynamic between us and the Soviets. The people actually in one of these limited war zones were ignored, and so was the culture of our own military, bred to win rather than loiter.
Blame the democrats all you want, but the pieces were in place before even Kennedy took office, and the Pentagon put them there.
The parallel with Iraq is clear. The neocons think about the GWOT, but the Iraqis on the ground think about themselves, not the global conflict. They may be connected, but they are not the same.
My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton
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parentYou must have come to this late
(#13991)because I have no idea what you're talking about.
I read the Pentagon Papers when they came out, and browsed through them again since then with a more jaundiced eye. What's your point?
Both Ken White and I repeatedly have criticized the performance of the US military in Vietnam; I think you'd have to search to find something positive said about military leaders here. So where in this thread does the supposed idealization of the military in Vietnam come up? The historical record certainly doesn't seem to bear that out, and I don't think Ken said that.
And where did the whole issue about "limited warfare" come from? I didn't raise it, and AFAIK it came from Kennedy and his advisers as far as the war was concerned. If there's a deeper source or significance there, lay it out for us and add to the knowledge base. Just don't think you're disagreeing with something I've been defending.
Again, if you'd followed the thread you would have realized that I raised the party issue only after repeated claims that I was taking a "Republican" position on the Vietnam War. (In fact, you're doing a little "us/them" action yourself in your post.) All of my posts have been based on the historical record as I understand it, though I certainly could be wrong. But I finally got to the point where I couldn't resist pointing out how ludicrous it would be for a conservative to defend a multi-year train wreck by two Democrat administrations (and a Republican one, to be sure) and multiple Congresses.
In sum, you're anticipating arguments I haven't even made, and getting pissed off in the process.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentNo
(#13992)and getting pissed off in the process.
No, I'm fine. Hope you are too. I'm going to bed now though. Good night!
My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton
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parentGood - aloha.
(#13993)-o-0-o-
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentYou're generally correct but the real moral of the story - and
(#13989)of Iraq -- is don't trust Acadmeics and Think Tanks...
Advice the Pentagon and the Politicians should heed.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentThe More You See of War The Less You Like It....
(#13981)...ain't no back stabbing by the MSM going on here.
However, I will note that there is even more Media coverage with the Iraq war than even with Viet Nam. That's the problem, more coverage, more images of maimed and dying American Soldiers, (see HBO's Bagdad ER...makes your blood run cold), the less tolerance the public has for it.
War is an ugly business...it is a constant reminder of your, (yes, you too), your own mortality...you will die, cease to exist, yes, just like a soldier...poke a hole in you anywhere and you leak all over the place.
People don't like to be reminded of this...very evident truth.
No disrespect intended, but Ken keeps saying 10 years...but you know and I know and in your heart you'll admit even if you won't admit to me...
that if the War was presented as a 10 year, multi-billion dollar bleeding of America....
No Way! (Wars need now to be quick...dirty maybe, but quick, kill everybody you can and get out within a year...that's the simple truth)
As I think about this, have you seen how low the dollar has sunk? You, you personally are poorer vis a vis the world for this.
You can bleed if you want...I refuse.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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parentNot back stabbing, just sloppy work. I do not doubt for a
(#13990)second that the 10 years needed may not be available; we're an impatient society and we don't do long term stuff; our attention span is too short. We'll see...
I agree that we should slam in very violently when our interests are threatened or we are attacked -- no matter how small or puny such attack may be; destroy most everything and everyone who gets in the way and then pay big bucks for someone else to clean up the mess. All the while leaving the message "Don't make me come back here, it'll be worse." Two or three of those and this foolishness would stop.
I also agree that the Iraq war was not presented accurately due to knowledge of that patience factor and the fear that it would not be accepted -- precisely the same thing that happened in Viet Nam (and that's one of the very few parallels).
The old one third and two years rule applies. One third of the American people have always been opposed to the war of the moment [most of 'em usually in New England :) ], one third have supported it, the remaining third has initially supported it and after two years, if it's not looking good, have turned against it. Some things don't change much...
You're unnecessarily pessimistic, a low dollar makes US exports more attractive and lessens imports.
Make lemonade, not blood pudding. :)
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentBTW, I Know History Just Fine, Thank You Very Much....
(#13983)...I just refuse to re-write it to suit my tastes and whatever the needs of the moment are.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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parentOk I blame JFK
(#13957)now do you feel better.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
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parentBlame Whoever You Want...The ANSWER To Everything...
(#13966)The Hand Having Writ Moves On...I'm good that way, things happen, life happens, things change...let's just push forward. Though, sometimes I must say I wonder what it all means?
Yes, I know I'm ignoring Santana's epigram, but I was just channel surfing...something I don't do often and yet, I sensed that there was an answer there:
Pale Rider, Clint killing the evil mining Marshals with superhuman abandon...(fine movie)
Apocalypse Now Redux...Marin Sheen going up river...another fine movie, though I still prefer the original, maybe the finest war movie ever...(imo)
Tales of Ugetsu...in Japanese, one warrior opts for love, the other for war...(Nothing changes, not really, not even between vastly different cultures & times)
Sex in The City...Sex, yeah, that's okay too, maybe even a better use of our time....lol
*****
So I bounced back and forth and, yes, I knew it was all there, everything I needed to know about life, right in front of me if I could just wiggle out the essential meanings....
But no, I think I'll go have a steak diner, baked patato, lots of sour cream...that's good too.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
- reply
parentWhat's Santa's epigram?
(#13979)I thought I knew everything there was to know about Christmas.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
- reply
parentThe Diem Brothers
(#13967)which set the table.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
- reply
parentYes, it the Media's fault. They did not and are not stabbing
(#13914)anyone in the back and they no more contributed to the loss of Viet Nam than did LBJ, McNamara and the entire Administration; the Army who fouled it up for seven years or an idiot Congress as the major malefactors, plus a half dozen major and hundreds of other minor factors; they were but one minor factor.
Their documented failure to properly cover the Tet offensive was not helpful and their sloppy reporting wasn't either. However, that doesn't mean they lost VN -- nor does it mean they should have helped us win. It merely means that they should not have let their personal biases influence the things that were reported and they way they stated. They should just have reported fairly and accurately. They did not.
That's called a lack of integrity.
Nor should they have allowed their quest for the dollar and accolades from the educated elite they aspire to be part of but don't quite make to influence them.
That's called venality.
It would have helped had they some idea of what was going on instead of lolling about in Saigon and relying on local stringers or just visiting the occasional unit.
That's called sloppy ignorance.
You keep using that word to your hearts content -- but it would seem to me as an educator and a student you would try to be fair and objective in your application of it.
The Democratic party was in charge in Viet Nam. The Media attacked them and the war. They were not responsible for the loss -- nor were they innocent of doing some damage that contributed to the final answer.
The Republican party was and is in charge in Iraq. The Media has attacked them and the war. They are not responsible for the state of things there -- nor are they innocent of doing some damage that will contribute to the final answer.
I suggest to you the the tendency to ladle out blame is no more a conservative affliction than is the ability to talk restricted to them. I seem to recal a lot of progressive moaning about the Supreme Court, Diebold and many other things.
Whatever happened to all that Diebold screaming, anyway...
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentProperly cover the Tet offensive
(#13926)The failure wasn't at the Tet offensive -- it was in believing the US military's assessment of the situation in the first place without independent verification.
The thought process went like this:
US Military: We're finally winning this thing. The North Vietnamese are incapable of mounting a significant offensive.
US Media: Hey, we're finally winning this thing, as evidenced by the fact that the NVA is incapable of mounting a significant offensive.
(Tet)
US Military: We're definitely winning this thing; look at what we did to their major offensive!
US Media: They weren't even supposed to be able to start this fight! We must be losing this thing, because you lot can't even tell when we have a credible opponent!
US Military: No, seriously, things are a lot better.
US Media: Holy crap, My Lai! Oh my goodness, the Pentagon Papers! Okay, this isn't happening.
It's absurd to be offended at media coverage which parrots the official line or to be offended when the media rejects the entire official line when the official line is demonstrated to be massively false.
That's the lesson of Vietnam -- you can only delude yourself or keep lying for so long until people finally see through it. It's not like we didn't know this; Lincoln kind of has a saying to that effect.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentThat was only the mountain, you missed the foothills.
(#13938)Your extremely simplistic take down suffers from several errors. The media from about mid-1966 forward believed little or nothing the Army PR Flacks in Saigon put out in the daily briefings (regrettably, often probably rightly so) so they did not buy the "we're winning" bit. Not that said flacks were saying that, only some intel types were on the side spouting that -- the media will always trust a leak over facts...
The problem with Tet and the Media was two fold. A lot of 'em got their pants scared off and they didn't understand enough about the topic they were covering (war) to make sense of what happened. As I said, their egregious, even stupid, errors are well documented.
Note in this link how a major intel failure led to that "they can't attack in force" stupidity LINK on the part of the media as it was leaked to them. However, note in this one that the Armed Forces did not promulgate that idea, they knew better. Just the reverse LINK
More background here LINK and here's the definitive exhaustively researched smackdown of the media for screwing the pooch LINK
And lastly, check this LINK -- in particular, read the last two paragraphs. He's got it right. Both parties erred and err and we are all less well off because of it. That has not changed and to deny the media's part in that isn't honest.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentI'm sorry, but your link supports my analysis.
(#13954)From Steven Hayward's analysis:
Yes, the press overblew Tet, but we stayed in Vietnam for six more years after that. If we could have won after Tet, we would have -- and people would have come to understand the meaninglessless of the North Vietnamese assaults during that time. The problem, from start to finish, was the incompetence and repeatedly proven mendacity of those making decisions. Everything else is blaming the powerless for the failures of the powerful.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentYou're making an argument that I am not contesting.
(#13960)I've long said that Viet Nam was screwed up and the blame for that went, in order to Johnson (and Admin), The Army (and specifically Westmoreland), Nixon (and Admin) and Congress. The anti war protesters and the media were minor distractions but were not responsible for the loss.
What I'm saying here does not contradict that -- the media does a lousy job of reporting wars nowadays. This is what I said:
""Their documented failure to properly cover the Tet offensive was not helpful and their sloppy reporting wasn't either. However, that doesn't mean they lost VN -- nor does it mean they should have helped us win. It merely means that they should not have let their personal biases influence the things that were reported and they way they stated. They should just have reported fairly and accurately. They did not.
That's called a lack of integrity.""
Hayward's words do not support what you said in your "analysis" -- they do support the broad thesis that the media wasn't responsible for the loss in Viet Nam -- which was what I've said all along. Your analysis is flawed because it attempts to lay the blame for the errors of the media on the Army. The Army was no more responsible for the errors of the media than the reverse was true.
Both screwed up -- thus why I said the last link I provided above, specifically the last two paragraphs, was important.
The K Codes explained HERE.
- reply
parentIf we could have won after Tet, we would have
(#13959)what are the parameters of the conflict, that is, is total war an option.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
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parentThere's still screaming
(#13923)only now it's bipartisan.
I blame it all on the Internet
- reply
parentNot bipartisan, all the screaming is still by Democrats down
(#13941)here....
Still, sure it's bipartisan -- that's what I said; both sides whine and try to shift blame.
The K Codes explained HERE.
- reply
parentOops, wrong link
(#13947)Here's the one I meant.
I blame it all on the Internet
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parentkos is bipartisan? Who knew... :)
(#13952)Too good to pass up.
But here's one for ol' whereswebb:
Like I said, they all do it, always have, always will...
I endeavor never to disappoint. :)
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentDiebold
(#13920)YARGH!
PS - Another trademark "was, is, always will be" comment from Ken.
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parentActually, you're wrong. That's unusual...
(#13940)That was actually a comment that said Progressives whine and cast blame just as often as do Conservatives, neither has a lock on the market.
Before the 2006 election, the blogs and media were full of conspiracy theorists and others bemoaning that Diebold was going to steal the election for the evil right.
When that didn't happen, the left stopped screaming about the evils of Diebold.
It's about even on both sides.
Thank you for your contribution.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentTrue enough
(#13965)I guess I just see it as there's always been someone whining, the is always someone whining, and there will always be someone whining, regardless of which team is doing the whining.
Agree with you regardless. Personally, I am still wary of electronic voting (regardless of company) without a paper trail (as was debated here pre-election). But that's another issue.
As to the lack of complaints about Diebold stealing elections, if things go your way, you keep your mouth shut (usually). Why complain when things go your way? That said, I think I saw a few posts at dKos about voter problems/irregularities, but those are bound to happen. Voting is a human act and is subject to human error.
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parentI agree. Locally we've got a paper ballot that goes into
(#13971)an opticalscanner. It's quick, rarely has errors and is adaptable -- why anyone would go to touch screens, manipulable software and no true audit capability I can't fathom.
Still as you say, human error will always intrude.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentYour comment is in the wrong thread -
(#13902)perhaps you should start your own.
I've given three reasons why the Vietnam War was "lost" (i.e., why we abandoned the South and allowed it to be overrun by the North), all of which are well established by the historical record. I haven't yet touched on the fourth reason, which is terrible planning (or lack of same) by two Democrat presidents. I've given many citations to well-accepted sources where appropriate.
Instead of responding with any credible reference to the historical record, you've been flinging one-liners and making dismissive comments that indicate to me that you have at best a very minimal understanding of the military and political history of the Vietnam War, or of its aftermath in Asia and in the US.
To the extent you insist on making this a simplistic, black and white political issue, I'll lay it out on your terms:
-a Democrat president started the Vietnam War on the cheap with virtually no planning, no exit strategy, and in part for personal, selfish reasons.
-a Democrat president expanded and totally screwed up the Vietnam War by ignoring military leaders, naively believing that the war was an extension of his failed social policies, and through sheer hubris. He put politics and PR ahead of the lives of American soldiers on a daily basis.
-a Republican president ended the Vietnam War, as he had promised before he was elected.
-a Democrat Congress abandoned the South Vietnamese by breaking the promises the US had made before we withdrew, and is directly responsible for their suffering as refugees, in "re-education" camps, and as tortured prisoners.
Is that clear enough for you? Can you now think of any conceivable reason why a conservative would want to defend the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations?
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentHeh...
(#13928)-a Republican president ended the Vietnam War, as he had promised before he was elected.
Both times!
He had four years and two elections (he recycled the same campaign slogans) to end that war. I am sure that the GOP will certainly grant a possible Democratic President 4 years to end the fighting in Iraq if they inherit it in 2008. Yes, indeed.
I hated LBJ and I hated Nixon. But don't right off Nixon's part in the war as an afterthought.
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parentWhy Deal With All That. . .
(#13905). . .when a new form of "Republicans are fascists!" is available as a new toy? Plus, using lengthy German words impresses. . .well, it *might* impress really dumb people.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentIt wasn't just the fascists...
(#13927)...who referenced the Dolchstosslegende; that meme, however, was instrumental in their rise to power. The more important thing is how it neatly divided up Germany into those who supported the war effort and those who sought to undermine it -- and Germany as a whole. And it's that selfsame division of America into those two camps, combined with the relentless conservative inability to take responsibility for failed policy, which needs to be exposed to the sunlight.
So long as it's Someone Else's fault that a given policy failed, no one has to acknowledge the actual causes, and we keep doing the same thing over and over. Iraq was the conservatives' big chance to "prove" that it was the liberals who lost Vietnam; now that it's going down the tubes, the same meme is regaining currency.
One other lesson one might take from Vietnam is that one shouldn't elect Texans to the Presidency, as they tend to get us into stupid wars. I'm comfortable with that.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentI can buy no Texans for a while. However, don't give
(#13972)Massachusets a pass; Kennedy was the dodo who went into Viet Nam. He started the war to boost the economy, Johnosn merely took over and screwed it up even more...
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentScale.
(#14000)Kennedy got us in, but Johnson got us all the way in. I mean, Eisenhower sent in some advisors, but we don't blame him. Much.
I'm glad we've found common ground on the Texas thesis, though. :)
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentDidn't Marx write that history repeats
(#13903)Too easy, too easy:
My critique of the Iraq war in a nutsehll:
The proper balance between defense and welfare are the tectonic plates that lie beneath our political discourse.
- reply
parentI'm thinking of starting a new diary
(#13906)where people can compare (or not) Iraq to Vietnam. (Teddy Kennedy shouting "quagmire" between belches doesn't make the point well, in my view.) There are some startling parallels, though they don't necessarily lead in the direction you're going.
Although this diary was about RFK, it immediately turned into one about Vietnam, so the interest is there if we haven't run out of gas.
BTW, has the diarist him/herself ever appeared? Curious.
AFA your "too easy" comment, my post was a Cliff Notes summary on a matchbook looked at through the wrong end of a telescope, which means your response is of equal dignity.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentHa!
(#13908)Nice passive voice. The diary didn't turn itself into one about Vietnam, you turned it into one with the second comment, the one that accused the left of wanting the US to be humiliated. You did a good job of inflaming the discussion, at least take credit for it.
I blame it all on the Internet
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parentI'm not at all shy about anything
(#13916)and will happily take credit for starting such an interesting discussion - thanks! ("Inflaming" is a little charged, though, don't you think?) But if you want to go back to talking about RFK, I'm sure not stopping you.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentCome on, Kimmett
(#13891)blaming others is the only thing Republicans are really good at! To ask them to give that up would leave them without any rhetorical weapons at all!
I blame it all on the Internet
- reply
parentI thought you had more sense tha that...
(#13915)The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentHuh?
(#13919)you have more snark in your pinky than I have in my whole body! :)
I blame it all on the Internet
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parentYou have more pink in your snarky than
(#13925)than, than, where was I? Never mind, it'll come back to me. Consider yourself chastised or something.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentWhat do you know about chastisy? nt
(#13930)I blame it all on the Internet
- reply
parentity. i-t-y, ity. . . . Thank you for the compliment
(#13942)And he's forgotten all he knew about it... :)
The K Codes explained HERE.
- reply
parentShrieking About Fascists Under The Bed--Again nt
(#13862)To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentMisused again! - nt
(#13853)“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
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parentMaybe if it's used often enough, it'll be right eventually?
(#13872)The K Codes explained HERE.
- reply
parentHorribly wrong
(#13702)They were off by one; turns out that Cambodia was better off with Vietnam Communist. Weird, but there it is -- if we hadn't taken out Sihanouk, it's likely the Khmer Rouge wouldn't have had him as a figurehead or the kind of NV and Chinese support they got.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentHoly crap!
(#13712)Do you really believe the US is somehow responsible for the genocide in Cambodia?? I thought Chomsky was the only one still arguing that. And haven't you left out the NVA invasion of Cambodia after we left Vietnam?
Are you aware that the plans for the genocide in Cambodia were laid out by Khieu Samphan in 1959? The same Khieu Samphan that became the Khmer Rouge's commander in chief, and later, Cambodian head of state?
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
- reply
parentpartly crap!
(#13806)I think the number one nation to suffer bombing throughout History is Laos. But it wasn't necessarily "agressive bombing." I believe that pilots unloaded much of their payload in what they hoped were uninhabited valleys - apparently bombers can't return to base and land carrying bombs. Cambodia however is number two after Laos and unlike Laos it did suffer aggressive bombing, meant to cause much damage to the villages near the border with Vietnam.
Pol Pot had long been marginalized and chased from the centre of political life in Cambodia. The US bombing brought new life to his movement. Terrified villagers fled to the Capital often leaving their children behind with the KR who would feed them and promise to give them a role in helping Cambodia regain its lost national dignity. Without the US bombing it's not clear that the genocide would have occurred.
The only atrocities that the KR planned were the actions against their own cadres which came towards the end of the regime. There were some 30,000 deaths associated with the S21 torture and interrogation centre. With the failure of the "Four Year Plan" (even the plan was not KR handiwork but taken from the Chinese) Pot grew unstable and paranoid. The party turned against itself and Cambodia started launching incursions against its neighbours. This and the presense of KR defectors like Hun Sen was what led the Vietnamese to invade.
Regardless of anything Samphan may have done, the mass deaths and killings in Cambodia were not planned. They arose from criminal negligence, callous disregard for suffering, and stupidity. The KR and the US share blame here.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentCambodian bombing
(#13877)Though I haven't studied the issue in depth, I know that the bombing of Cambodia had two purposes: interdiction of supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was being used to provide ammunition to VC/NVA forces in the South, and destruction of Cambodian VC/NVA bases (including COSVN). Believing the US and ARVN would not cross the border, the VC located the HCM Trail just inside Cambodia, which is where most of the bombing took place. Similarly, the subsequent "invasion" of Cambodia, which was primarily by ARVN troops, penetrated only about fifteen miles into Cambodia.
You seem to be suggesting that the bombing in Cambodia indiscriminately targeted villages there. Do you have any proof of that?
Keeping in mind that the VC had already occupied this part of Cambodia since the mid-1960's, it is hard to believe that large numbers of Cambodians still lived there. And the Cambodian government itself
I'll respond next to the kind, noble picture you seem to be painting of the Khmer Rouge at this point in that movement's development, as well as your claim that the death of as much as half of Cambodia's population was not planned.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
- reply
parentbrace yourself for this shocking eye-opener
(#13988)There's some fairly newly released info about the bombing of Cambodia here:
http://migs.concordia.ca/links/documents/Bombs_over_Cambodia_Kiernan.pdf
I hadn't been aware of this, so thanks for egging me on to delve into the dirty details.
I haven't read any Shawcross. I've read Chomsky long ago and I thought it was pretty solid as media criticism. I've never used Chomsky to study Cambodian History. Mostly Kiernan, and a smattering of other historians and first hand accounts. Pin Yathay's "Stay Alive, My Son" is a good example of the latter. I also have some of my own theories which I've never seen in print. Not about the bombing, mind you, but about the nature of the genocide. I won't bore you with them here.
Some quotes from the pdf:
After telling Kissinger that the US Air Force was being unimaginative, Nixon demanded more bombing, deeper into the country: “They have got to go in there and I mean really go in...I want everything that can fly to go in there and crack the hell out of them. There is no limitation on mileage and there is no limitation on budget. Is that clear?” Kissinger knew that this order ignored Nixon’s promise to Congress that US planes would remain within thirty kilometres of the Vietnamese border, his own assurances to the public that bombing would not take place within a kilometre of any village, and military assessments stating that air strikes were like poking a beehive with a stick. He responded hesitantly: “The problem is, Mr. President, the Air Force is designed to fight an air battle against the Soviet Union. They are not designed for this war...in fact, they are not designed for any war we are likely to have to fight.” Five minutes after his conversation with Nixon ended, Kissinger called General Alexander Haig to relay the new orders from the president: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” The response from Haig, barely audible on tape, sounds like laughter....
The last phase of the bombing, from February to August 1973, was designed to stop the Khmer Rouge’s advance on the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The United States, fearing that the first Southeast Asian domino was about to fall, began a massive escalation of the air war — an unprecedented B-52 bombardment that focused on the heavily populated area around Phnom Penh but left few regions of the country untouched. The extent of this bombardment has only now come to light. The data released by Clinton shows the total payload dropped during these years to be nearly five times greater than the generally accepted figure. To put the revised total of 2,756,941 tons into perspective, the Allies dropped just over 2 million tons of bombs during allof World War II, including the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 15,000 and 20,000 tons, respectively. Cambodia may well be the most heavily bombed country in history....
Years after the war ended, journalist Bruce Palling asked Chhit Do, a former Khmer Rouge officer, if his forces had used the bombing as anti-American propaganda. Chhit replied: Every time after there had been bombing, they would take the people to see the craters, to see how big and deep the craters were, to see how the earth had been gouged out and scorched.... The ordinary people sometimes literally shit in their pants when the big bombs and shells came. Their minds just froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days. Terrified and half crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told. It was because of their dissatisfaction with the bombing that they kept on co-operating with the Khmer Rouge, joining up with the Khmer Rouge, sending their children off to go with them.... Sometimes the bombs fell and hit little children, and their fathers would be all for the Khmer Rouge. The Nixon administration knew that the Khmer Rouge was winning over peasants. The CIA’S Directorate of Operations, after investigations south of Phnom Penh, reported in May 1973 that the Communists were “using damage caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda.” But this does not seem to have registered as a primary strategic concern.
I don't want to belabour the point, and note that I said that the US and the KR shared blame for the genocide. They also shared stupidity, negligence and a disregard for life.
About the refugee population of the Capital, check out the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phnom_Penh
At the time of the KR take-over, the population was 2,000,000, the bulk (ie more than half) were refugees. This corresponds to how I remember reading it in a now forgotten source.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
- reply
parentThanks for raising some interesting points
(#14007)but you might want to be careful how far you go based one obscure source. AFAIK, the article, which itself provides no sources, is from a general-interest website oriented towards current Canadian social issues. That doesn't mean the article is wrong, just that it is not at the same level as a peer-reviewed paper from a college of institution noted for historical research.
I am more concerned about the underlying premise of the article, which seems to be saying that there is a database of Cambodian bombing sorties going back to 1965, which was given to the Vietnamese government in 2000 by Clinton. There's no indication that the authors have seen this information, and they provide no clue on where to locate it. I've never heard of this before, and would like to know where this information can be found. I'm skeptical that something this important would not hit the press until six years after Clinton supposedly made the information available to the Vietnamese.
Obviously many aspects of the Vietnam War were concealed from the American people - Operation Menu itself was kept secret for four years. But when it surfaced, there were tens of thousands of pages of data, witnesses etc. that proved it had occurred. At this point, the only suggestion that bombing took place in Cambodia in 1965 is an unsourced article from an obscure Canadian website. It's hard to take your allegations seriously without at least some evidence.
Similarly, there's no source provided for the quotes in the article, just a reference to a tape. Where is the tape, and is a transcript available? Again, if Nixon was lying about the scope of Operation Menu (entirely possible), that would be news, and a tape showing that should be readily available. (Love the part about Haig's laugh, though - probably more like a demonic cackle.)
Vague statements in Wikipedia about the population of Phnom Penh rounded off to the nearest million aren't helpful. Again, these are serious issues about which a lot has been written, and if you want to make the point that the US bears responsibility for the Cambodian genocide (which you seem to), you'll have to grapple with these sources (some of which make the same argument you do) and dig deeper than Wikipedia. It sounds like you've already done some of this, so how about better demographic information?
Where did the Palling quote come from? I can't find it. Is it from a documentary he produced?
Chomsky is useless on this subject except as a carnival sideshow; he was an early convert to the kindness, love and inner beauty of the Khmer Rouge, and has had difficulty admitting he might have been wrong.
I acknowledge that you've "said that the US and the KR shared blame for the genocide." Thanks! - it's nice to know that the deaths of half of the population of Cambodia isn't entirely our responsibility in your eyes. I'm always surprised and heartened when the people who pull the triggers get to share in some of the blame.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentChomsky, meet Tomsky
(#14009)Chomsky today is excoriated for giving the benefit of the doubt to the KR. As far as I know, he spent the period of the genocide in Boston, and read all the press and reports on Cambodia that crossed his desk. He read them skeptically. "Wait a minute, these are sourced only to refugees - notoriously unreliable informants." You get the picture, you're doing much the same here with the sources I present. (I won't raise your own use of Wiki while criticizing my use of it.) You're right to do this, and you may turn out to be correct, just as Chomsky was wrong. Just be careful though. You may find yourself repeating exactly the same objections that cost Chomsky so dearly...
There are undoubtedly a lot of valid questions you raise about the pdf. On the other hand, consider its freshness. It's dated October 2006. You almost can't get any more up-to-date than that. This is not some musty old thing that's been lying around ignored on the Internet for years. Perhaps in future, it will attract more attention. Consider also the co-author, Kiernan. He's the most thorough author on Cambodia I've read, and I suppose he must be among the top scholars on the subject in the West. I seem to remember criticism of him as being something of a Pinko in his student days, but today he's pretty well embedded in the establishment: A history professor at Yale, and director of the Yale Genocide Studies Programme, funded by Mellon, Soros, Coca Cola, and other mainstream or non Leftist entities. This programme is also the repository for maintaining the S21 archives. This is about as authorative a source as one can find - especially for free, on the Internet.
By the way, I looked through some of my books and found that Chanda, Kiernan and Chandler all refer to Palling's interviews, even the Chhit Do interview specifically. Palling was based in Bangkok Thailand in 1976 according to footnotes. In Chandler's Brother Number One, on page one, it states: "The city's population included over one million refugees, driven from their homes in rural areas." If you've got an Amazon password, you can read the first page for yourself apparently. The link is right here. This is admittedly unsourced...
I don't know why it should surprise you that I hold the KR and the US responsible for their actions. Try to read what I write instead of whatever else might be going through your mind. I've been trying to be clear about my take on these events.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentClever tag, but no substitute for depth
(#14019)Is there support for the article you cited or not? Simple question. The date and the author are not relevant in that context, particularly since the authors state that the information they rely on has been available since 2000. Where's that information? Again, simple question, with no answer so far. The fact that one of the authors may have done other word that is scholarly doesn't magically lend credibility to what is again an extremely obscure piece that you've cited. If Kiernan is so confident of his position, why wasn't the article published under Yale's imprimatur?
(Hint: you didn't enhance your credibility by pointing to Soros as a funding source of a "non-Leftist entity".)
Based on the existence of Operation Menu itself, I would have no problem believing of the existence of another, earlier Cambodian bombing program, if presented with supporting facts. You're far from there.
You say I'm being skeptical as to 'the sources you present," So far you've produced only one, and I think my skepticism is warranted.
Where am I relying on Wikipedia?
Are you sure you want to sign onto Chomsky's position vis a vis the KM as legitimate? You'll be embarrassed if you do.
"Driven from their homes in rural areas" by what?
As for your entirely predictable attempt to blame the US for the KR's insanity, I didn't say you surprised me. And guessing about what I'm thinking when I haven't expressed it is known here as pulling a Carnac. Ask me if you don't know what that means.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentthe depth is in the tag
(#14058)The rest is opera.
The pdf I linked to earlier was from a general readership magazine. As with the press in general, it doesn't use footnoting and its articles are not subject to peer-review. These are usually associated with scholarly writing.
I've searched around a bit and I figure this is a page of the primary author:
http://www.prio.no/page/CSCW_staff_details/Programme_detail_CSCW/9400/37588.html
and Kiernan's page is here:
http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/kiernan.html
Rather than asking me why the piece wasn't published by Yale, you can go directly to the horse's mouth. Ben's email address is right there at the bottom of the page. I really can't answer your questions - and I don't dispute that they are worthwhile. I've only got a few books on the topic and a faulty memory.
I understand Soros is a very generous contributor to the Democratic Party. Kerry voted for the war in Iraq and Clinton brought us NAFTA. Soros is truly not a Leftist if he is sincere in his support for the Democrats, or Yale for that matter. Doesn't Yale in particular have a reputation as a Rightish institution?
The "back-dating" of the bombing is just as new to me as it is to you. I just seem to have more faith in Kiernan as a source than you do. You stated earlier that the bombing was concentrated just inside the border. This map shows otherwise:
http://maps.library.yale.edu/website/cgp/viewer.htm
You gotta select the "US bombing" button.
Yale also gives us the Nixon Kissenger transcript you were asking about earlier:
http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/Box%2029,%20File%202,%20Kissinger%20%96%20President%20Dec%209,%201970%208,45%20pm%20%200.pdf
Maybe if you read the transcript and see that it conforms to the Owen/Kiernan version, you might be a little less skeptical... In any case it's quite a fascinating conversation.
You cite Wiki in an earlier post about Cambodia. You can find it easily.
"Are you sure you want to sign onto Chomsky's position vis a vis the KM as legitimate? You'll be embarrassed if you do." Sorry, I'm not at all clear about your meaning here.
"Driven from their homes in rural areas" by what?" I covered this in previous posts. It was the bombing. You can go over my previous posts and the pdf if you need clarification.
About your last paragraph, I have never spoken of KR insanity. Same goes for the US. Please don't abuse me this way. I believe the genocide came out of negligence, stupidity and callousness. And both the KR and the US had these qualities in spades. This is an infinitely more interesting direction our conversation could take. But you insist on nipping at my heels over tedious questions like did the US bombing result in refugees and where did they end up... Don't be such a Chomskyite!
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentYou're way too sensitive, ML.
(#14066)Please don't abuse me this way.
C'mon - this is a spirited dialog, not the Shootout at the OK Corral. You've raised some interesting issues and I've responded. Don't be hissy.
You've not cited a "general readership magazine" - I would be surprised if anyone here has ever heard of "The Walrus" before (though I could be wrong). The lack of cites is just that. It makes it impossible to verify the general claims made in the article. I'm as interested as you are in finding out if those allegations are true.
Yale most emphatically does not have a reputation as a "Rightist institution."
Do you doubt that the KR leadership was insane? And by claiming that the US was a cause of, or a contributing factor in, the genocide in Cambodia, what else are you doing but arguing that this country ultimately has some responsibility for the acts of unspeakably murderous psychopaths? In fact, you just did that again in your last paragraph above.
Why is the question of whether bombing caused refugees "tedious"? It is central to your hypothesis. I can understand you using "Chomskyite" as an insult, though, even if it doesn't fit here.
I've never questioned Kiernan's credentials, just the article. Academics don't automatically bestow an aura of authenticity to everything they write. If that were true, citations and peer reviews would be formalities.
I'll respond further after I've read your links, which I appreciate you tracking down.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentwe should continue when new info comes out
(#14086)we're getting out topic, but here goes:
You've not cited a "general readership magazine" - I would be surprised if anyone here has ever heard of "The Walrus" before (though I could be wrong)"
Here's something from the magazine's "About" page:
The Walrus launched in September of 2003 with a straightforward mandate: to be a Canadian general-interest magazine with an international outlook. We are committed to publishing the best work by the best writers from Canada and elsewhere on a wide range of topics for readers who are curious about the world.
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/about/
I also checked through a number of other articles in the magazine, some written by widely recognized Canadian commentators, and couldn't find a single footnote, or any evidence of peer-review. I promise you this is not unusual. Most magazines published in Canada, including the Canadian versions of US mags like Time are identical in this regard. It's as if you are carping about a piece written in New York Times because it wasn't peer reviewed or contained not footnotes...
I thought Yale was the last of the prestigious universities in the US to accept women as students. There were recent stories in the news of the administration blocking the unionization of some of its employees and another story of it firing a radical professor. It's even the home of the notorious "Skull & Bones" society, which is the template for all other such organizations. Maybe it's not rightish, but it's certainly not traditionally a Left institution, not like, say Counterpunch, for example. Still, you can always blow some smoke on Kiernan's student days if you wanna go that route.
I don't know what to think about insanity. I can never be certain about the sincerity of such charges. It seems a common thread among American commentators. Chavez is insane. Castro is wacko. Ahmedinejad is Crazy. Kim is a loony. Saddam is nuts. I could go on and on. I understand the Cambodian genocide without positing Pot hearing strange voices and talking to himself. It arise from very plain vanilla facts: Problems of logistics, stupidity, cruelty, isolation and negligence. There was delusion too. But nothing more dramatic the America's neo-cons thinking they could install a pro-Israel gov't in Iraq. America layed the groundwork with its bombing. I could really get on your tits by telling you of some of the rumours swirling around the Capital at the time of the take-over - how the US CIA in a maneuver against the pro-Moscow/Vietnam "Hun Sen faction" supplied the pro-Beijing/Monarchist faction under Pol Pot with vital codes and information but I don't think you'd appreciate it.
The question of the number of refugees is tedious because I have the impression that you would not be satisfied with any number I put forth. Let me make something clear. At the time of the KR take-over the Capital, and the whole country were in chaos. There was no census taken. The exact number of refugees will never be known. Sincere historians, with no discerable axe to grind, and not carrying water for some ideological position, have come up with the figure of 1,000,000. I have never seen any serious disputing of the number which is of course only an estimate. It's worth noting that the actual death toll in the genocide is subject to a great deal of dispute. I've seen figures, maybe as low as 700,000 deaths all the way up to over 2,000,000. I really don't think I can give you an answer you will find acceptable. I think you've got some pretty strong views, and maybe you could give me your take on the refugee issue. Your own sources, for example. You don't give an impression of being open minded on the matter. That's why it's tedious.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentI am the walrus, you are the egg man (eggplant?)
(#14094)The Walrus can call itself anything it wants - it's obscure. The issue isn't footnotes, peer review, etc.; it's the fact that at this point there's no way to verify the claims made by the authors. There are many sites with credibility and track records that continue to examine the history of the Vietnam war, and AFAIK your article appears in none of them. That doesn't mean Kiernan et al. are wrong, just that at this point they have relatively low credibility. As I've said repeatedly, I look forward to receiving hard information about a broader, earlier Cambodian bombing campaign if it exists.
I don't understand your "insanity" comments. Do you dispute that a man who was directly responsible for the deaths of as many as half of his countrymen was insane? Do you think Hitler was insane? Idi Amin? Am I misreading you, or are you saying that he Cambodia genocide under Pol Pot arose from factors that were "nothing more dramatic the America's neo-cons thinking they could install a pro-Israel gov't in Iraq"? I hope not.
I don't recognize the "get on your tits" euphemism, but please don't. %^>
Yale recently admitted the Taliban's former deputy foreign secretary as a student (though I don't know if he's been admitted to the Skull and Bones yet). Still think it's a conservative institution?
I thought I was clear on the refugee issue, but I'll repeat: the reason for the refugees fleeing the countryside has not been made clear by you. You seem to take it for granted that American bombing was the cause. However, the historical record shows that bombing was limited to areas that were withing 15 miles of the border, and were heavily occupied by the NVA. And of course, the NVA moved en masse into Cambodia across that same border after US forces left South Vietnam. The exact number of refugees that fled to the capital is not important in this context.
Do you really think it's essential to determine whether Pol Pot killed 700,000 Cambodians, 2,000,000, or some other number?
What part of Canada do you hail from? I'm guessing Montreal or its environs - certainly Quebec.
I look forward to more discussions with you on this and other subjects, ML.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentThe Walrus was Pol?
(#14156)About your charges of insanity, you haven't made a clear case. The fact that genocide took place is not enough. I think Hitler probably was insane towards the end. He was under tremendous stress and doped up on all sorts of pills. Idi Amin may have also been insane. We have plenty of reports of his sadistic cruelty on record. I never read anything about Pol Pot to indicate insanity. In fact all portraits show him as a jovial, smiling, avuncular figure. He did become mistrustful of his party members, ("paranoid") but that was well into the life of the regime and the genocide. I mentioned the neo-cons and their delusions. I meant to show that Pol Pot suffered from delusions (restoring the glory of Angkor) but not as a psychotic, thinking he's Jesus or whatever. You can call the whole episode of Cambodian History "insane" in a metaphorical sense, and I don't have much of a problem with that. As to the origins of the genocide, I believe they arose from a variety of factors I mentioned in previous posts. I disagree that Pot was "directly" responsible for the genocide in the sense that he planned it. As I said it was more of a case of criminal negligence. Pot was the main actor, but the genocide was more along the lines of Mao's famines than Hitler's Action Groups. In Cambodia you had an isolated group of mediocrities issuing hare-brained orders to be carried out by ignorant and resentful teenagers. And to compound the mind-numbing tragedy, many of the KR were decent men and women who loved their nation and wished its people only the best. A very large portion of the middle-cadres were high school teachers!
About the bombing along the border, you should read the Nixon transcript again before you talk freely about the "historical record".
The border area is jungle and has never been densely populated. If you believe that Cambodian refugees were only filtering into the Capital from this region, I can understand your shying away from the 1,000,000 figure. Only the historical record - the links from Yale and Georgetown I provided earlier - indicates otherwise.
I don't think it's essential to determine the exact number of victims, I raised the point only to show that the question of the number refugees would undoubtedly be just as contentious and elusive. Any number I put forth would be subject to dispute. That's not to dismiss your objections, but more a plea for you to lay your cards on the table and put forth your own figure, adequately sourced, of cource. Maybe we could amicably split the difference.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentAsymptotes?
(#14160)We're getting closer on the factual issues, which seems a good sign to me. However, your characterization of Pol Pot as a a "jovial, smiling, avuncular figure" is, ah, unique. I'm sticking with my characterization of him as insane. As in the opposite of sane.
AFA the depth of the bombing is concerned, the historical record at present is that it penetrated no more than fifteen miles into Cambodia. That record consists in part of the declassified bombing sortie maps, ROEs and orders of battle for the various components of Operation Menu. Your article refers to a tape but provides no particulars. When this discussion started I asked for a link to a transcript. If you provided one, I missed it. If not, there is no "Nixon transcript" at this point, just some writers putting some words in quotation marks.
Please tell me what forces you believe were driving the refugees from the Cambodian countryside into Phnom Penh. I thought you were blaming it on American bombing, but now I'm not sure. I agree that it's improbable that bombing, or any other activity, solely along the border would have resulted in a million Cambodian refugees.
I'll accept any number of victims of the genocide you think is appropriate - it's still genocide as that term is commonly used. If you believe the term is misused in the context of Cambodia, you'll appreciate Chomsky's writings on the subject. But I don't get the impression you're buying what Chomsky is selling, so splitting the difference sounds fine to me.
See, we are getting closer.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parenthyperboli
(#14172)The characterizing of Pot as "avuncular" is not mine. I have never met the man. I read it in several of the books about him. If you have any evidence of his "clinical" insanity, (like Hitler's drug use and emotional outbursts, or Amin's Sadism) you can present it here. I'd be curious to see it.
The links to the maps and transcript are here:
http://maps.library.yale.edu/website/cgp/viewer.htm
and here:
http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/Box%2029,%20File%202,%20Kissinger%20%96%20President%20Dec%209,%201970%208,45%20pm%20%200.pdf
I really think you should consider these. You may also want to re-read all my previous posts, especially post #14058, which you seem not to have read with full attention.
Nixon's exhortation not to let mileage limit the bombing (quoting from memory) runs counter to the Historical Record as you see it, and seem unwilling to share here by posting links.
I'll accept any number of victims of the genocide you think is appropriate - it's still genocide as that term is commonly used. If you believe the term is misused in the context of Cambodia, you'll appreciate Chomsky's writings on the subject. But I don't get the impression you're buying what Chomsky is selling, so splitting the difference sounds fine to me.
I'm sorry for not making myself clearer. You seem to have completely misunderstood my gist. I don't wish to argue over the number of deaths in the genocide, regardless how you wish to define it. Instead I've been interested in the number of refugees in Phnom Penh from US bombing and have been since I first posted to this thread. I raised the issue of the numbers of victims of the genocide "only to show that the question of the number refugees would undoubtedly be just as contentious and elusive." This time I'm quoting myself from post #14156. It was also in this post I asked you to "you to lay your cards on the table and put forth your own figure" for refugees coming into the Capital from the countryside. I'm still waiting.
All this post is simply repeating myself... time to take a break from this discussion I think.
Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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parentThanks for the links; the map supports your position
(#14276)that the bombing in Cambodia was far more widespread than the Operation Menu documents indicate. I'll attempt to locate the source documents on which the map is based, and will post here any links that I find.
The Nixon-Kissinger transcript was very interesting, too. It's not completely clear what "mileage" means in context, but there certainly are strong indications that Nixon didn't particularly care where the bombing took place as long as it was effective.
It's been fun.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentGood Stuff Micky....(Memory Road)
(#14174)I'm not sure that the following answers you question, but your posts on this has caused me to look up Pol Pot because I remember being resentful of his peaceful (?) death in 1998. The following is from this link, it is an amazing read:
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pot.html
1969 - Beginning in March, the US begins secret bombing raids on Vietnamese communist sanctuaries and supply routes inside Cambodia (dubbed the 'Menu Series'). Authorised by the newly installed US President, Richard M. Nixon, and directed by his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, the raids are illegal, as the US has not officially declared war on Cambodia. In 14 months, 110,000 tons of bombs are dropped. When news of the raids is leaked, Kissinger orders surveillance and phone tapping of suspects to uncover the source.
US bombing raids into Cambodia will continue until 1973. All told, 539,129 tons of ordnance will be dropped on the country, much of it in indiscriminate B-52 carpet-bombing raids. The tonnage is about three and a half times more than that (153,000 tons) dropped on Japan during the Second World War.
******
Which lead to this contemplation and Franzt Fanon:
http://www.robertfulford.com/PolPot.html
Which in turn leads back to me...isn't everything about me? Unless it's you thinking something, then everything, including me, is about you...and visa versa.
And my radical youth...Lenin, Fanon, The Wrenched of the Earth, Revolutionary Romanticism....
What a strange trip...I can barely remember that person now.
hummmm...you've spurred my mind...Thanks.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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parentI completely disagree with your position on Laos bombing
(#13839)you said:
I think the number one nation to suffer bombing throughout History is Laos.
If you're referring to tonnage, a cite would be helpful. But bombing remote jungle where the NVA resupply routes ran and concentrations of NVA soldiers doesn't remotely compare to carpet bombing of cities like Dresden.
While you're right about the Vietnamese invasion, your claim that the US is to blame for the genocide in Cambodia sounds like it might have come from either Shawcross or Chomsky, both of whom have been completely discredited. I'll respond further with links when I have more time.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentUS responsible.
(#13726)Of course not -- the Cambodian genocide was an unintended consequence; it's just that that sort of thing is what happens when you start deposing people willy-nilly. Eventually what comes after in some countries is even worse. There is, perhaps, a lesson there for modern times.
Wasn't that more or less a response to the US's acquisition of Cambodia as a client state? That is, didn't we fail to make sure that if we were going to use Cambodia, it should have the capacity to handle the enmity of its neighbors? The whole reason Cambodia was tilting gently toward Vietnam was that its leadership correctly understood that the country had no capacity to match the NVA in any kind of conflict and had to work around that.
I wasn't aware that the plans for genocide had been laid out that early, but they'd be irrelevant if the Khmer Rouge hadn't come to power, an event which was made far more likely by fallout from our interventions in Cambodia.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentPoint of order...
(#13733)I believe that Tomsyl was talking about "the NVA invasion of Cambodia *after we left* Vietnam" (emphasis added) - which probably *cannot* be plausibly described as "more or less a response to the US's acquisition of Cambodia as a client state?"
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
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parentOh.
(#13738)My understanding is that the NVA's invasion at that time was to stop the genocide of ethnic Vietnamese (and, as something of a side effect, stop the genocides in general), so I don't know that I'd call it a bad thing, precisely.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentBefore going further, are you relying on Shawcross' book?
(#13741)If so, we need to resolve that issue before getting into what actually happened in Cambodia.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentIn all honesty,
(#13764)I'm relying on Wikipedia.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parent1968
(#13682)Nixon also promised "an honorable end" to the war. The darn thing continued to drag on for another four years and how many Americans and Vietnamese died for that "honor" in those four years?
As for the "humilation". please, .people just wanted it over period. I remember my daddy talking about the possibility of him being drafted when I was little, about 1966. 6 years later my future husband was sent to Vietnam (1972), where the war still claimed American lives.
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parentSee comment 13691 above re: who I'm talking about,
(#13693)and what they wanted. Look at the careers of some of these people: how they swallowed whole and regurgitated NV propaganda, how they argued that the entire war was a war crime, their claims that the people in the South would be infinitely better off under the Communists, etc. They were wrong about everything.
This is an important part of the history of the Vietnam War, and it won't go away just because some people find it partisan or repugnant.
Of course people wanted the war over with - who wouldn't? I sure did - each year I got a lottery number before the draft was canceled.
The principal issue that remained for the government to resolve was what would happen to South Vietnam when we withdrew. Maybe that was not that different from issues relating to a withdrawal from Iraq.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentThey were wrong about everything.
(#13700)As I recall, we did not win the Vietnam War, and the Vietnamese were not better off because we fought it. So there's some good information there.
"In the very long run, we are all dead." -- John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes
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parentReread my comment.
(#13711)From virtually the beginning of major US involvement in the Vietnam War, the people I've mentioned argued vehemently that the people of South Vietnam would be better off under the Communist regime from the North that we trying to take over the country than the authoritarian regime they were living under. Many of them have never admitted what a horrible mistake that was.
After the US withdrawal, a Democrat-controlled Congress passed the War Powers Act and withdrew all financial and war materiel support for the South Vietnamese Army, which meant there was nothing to stop the North Vietnamese from violating all of the non-aggression promises they had made at the peace accords. Which, of course, they immediately did.
The humanitarian disaster in what used to be South Vietnam is the direct result of the actions and inactions of Congress, not Nixon.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentWell, they would have been....
(#13710)...better off if they'd lost it. :^)
-“It is unwise for the government to tell people how they can spend their money” - Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee, on on-line gambling, 2009
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parentWhich Left wanted the US humiliated?
(#13677)All Democrats? Some marginal groups? What % of the US are we talking about?
This place is my vacation.
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parentNo
(#13674)they wanted the US humiliated.
So you say. With what proof, I have no idea. The left wanted to get out of Viet-Nam because the left thought that the war was wrong, and that it was in practice a war on the Vietnamese people. Unlike Iraq, there was absolutely no threat whatsoever to the United States presented by Vietnam, either before, during, or after the war.
My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' -Chesterton
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parentCompletely ahistoric
(#13695)Unlike Iraq, there was absolutely no threat whatsoever to the United States presented by Vietnam, either before, during, or after the war.
You disagree with three presidents, starting with JFK, then? What do you know that they didn't? Or you might ask yourself, what did they know that you don't?
AFA proof is concerned, the history of the Vietnam War is there for all to see, and entire books have been written on the issue you raise. Simply put, it doesn't sound like you are familiar with any of this.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentLearn us all then
(#13698)What threat did Viet Nam pose to the United States?
"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." -Darth Sion
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parentOh, for crying out loud.
(#13705)If you think the Vietnam War was an important part of American history that still affects us today, you really need to do some research on the causes and justifications of our involvement there, which had its roots in Korea.
For views from the liberal and conservative perspectives, I suggest David Halbersham's The Best And The Brightest and Norman Podhoretz's Why We Were in Vietnam, respectively. Expecting me to summarize American history on Vietnam from 1956 (when Kennedy gave his first speech on the subject) through the early 1970's as the rationales for the War evolved is ridiculous.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentIf it is so complicated then....
(#13709)...why is it so hard to imagine that people disagree about the threat posed to the US by Viet Nam?
"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." -Darth Sion
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parentHow can fifteen+ years of US history not be complicated?
(#13713)Sheesh.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentFairly easily
(#13716)If Carl Sagan can explain the fundamental nature of Black Holes in a paragraph or two then I am sure the key justifications for the war in Viet Nam can be fit in that same amount of space.
"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." -Darth Sion
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parentHistory as superdense matter
(#13751)President Kennedy's justifications for the Vietnam War, in his own words* where possible:
(N.B.: Contrary to legend, Kennedy had been told by McNamara, Rusk and the JCS in 1961 that military intervention likely would require more than 200,000 soldiers, as well as air strikes on the North.)
- Vietnam was "the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia . . .would be threatened of the red tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam."
- Vietnam represented "a proving ground for Democracy in Asia . . . the alternative to Communist dictatorship."
- Kennedy's paternalistic view was that the US was the "godparent" of "little Vietnam" and that our prestige in Asia requited that we protect it.
- Containment of the Soviet Union, acting through its proxy at the time, China, had to be opposed in Asia in the same way it was being opposed in Eastern Europe. Khrushchev told Kennedy in 1961 that Vietnam was a "sacred war" of Communist conquest that was off-limits for the US to intervene in.
- The Bay of Pigs disaster made Kennedy determined to win the next battle against the Communists.
Short enough?
*Taken largely from Why We Were In Vietnam.
-
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentPlenty short
(#13819)Thank you.
"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." -Darth Sion
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parentTrue ...
(#13754)... everyone who has played Risk knows that if you want to keep the two armies you get from Australia, you have to hold Siam with an iron grip. ;)
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parentI'm not Carl Sagan. Plus, isn't he dead?
(#13718)And a lot can fit into a black hole, IIRC.
I'll get back to you when I get to work. You've already made me late. %^>
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentNot Enough Fits In
(#13753)Otherwise, Michael Moore would be blessedly invisible *and* silent, though the accretion disk of mentally challenged politicians and celebrities that surrounds him would make their own noises as they circled the drain.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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parentShow me Moore's event horizon
(#13760)and I'll make sure I'm always on the other side of it.
Politicians spend our money like a pimp with only a week to live. CJ Boxx
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parentJFK sent troops to Viet Nam to boost the US economy,
(#13701)he and Bobby thought a small war would do that and give the US a "sense of purpose." They blew it. Badly. Then Lyndon made it worse and the Army screwed it up for a few years.
We went to Viet Nam because Eisenhower signed and the Senate ratified a treaty of mutual support. Eisenhower put the first US Advisers there and furnished equipment. He was talked out of more support or involvement by Matthew Ridgeway, then Chief of Staff of the Army.
Kennedy got elected with a vision -- share any cost, bear any burden -- and that vision included a small war. He got rid of the naysayers at DoD and appointed his own crowd. His rationale (stated, in any event -- whether real or not, I leave up to others) was the well known Domino Theory. "If we don't help, then the Communists will win. Thailand and all Southeast Asia will follow."
So, yes, there was a threat -- at least a stated and possibly perceived threat. Well, stated, anyway...
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentRidgeway again
(#13714)I wish he had been Chief of Staff for Dubya.
Is Ridgeway a celebrated figure in military circles? He seems to have had a fairly big affect on the US military of the 1950's.
"And now you run in search of the Jedi. They are all dead, save one. And one broken Jedi cannot stop the darkness that is to come." -Darth Sion
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parentSecond only to Saint George in modern times.
(#13722)Don't blame the then Chief of Staff -- Shinseki -- or the two following, all three were / are okay, better than a number of their predecessors. The problem is Goldwater-Nichols which meant well but gives the SecDef too much clout and makesthe Chairman of the JCS the President's Military adviser. It removes that reponsibility from the service chiefs. Wrong answer in my view. The Charimen of the JCS at any given time can be from any of the four services and his "advice" is going to be colored by service parochialism and by his background.
Myers, for example was an Air Force type. Didn't know beans about ground warfare and was subirdinate to Rumsfeld, another aviator who also knew nothing about it. An example of their ignorance was allowing the naming of the initial air campaign "Shock and Awe" a particularly inapt name that was sort of silly.
The K Codes explained HERE.
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parentYou think JFK
(#13696)sent troops to Vietnam because he was concerned about the threat posed by Vietnam?
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
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parentpushed his eldest surviving son...
(#13666)his eldest son, Joe, died in WW II, an edit is in order.
Please note, the purpose was to note that Joe was pushing Joe before he pushed Jack.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H