America's heroic defense of S. Vietnam halted the spread of communism out of Vietnam.

[JAR]

America's heroic defense of South Vietnam stopped the spread of communism to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand . To see where I got this information from, see this page:http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

What you will find on this page will totally change the way you look at the Vietnam War.

[Huzington]

Originally posted by JAR
America's heroic defense of South Vietnam stopped the spread of communism to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand . To see where I got this information from, see this page:http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

What you will find on this page will totally change the way you look at the Vietnam War.

The atrocities the U$A pigs committed against the Vietmese
people are among the worst in History. But as the Yankees said
to the innocent women and children they brutally slaughtered and raped in those terrible times for wanting a Socialist democracy --
"Better dead than read." :rolleyes: Not surprising - Americans
have always preferred commiting acts of tyranny than having a people
build a Worker's democracy based on sharing and caring. For it is
inherently a threat to their captial.

Estimated total civilian deaths: 2,500,000 – 3,500,000 people

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/mylai/MyLaiVictims.gif

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/vtnmgraphics/VietnamKimPhuc.jpg



“The order was to destroy My Lai and everything in it.”

And the fully premeditated intention of Charlie Company was to murder every last man, woman and child in it as well.

Even though they were assigned to commit this routine American war crime by their officers, the soldiers’ personal motivation for the My Lai massacre was rape, revenge and racism — the Three R’s of the bestial education provided by the U.S. military. American troops were trained by the U.S. Army to see Vietnamese people as “things” or “animals.” GIs joked that “anything that’s dead and isn’t White is a VC.” Any Vietnamese woman or girl was fair game. In their own sick minds, American soldiers dehumanized the Vietnamese people by thinking of them as “gooks.”

Seymour Hersh wrote of Charlie Company that by March of 1968 “many in the company had given in to an easy pattern of violence.” Such soldiers were totally blind to the humanity of the Vietnamese people because the American soldiers had degraded themselves to the status of filthy, evil, bloodthirsty animals. It takes a human being to recognize the humanity in another. A great many American soldiers chose to murder their own humanity with the officially-encouraged sadism of the Vietnam Genocide.

German Nazis and Israeli soldiers have exactly the same psychopathic mentality. And they too make the cowardly excuse that they were “just following orders.”

Encouraged by their evil officers, sadistic American soldiers systematically beat and tortured unarmed civilian people, sometimes using electric shocks to the genitals of both men and women. American soldiers murdered many civilian people in cold blood, usually by shooting or stabbing them. Shoving them out of high-flying helicopters so they could watch them fall to their deaths was a favorite entertainment. Some American soldiers liked to cut off people’s ears. Other American soldiers liked to cut off people’s fingers. American soldiers even cut off people’s heads. They burned whole villages. They poisoned wells. They shot people’s dogs and cattle for fun. It was not uncommon for American soldiers to sodomize and rape women and young girls before murdering them.

But few of these American animals in uniform knew that all their countless atrocities were actually part of a vast operation called the Phoenix Program, an official CIA campaign of massive, systematic terrorism in which Vietnamese people were tortured and murdered by the hundreds of thousands.

To the CIA’s psychopathic way of seeing things, if the Vietnamese people wouldn’t listen to “reason" then they would have to be terrorized into submission to our “democratic” and “freedom loving” American capitalist system.

You disgust me. I know you will continue to be willfully ignorant
of Communism, but consider this quotation from an American
soldier who was in the Vietnam war:

"In the years that followed, I found out that I didn’t know communism from cobblestones. All I saw in Vietnam was a race war being conducted by an invading army, and very poor people were taking the brunt of it."
-Stan Goff

The war criminals who were involved in this act of genocide are
still walking the streets of America.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Huzington
The atrocities the U$A pigs committed against the Vietmese
people are among the worst in History.
[snip]
The site I gave a link to says: "Isolated atrocities committed by American soldiers produced torrents of outrage from antiwar critics and the news media while Communist atrocities were so common that they received hardly any attention at all."

[Mr Manifesto]

And hasn't the prevention of the spread of communism done so much for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
And hasn't the prevention of the spread of communism done so much for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
The site says: "If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media."

[Huzington]

Originally posted by JAR

The site says: "If you ask people who live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American news media."

Philippines?

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/books/RogueState.html
From Rogue State by William Blum:

The US military fought against the leftist Huk forces even while the Huks were still fighting against the Japanese invaders in the world war.

After the war, the US organized Philippine armed forces to continue the fight against the Huks, finally defeating them and their reform movement. The CIA interfered grossly in elections, installing a series of puppets as president, culminating in the long dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, for whom torture was “la specialite de la maison” [...]

Indonesia? Estimated civilian deaths: up to 1,000,000 people

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/books/KillingHope.html
From Killing Hope by William Blum:

A complex series of events, involving a supposed coup attempt, a counter-coup, and perhaps a counter-counter-coup, with American fingerprints apparent at various points, resulted in the ouster from power of Sukarno and his replacement by a military coup led by General Suharto. The massacre that began immediately — of Communists, Communist sympathizers, suspected Communists, suspected Communist sympathizers, and none of the above — was called by the New York Times “one of the most savage mass slayings of modern political history.” The estimates of the number killed in the course of a few years begin at half a million and go above a million.

It was later learned that the U.S. embassy had compiled lists of “Communist” operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres, as many as 5,000 names, and turned them over to the army, which then hunted those persons down and killed them. The Americans would then check off the names of those who had been killed or captured.

“It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands,” said one U.S. diplomat. “But that’s not all bad. There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”

Added note: To this day, Indonesia’s military and police forces continue to be one of America’s best customers for weapons, training, and torture devices.

Thailand?

From Rogue State by William Blum (see above for link):

While using the country to facilitate its daily bombings of Vietnam and Laos, the US military took the time to try to suppress insurgents who were fighting for economic reform, an end to police repression and in opposition to the mammoth US military presence, with its huge airbases, piers, barracks, road building and other major projects, which appeared to be taking the country apart and taking it over.

Eventually, the American military personnel count in Thailand reached 40,000, with those engaged in the civil conflict — including 365 Green Beret forces — officially designated as “advisers”, as they were in Vietnam.

To fight the guerillas, the US financed, armed, equipped and trained police and military units in counter-insurgency, significantly increasing their numbers; transported government forces by helicopter to combat areas; were present in the field as well, as battalion advisers and sometimes accompanied Thai soldiers on anti-guerrilla sweeps.

In addition, the Americans instituted considerable propaganda and psychological warfare activities, and actually encouraged the Thai government to adopt a more forceful response. However, the conflict in Thailand, and the US role, never approached the dimensions of Vietnam.

In 1966, the Washington Post reported that “In the view of some observers, continued dictatorship in Thailand suits the United States, since it assures a continuation of American bases in the country and that, as a US official put it bluntly, ‘is our real interest in this place.’”

And the American tyranny goes on and on and on.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Huzington


"Better dead than read." :rolleyes: Not surprising - Americans
have always preferred commiting acts of tyranny than having a people
build a Worker's democracy based on sharing and caring. For it is
inherently a threat to their captial.

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/vtnmgraphics/VietnamKimPhuc.jpg



A worker's democracy based on caring and sharing? What planet are you from? Planet-X, perhaps? Been watching too many Care Bears cartoons? Communism is a pyramid scheme protected by deadly force. The ones at the top of the food chain get rich and powerful, all the rest get to wait in long lines to get their monthly allocations of necessities like food and toilet paper. Just ask any of our new Soviet immigrants, they will be happy to tell you, once they are convinced you are not with the KGB.

Oh, and the photo you link to is a photo of children burned by napalm mistakenly fired at the wrong target by ARVN forces, not US, but it still gave soldiers who risked their lives fighting for their country a bad name. To top it off, 35 years later some idiots are still peddling this misinformation.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal

Oh, and the photo you link to is a photo of children burned by napalm mistakenly fired at the wrong target by ARVN forces,

Goddam stoopid gooks!

[Peter Jenkins]

At the risk of feeding the troll.........
Is this the same huzarseton who, a few short days ago, was extolling the virtues of Communist terrorist bombing civilians in Nepal?
P

[Crossbow]

Originally posted by JAR
America's heroic defense of South Vietnam stopped the spread of communism to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand . To see where I got this information from, see this page:http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

What you will find on this page will totally change the way you look at the Vietnam War.

JAR, this web page will not change how I look upon the Vietnam War.

Ture, US participation in Vietnam did force the Communist forces to expend a great deal more in of their resources in Vietnam that they would have preferred to use in spreading Communism to other parts of Asia. Maybe this is news to you, but it is not to me.

Further, if you really want to study the Vietnam War, then I suggest that you study the war, because there are some things on this web site that are just plain silly. For example, this bit came from the web site.

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.

The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

True, American soldiers fought very well and they won every battle they were ever in, but note who wound up leaving and who wound up staying. Westmoreland is simply trying to save his pride instead of addressing the real issue which is that the America did lose the Vietnam War. In fact, Westmoreland is still espousing the same nonsense about the 'Domino Theory' that he was espousing forty years ago.

Another topic I noticed that Westmoreland is still avoiding is the North Vietnamese causalities. While it is difficult to say with accuracy, it looks like some 2.5 million North Vietnamese died from US forces, and I still remember the interview that Westmoreland gave (I think it was 1971) where he said that the "Oriental does not value life as much as the Westerner. They think that life is fast and cheap."

[Tony]

I think I can safely say that Huzington is this forum's biggest hypocrite.

[Tmy]

BillOreilly is allways saying that the US leaving Nam was a bad thing cause the commie Kemhre Rouge were then free to wipe out Cambodia. I always thought that it was the commie Vietnamese who came in to stop the K. Rouge???

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Crossbow


[B]Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.


Myth: The Nazis lost the Second World War.

[Cleon]

Originally posted by Tmy
BillOreilly is allways saying that the US leaving Nam was a bad thing cause the commie Kemhre Rouge were then free to wipe out Cambodia. I always thought that it was the commie Vietnamese who came in to stop the K. Rouge???

Bill "Peabody" O'Reilly has never been real big on accuracy.

(But yeah, you thought right.)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Peter Jenkins
At the risk of feeding the troll.........
Is this the same huzarseton who, a few short days ago, was extolling the virtues of Communist terrorist bombing civilians in Nepal?
P

Yep, that'd be the guy.

His definition of good and bad is very simple:

People he agrees with killing civilians=Good

People he disagrees with killing civilians=Bad

See? As simple as his mind.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Yep, that'd be the guy.

His definition of good and bad is very simple:

People he agrees with killing civilians=Good

People he disagrees with killing civilians=Bad

See? As simple as his mind.

Seems to be a common delusion these days, to be fair.

:(

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Graham


Seems to be a common delusion these days, to be fair.

:(

I'd like to disagree with you on that point.


But I cant, unfortunately.

[daenku32]

Who says Communism can't be a Democracy?

[Tony]

Originally posted by daenku32
Who says Communism can't be a Democracy?


I think the more appropriate question is :

Who says communism can be a democracy?

[Nyarlathotep]

To answere both Tony and daenku32, True "By the book" communism is neither a democracy nor does it resemble any of the governmental systems that have ever been established that people have called "communism". True communism has no leaders or followers. However it is a moot point because, human nature being what it is, true communism is about as likely as monkeys flying out of my butt.

[daenku32]

But can't it still be very similiar to a Constitutional Republic? The constitution just being strongly inspired by Marx. All you need is the system for choosing the "leaders". Which I believe just depends on the people in charge during the time of revolution.

Socialism is very Democratic. It wouldn't work if it wasn't. And from what I hear, Communism can be right near it.

Did Marx even say anything against rewarding people depending how much they benefit the society?

Only reason I bring this up is because I'm not sure if those nations were facing Stalinist Communism or some other 'nicer' flavor of it. Since gaining a Democracy seemed to be their only goal. Maybe they would have just fallen to modern day socialism that you see in Scandinavia.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by daenku32
But can't it still be very similar to a Constitutional Republic? The constitution just being strongly inspired by Marx. All you need is the system for choosing the "leaders". Which I believe just depends on the people in charge during the time of revolution.

Socialism is very Democratic. It wouldn't work if it wasn't. And from what I hear, Communism can be right near it.

Did Marx even say anything against rewarding people depending how much they benefit the society?

Only reason I bring this up is because I'm not sure if those nations were facing Stalinist Communism or some other 'nicer' flavor of it. Since gaining a Democracy seemed to be their only goal. Maybe they would have just fallen to modern day socialism that you see in Scandinavia.

That's hard to say. because now we are going into alternate history, which is by its nature obviously unprovable.

I would say if you look at Vietnam today that that isn't the case. I wouldn't call Vietnam a nice Scandinavian style socialist democracy. So I don't think any other country that fell to communism would have been much different. But like I said, it's impossible to say what would have happened had we not interfered in Vietnam. It's all speculation.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep

I wouldn't call Vietnam a nice Scandinavian style socialist democracy. So I don't think any other country that fell to communism would have been much different.

One might argue that had certain socialist countries (Russia, Cuba, Vietnam etc..) not been persecuted and invaded by certain western powers they might have turned out slightly better.

[jj]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


One might argue that had certain socialist countries (Russia, Cuba, Vietnam etc..) not been persecuted and invaded by certain western powers they might have turned out slightly better.

Russia? RUSSIA? Cuba?

Err, Jon, methinks, unless you want to included WW2, you're leaning really hard over to the left here.

Don't fall over. (thud) Oh well.

As to JAR's original claim, it's beneath contempt.

Oh dear, I just called someone a leftist. The irony! The Irony!

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


One might argue that had certain socialist countries (Russia, Cuba, Vietnam etc..) not been persecuted and invaded by certain western powers they might have turned out slightly better.

You might, but you might argue the other way too. "What if?" scenarios are interesting but never definitive.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by jj


Russia? RUSSIA? Cuba?

Err, Jon, methinks, unless you want to included WW2, you're leaning really hard over to the left here.

Don't fall over. (thud) Oh well.

As to JAR's original claim, it's beneath contempt.

Oh dear, I just called someone a leftist. The irony! The Irony!

Actually we did make an incursion into Russia, soon after the Russian Revolution, in 1920 if memory serves.

Granted it wasn't a large invasion and we only siezed a handful of ports (Vladivostok and Odessa I think). But in fairness, it does qualify as an invasion.

I can't think of our ever invading Cuba after their revolution unless you count the abortive "Bay of Pigs" invasion, which we pulled out of.

[jj]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Actually we did make an incursion into Russia, soon after the Russian Revolution, in 1920 if memory serves.

Granted it wasn't a large invasion and we only siezed a handful of ports (Vladivostok and Odessa I think). But in fairness, it does qualify as an invasion.

I can't think of our ever invading Cuba after their revolution unless you count the abortive "Bay of Pigs" invasion, which we pulled out of.

Sorry, bad phrasing on my part, I thought 'before WW2', and wrote "in ww2" or something of that sort.

Sorry. You are, I suspect, right, although my memory is rather hazy on that issue.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by jj


Sorry, bad phrasing on my part, I thought 'before WW2', and wrote "in ww2" or something of that sort.

Sorry. You are, I suspect, right, although my memory is rather hazy on that issue.

Ah, I wouldn't have pointed it out but I do know that it isn't a particularly well known incident in our history, so I thought you might not have known.

Plus I am a history major and I like to show off from time to time:D

[JAR]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Actually we did make an incursion into Russia, soon after the Russian Revolution, in 1920 if memory serves.

Granted it wasn't a large invasion and we only siezed a handful of ports (Vladivostok and Odessa I think). But in fairness, it does qualify as an invasion.

I can't think of our ever invading Cuba after their revolution unless you count the abortive "Bay of Pigs" invasion, which we pulled out of.
During World War I, in the summer of 1918, the Allies invaded Russia in order to conquer it and force Russia to fight Germany, which it had stopped doing. I got this information from pages 132-133 of "Russia in Revolution" by E. M. Halliday.

[NightG1]

Originally posted by Huzington


The atrocities the U$A pigs committed against the Vietmese
people are among the worst in History. But as the Yankees said
to the innocent women and children they brutally slaughtered and raped in those terrible times for wanting a Socialist democracy blah blah blah
Speaking of which, have you decided if the rapes committed by the Red Army after WWII in Germany were any different than the rapes you think happened in Viet Nam. I keep asking and I'm not getting a response.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by JAR

During World War I, in the summer of 1918, the Allies invaded Russia in order to conquer it and force Russia to fight Germany, which it had stopped doing. I got this information from pages 132-133 of "Russia in Revolution" by E. M. Halliday.

Yep, now that I have time to look it up rather than relying on my memory, I find this (http://www.mmmfiles.com/archive/civilwar.htm)

my memory of of 1920 was partially correct, it was when we pulled out rather than when we went in.

[Huzington]

Originally posted by NightG1
Speaking of which, have you decided if the rapes committed by the Red Army after WWII in Germany were any different than the rapes you think happened in Viet Nam. I keep asking and I'm not getting a response.

When it is relevant, I respond. When it is irrelevant, I ignore. PM
me if you are concerned with my answer: or start a topic about it.
Then I shall respond.

[jj]

Originally posted by Huzington


When it is relevant, I respond. When it is irrelevant, I ignore. PM
me if you are concerned with my answer: or start a topic about it.
Then I shall respond.

I read this as:

When the answer supports my point, I respond.
When the answer speaks against my point, I ignore it.

Stalin still killed more people than Hitler and Pol Pot put together, unless I recall my numbers very wrong.

That doesn't mean that either Hitler or PolPot was right.

On the other hand, your selective condemnnation of one side and not the other says a great deal to me about both your politics and your ethics.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Crossbow


JAR, this web page will not change how I look upon the Vietnam War.

Ture, US participation in Vietnam did force the Communist forces to expend a great deal more in of their resources in Vietnam that they would have preferred to use in spreading Communism to other parts of Asia. Maybe this is news to you, but it is not to me.



Not quite that simple. Cambodia, for instance, was a stable, indendent Monarchy. It was because there was a war in Vietnam that destabilised Cambodia that Pol Pot got his chance.

Ho Chi Minh at first asked the US for help in getting rid of the French, who wanted to pursue their colonial aspirations, even after they had been invaded by Germany! Failing to not the irony of the situation, the US sided with France and ignored Ho. He then went shopping for someone who would listen to him.



Further, if you really want to study the Vietnam War, then I suggest that you study the war, because there are some things on this web site that are just plain silly. For example, this bit came from the web site.

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.

The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

True, American soldiers fought very well and they won every battle they were ever in, but note who wound up leaving and who wound up staying. Westmoreland is simply trying to save his pride instead of addressing the real issue which is that the America did lose the Vietnam War. In fact, Westmoreland is still espousing the same nonsense about the 'Domino Theory' that he was espousing forty years ago.



Not at all true. For example, read "We were soldiers once". The film leaves out the aftermath, when the US forces that were leaving the battle were slaughtered.



Another topic I noticed that Westmoreland is still avoiding is the North Vietnamese causalities. While it is difficult to say with accuracy, it looks like some 2.5 million North Vietnamese died from US forces, and I still remember the interview that Westmoreland gave (I think it was 1971) where he said that the "Oriental does not value life as much as the Westerner. They think that life is fast and cheap."

Yes, what a racist. That is the extent they were prepared to go to to fight for their own country. The eastern view of life has been a more collective one, in which the individual is not as important as the society. Not a view of life as being cheap, but that the good of the whole society is more important.

The US did lose and leave. It also lost Iran, Bay of Pigs. It backed such 'winners' as Pinochet in Chile, and the Shah, and the Taliban.

The Cold War involved much that was disgraceful on both sides. But forgive me if I expect a higher level of morality from a democratic country that champions itself as the leader of the free world.

I also expect a higher level of behaviour from my own country, btw.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Tony



I think the more appropriate question is :

Who says communism can be a democracy?

Communism, in theory, was supposed to be the ultimate democracy. Workers on the factory floor were able to take part in the control of their own work, "collective" decision making, and it was democratic all the way up from there. It just didn't work out that way. Now, who's fault that is, I don't know. The basic model may have been inherently flawed, that is, it didn't scale well at all, or it just happened that every time there was a revolution that create a Communist country, the type of people who were at the top were the ones you wouldn't want there, who then subverted the whole communist ideal.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by JAR

During World War I, in the summer of 1918, the Allies invaded Russia in order to conquer it and force Russia to fight Germany, which it had stopped doing. I got this information from pages 132-133 of "Russia in Revolution" by E. M. Halliday.

Stopping fighting the most pointless war of all time, WWI, was a stroke of genius on the part of Russia.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Huzington


When it is relevant, I respond. When it is irrelevant, I ignore. PM
me if you are concerned with my answer: or start a topic about it.
Then I shall respond.

Down to only one mass murderer as your avatar? Progress - maybe we can wean you down to a communist dictator that killed less than 1,000,000 of his own people.

[NightG1]

Originally posted by Huzington


When it is relevant, I respond. When it is irrelevant, I ignore. PM
me if you are concerned with my answer: or start a topic about it.
Then I shall respond.
Childish evasion noted. Do you think the rapes committed by the Red Army in Germany after WWII are the same as the rapes you think happened in Viet Nam?

[NightG1]

Originally posted by Huzington


The atrocities the U$A pigs committed against the Vietmese
people are among the worst in History. But as the Yankees said
to the innocent women and children they brutally slaughtered and raped in those terrible times for wanting a Socialist democracy blah blah blah

"Stalin, one can tell, thought -- partly in the remarks made to [Yugoslav military and political leader Miloslav] Djilas -- that troops should be allowed to have their 'fun,' and there was no question of interfering in that as far as he was concerned. And you can see from all the reports -- it's a question of seeing the reports in all these different archives and getting an overall impression of the attitudes of not just the people reporting but even the people they were reporting to. One gets the general impression that basically, one is dealing with an army that -- despite all of our impressions of Soviet society and how controlled it was -- was out of control. Alcohol was one of the major problems, and in fact, what one finds is that many Red Army soldiers really needed to get themselves fueled up before they went out raping in the evening -- it was almost as if they needed the courage to do it, in a curious way." -- Antony Beevor

Stalin was a pig.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Crossbow
[snip]
some things on this web site that are just plain silly. For example, this bit came from the web site.

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.

The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

True, American soldiers fought very well and they won every battle they were ever in, but note who wound up leaving and who wound up staying. Westmoreland is simply trying to save his pride instead of addressing the real issue which is that the America did lose the Vietnam War. In fact, Westmoreland is still espousing the same nonsense about the 'Domino Theory' that he was espousing forty years ago.

Yeah, I agree, that part was stupid.

[JAR]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
[snip]
Yes, what a racist. That is the extent they were prepared to go to to fight for their own country. The eastern view of life has been a more collective one, in which the individual is not as important as the society. Not a view of life as being cheap, but that the good of the whole society is more important.
[snip]
I hope the U.S. doesn't start using that eastern view of life. I can just imagine it. It gets in a war and has 20,000,000 casualties and says, "That's okay, because the society as a whole benefited from it. Society is more important than the individual. As long as we have victory, that's all that matters."

[Edited to add: My mistake, the U.S. already is using that philosophy. Recently, there was a "Join the Army" propaganda commercial that I saw where the narrator of the commercial said a soldier in the army is "selfless". What's so good about that? Why would I want to join something that forces me to be selfless. The U.S.'s belief in selflessness is also shown in the way the sacrifices people make for other people or for their country are glorified.]

[jimmygun]

I worked with a "Communist" a few years ago. His unlimited ability to ignore every piece of information that painted the US in a good light or painted the USSR in a bad light was truly amazing.

According to him the US has been the cause of every death every where in the world, no matter who did the killing. As far as Stalin goes, well, he was Uncle Joe and couldn't hurt a fly.

I asked about the gulags and the millions who died during the reign of terror. He completely denied any gulag ever existed. I asked about the famine in the Ukraine that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. He said it never happened. I asked about the proof that has come to light since the fall of the Soviet empire, that the Russians themselves were giving up records of the gulag, the prisons and the horrible treatment of their own people.

His answer? Western propaganda. All manufactured by the US.I gave him a video of a program about the gulag. It was an interview with 8 survivors of the gulag who recounted the mass murder and savage treatment that went on. One man survived for 17 years in the camps before being liberated. Out of his convoy of 25,000 only a dozen or so did survive.

His answer? That was only 8 people! The west says millions died. Where are they? No proof!

[daenku32]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Communism, in theory, was supposed to be the ultimate democracy. Workers on the factory floor were able to take part in the control of their own work, "collective" decision making, and it was democratic all the way up from there. It just didn't work out that way. Now, who's fault that is, I don't know. The basic model may have been inherently flawed, that is, it didn't scale well at all, or it just happened that every time there was a revolution that create a Communist country, the type of people who were at the top were the ones you wouldn't want there, who then subverted the whole communist ideal.

Maybe if the existing governments didn't want to put up a fight and allowed fair Democratic elections, dictators couldn't get party leadership.

[Tony]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Yes, what a racist. That is the extent they were prepared to go to to fight for their own country. The eastern view of life has been a more collective one, in which the individual is not as important as the society. Not a view of life as being cheap, but that the good of the whole society is more important.



You make an accusation of racism, then go on to say something equally prejudiced? Typical PC.