Is it that genocide occurs when we withdraw troops, or, that we should not have been involved militarily in the first place, or, both?
2007-08-23 00:46:16 · 13 answers · asked by alphabetsoup2 5 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
stay out of other people business.....a common refrain from conservatives.....if keeping the US gov't out of my life, my business is a good idea, maybe we ought to extend that idea to keeping our gov't out other peoples business in other countries.
2007-08-23 02:25:35 · answer #1 · answered by amazed we've survived this l 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The first lesson to learn from these is that the media does not report the whole story. In both "wars," there were a lot of good things done by our troops for the populas. The only thing the news wanted to report was the "baby killings" and other such crap. The media has no desire to report the truth. Their whole emphasis is digging up crap on people. They are the "National Enquirer" but with more force.
The second thing to learn is if you are going to wage war, then do it. War is not a game. We didn't bomb Hanoi, we restricted our warfare in Cambodia and Laos, and we didn't invade North Vietnam. Now, we are letting Iran supply weapons and advisors and we are doing nothing about it. If you are going to fight, then fight. If we are going to play games, then bring the troops home and let them play paintball.
If our objective is "war on terror," then we need to do so. Like I said, war is not a game. Take the war to the terrorists. Any place, any time!! It was reported the terrorists are training in Pakistan. We have missiles, jets, and special forces. If we know where they are, take them out. Countries allowing terrorist camps have no say so about what our war. If Pakistan doesn't like our tactics, then they can kiss the bottom of our feet.
But, since WWII, the US has not fought a war properly, for what ever reason. We are always afraid we are going to make someone mad. What a way to run a war. We will fight, but let's not hurt anyone's feelings.
2007-08-23 08:38:13 · answer #2 · answered by jack-copeland@sbcglobal.net 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Neither.
The lesson is that a divided nation can not sustain itself in a war.
The division comes from political bickering brought on by the lack of a clearly defined mission. In this case, there is a new component---"The exit strategy". We never did completely 'exit' Japan, Germany or Korea, why is it necessary now? Those countries are among our most peaceful, friendly allies today. We exited our 'ally' The Philipines and it is a den of terrorists today. I suppose I don't have to articulate what's is happening in Lebanon and Somalia, two other places we exited.
What we saw in Viet Nam and are seeing in Iraq is the media taking a side and clouding the definition of the mission.
In Viet Nam, even though the US was able to withstand the surprise attack of the Tet offensive and cause the NVA and the Viet Cong to expel ALL of their assets, Walter Cronkite was able to turn it into a negative saying it should not have happened and he used WWII standards in his argument. The war, for all intents and purpose, was won with China and Russia about to back off. But, the division resulting from that discussion vanquished the US even though it never lost a major engagement in the war.
Our own revolution was another example. The Continental Army had 12 major engagements and lost 9 of them.
Divisions among the British people left the conflict with no funding making the Stamp Act the biggest political blunder in history. The British exited. It was the beginning of the end of monarchy in Europe. England has been a ho-hum nation ever since.
2007-08-23 08:18:35 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
Vietnam: Don't let the politicians direct an armed conflict and control the military.
Iraq: There can never be a military solution to a situation where people of different religious sects have hated each other for centuries.
2007-08-23 08:00:51 · answer #4 · answered by Tom H 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
We should never have gotten involved in propping up a dictatorship (the Saigon govenrnment) in a war in which the people of the country were fighting to overthrow it.
And there was never any "genocide" in Vietnam--before or after we left.
2007-08-23 07:56:21 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
And Korea. And Bosnia. And Somalia. And Lebanon. America should NEVER commit its soldiers to a war that has not been declared by Congress. Congress has not declared war since 1941.
Besides that, it's morally wrong to ask our men and women to sacrifice their lives if we aren't committed to total victory and are not willing to do whatever it takes to achieve total victory.
2007-08-23 09:25:09 · answer #6 · answered by mikey 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's that killing 4 million Vietnamese and 655.000 thousand Iraqis is genocide. It's genocide when we arrive, not when we leave.
2007-08-23 08:09:39 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
We withdrew from Vietnam, it became communist and now we are friends and trade with them. War was a waste. Diplomacy is the way to go.
2007-08-23 08:00:21 · answer #8 · answered by cashmere 3 · 4⤊ 1⤋
When the US gets involved in a war, we should be in it to win. When the US wins a war, there are good outcomes.
2007-08-23 08:30:37 · answer #9 · answered by regerugged 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Stay out of God-forsaken lands.
2007-08-23 07:52:06 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 2⤋