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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 42,631 Likes: 2
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 42,631 Likes: 2 |
Amazing how Gheygagger can be so wrong SO OFTEN.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 67,766 Likes: 5
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 67,766 Likes: 5 |
more disinformation from a non credible source. A total lack of will to win was what caused the waste of American lives in Viet Nam.
Sam......
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 31,285 Likes: 9
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 31,285 Likes: 9 |
Those of us who actually worked the Ho Chi Minh Trail can tell you it was an impossible task. The best analogy is not that of a highway but of your blood system. The HCMT may have started out as a major artery, but it constantly branched out into smaller and smaller paths. I never saw a working truck in Cambodia, but I did see fresh tire tracks, and actually spotted a single guy pushing a bicycle loaded with bags of rice - who we were able to capture.
Each of us has our own stories, but those stories are but the last lower-left pixel of the Big Picture of Vietnam. No one guy's experience or opinion can be definitive. Except to say that it was one effed-up war, muddled and confused, often contradictory within days. And all because of inept or even deliberately obstructive civilian politicians.
We ended up winning, but by default. Vietnam today may be nominally Communist at the top, but it is a thriving capitalist country at street level.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
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Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 9,998 Likes: 8
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Jun 2019
Posts: 9,998 Likes: 8 |
Good point, Rocky- - - - -the next time somebody goes to his favorite local fast food fish place, he's probably going to be eating food that was grown somewhere in the Mekong river- - - - -in water that would make your local sewage treatment plant look clean by comparison!
Ignorance can be fixed. Stupid is forever!
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 17,140 Likes: 2
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 17,140 Likes: 2 |
Had we executed Operation Pocket Money in 1966 instead of 1972 there would have been no supplies to move down the HMT.
If something on the internet makes you angry the odds are you're being manipulated
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Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,460 Likes: 1
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,460 Likes: 1 |
I believe war to be the ultimate vulgarity. I believe we should never have been involved in Vietnam. But IF you are going to go to war, you go to win, with the fewest losses on your own side.
Had we bombed North Vietnam like we bombed Dresden, the north would have capitulated in days not years.
American’s wouldn’t stomach that.
Decades of voting for the lesser of two evils has gotten us just that.....
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 42,631 Likes: 2
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 42,631 Likes: 2 |
Had we executed Operation Pocket Money in 1966 instead of 1972 there would have been no supplies to move down the HMT. THIS.
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 46,131 Likes: 6
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 46,131 Likes: 6 |
Real Clear History? Not so much. All I needed to read was the first few words: "Three years ago, the United States gave up its defense of freedom and constitutional democracy for the people of Afghanistan." The people of Afghanistan don't even know what democracy is. Utter and total bullsh*t.
A wise man is frequently humbled.
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 4,973 Likes: 9
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 4,973 Likes: 9 |
We weren’t supposed to win. The idea was to drag it out as long as possible and keep the tax dollars flowing throw the military/industrial complex and back into the pockets of the crooked politicians. They kept it up as long as the American people would tolerate it. Same game plan in the Middle East. That is a good description of every war we have been engaged in since World War 2 and probably several prior to that.
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Joined: May 2017
Posts: 198
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: May 2017
Posts: 198 |
The war was won after Tet, General Giap admitted that they had lost and no longer had the manpower or supplies to continue at any level needed to win and were going to push for a cease in hostilities UNTIL an American correspondent said the US had lost, that was Walter Cronkite. His statement created a uptick in demonstrations against the war and the north saw a glimmer of opportunity.
I bse this statement on Giap's book about the war.
Remember why, specifically, the Bill of Rights was written...remember its purpose. It was written to limit the power of government over the individual
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Joined: Oct 2016
Posts: 1,744
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Oct 2016
Posts: 1,744 |
Ask yourself why did the North sign off on the Paris Peace Accords? Simple fact is that their supply network had been crushed and they had no way to continue waging the war. No, how are you going to stop tens of thousands of guys with backpacks and bicycles ? You can't. They came back to the peace talks because Hanoi was getting pounded by the B-52's and they couldn't do much about it. Their strategy became, "Let's sign off on the peace accords, get this bombing turned off and when the Americans leave, we'll defeat the ARVN"
B L M - Bureau of Land Management
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Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 14,488
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 14,488 |
Kennedy was murdered , so that the US would go further than advisory roll role. I took liberties to clean up your post a little. Geeze.
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,801
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,801 |
And had we won, what would we have won ?
Old Corps
Semper Fi
FJB
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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 69,422 Likes: 13
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 69,422 Likes: 13 |
The US hasn't had a war run by generals since WWII. They've all been run by politicians and we've lost them all.
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell
It's not over when you lose. It's over when you quit.
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,393
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,393 |
Wars are business ventures and have nothing to do with "winning".
It isn't energy that kills, its holes.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,801
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,801 |
Wars are business ventures and have nothing to do with "winning". So WWI and WWII were business ventures ?
Old Corps
Semper Fi
FJB
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 14,270 Likes: 3
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 14,270 Likes: 3 |
"Three years ago, the United States gave up its defense of freedom and constitutional democracy for the people of Afghanistan."
His initial sentence is absurd. Sounds like he has been getting advice from Idiot Boy George Bush. Bush thought he could install a constitutional democracy in Afghanistan. George opened schools for girls and let them take off the Burkha.
The problem is, the Afghanis are Muslim savages stuck in the 8th century. Soon after we left, hard core Muslims took back over, closed the girl's schools and reinstated the Burkha. You can't change 1,400 years of history.
George Bush was a fool, and so is the author of this piece.
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,174 Likes: 16
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,174 Likes: 16 |
Ask yourself why did the North sign off on the Paris Peace Accords? Simple fact is that their supply network had been crushed and they had no way to continue waging the war. No, how are you going to stop tens of thousands of guys with backpacks and bicycles ? You can't. They came back to the peace talks because Hanoi was getting pounded by the B-52's and they couldn't do much about it. Their strategy became, "Let's sign off on the peace accords, get this bombing turned off and when the Americans leave, we'll defeat the ARVN" Get over the packs and bike theory, it wasn’t the way they operated. They came to the accords because their allies had no path to provide supplies. Not land, sea or air. Earlier times illustrate how they operated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lam_Son_719During the spring offensive in ‘72 they used tanks and APC’s, heavy artillery etc. it was NOT a bicycle war. Spring ‘70 they flew Giáp into the general area of the A Shau Valley by chopper for a conference with unit commanders.
I am..........disturbed.
Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain
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Joined: Oct 2016
Posts: 1,744
Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Oct 2016
Posts: 1,744 |
"Three years ago, the United States gave up its defense of freedom and constitutional democracy for the people of Afghanistan."
His initial sentence is absurd. Sounds like he has been getting advice from Idiot Boy George Bush. Bush thought he could install a constitutional democracy in Afghanistan. George opened schools for girls and let them take off the Burkha.
The problem is, the Afghanis are Muslim savages stuck in the 8th century. Soon after we left, hard core Muslims took back over, closed the girl's schools and reinstated the Burkha. You can't change 1,400 years of history.
George Bush was a fool, and so is the author of this piece. Good post ^^^
B L M - Bureau of Land Management
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 14,270 Likes: 3
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 14,270 Likes: 3 |
"A few days later 3 more were destroyed when the northwestern segment of the A Shau Valley that was burned by a deranged chopper pilot, leaving them no place to conceal vehicles or supplies."
DigitalDan do you know who that chopper pilot was?
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