and that should be all that is said on that topic, for all the reasons that have been listed.
One dang thing about hindsight is that it is 20-20. And that isn't correct, it's simply an uneducated excuse for trying to avoid situations. There was nothing wrong withour attempts at trying to keep South Vietnam from falling to the Communists. They were treaty partners in the SEATO alliance - I fail to see why the hay everyone seems to either ignore or forget that, unless it's simply convenient to their inductive arguements. When someone says we have no business being there they are simply flat out wrong.
Politics aside, where it should be, we try our dangest to help keep people free. Sometimes it doesn't work, usually when the press manages to turn our own people against us, like while we were fighting the Vietnam War, and even afterwards when some fell prey to the 'educated' notion that either nothing is worth war or that war or that particular was was not justified. That's pure Hogwash.
Shorty, you're right, the French really never fought that war, they just got the schmidt kicked out of them because they had lousy tactics and lousy leadership. We got the schmidt kicked out of us because we had lousy leadership and too dang much media intervention and interference from politics.
I fail to understand why the hay people in this country, and lots of others, come to believe that a bunch of student protestors actually know what the hay is going on, and then listen to them - they are students for God's sake, they don't know squat except what they want for dinner. Most are immature, sheltered overgrown infants. They have little or no life experiences to temper their character or provide a basis for reality. Most still live out of their parent's pocketbooks and think that their first night away from home with some green in their pockets gives them all the maturity they need to make informed decisions. When has any student campus actually made an appropriate informed decision about any really significant or important issue?
Furthermore, anyone who equates Iraq to Vietnam is simply wrong - there are no similarities. It is simply a ploy at devisivness and it works with the weak-minded, like students and fools. You will notice that it is the commie crowd that uses that notion here in the US, commies like kerry and bad swimmers and alcoholics like kennedy - and you will notice they are the ones who want us disarmed. You will also notice, or at least I hope to God you do, that the ones who first used that phrase before the weak minded picked it up and ran with it here, are to ones who hope to foster their terrorist agenda by whipping up old Vietnam fears.
Now folks, you're gonna have to get real with this nonsense or get consumed by it. If you fall prey to the later you have already lost your way. If you understand that the comparison is fraught with lies and is not a real perspective you have already won.
One thing the people in Iraq should have is the freedom from terrorism and religious anarchy to live life as a free people. We should encourage that and we are. Personally, I think it is a good strategy not to let your enemy know that even though you have defeated his armies you're not stupid enough to think that was all there was - we're just holding while waiting for them to re-group so we would know where they are. Then we can kill more of them............................
OK, I've said my 2 cents worth. Mikey.