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Originally posted by johnfox:

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South Vietnam did not succeed in defending itself from the invading North Vietnamese forces.

That sir, is nothing more than verbal diarrhea....

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Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Let's not parse. Anyone that sez we didn't lose the war needs to review the photos of the last helicoptors evacuating people from Saigon with desperate people hanging from the undercarriage. I'll will agree that the war wasn't lost in the trenches (so to speak)but it was lost in the news rooms and by self-serving beauracrates. Nontheless, it was lost.
When I was in a M1 was a rifle???? How would one get killed in one? And there are numerous reasons why few if any modern fighter jets have been shot down. Invincibility isn't one of them.

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Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
This is no place to relive the Vietnam War.

BUT, if one is to remember the division of North Vietnam and South Vietnam, they should also remember WHY it was divided. Elections were planned for the whole country after the French were forced out. But, it became pretty obvious that Ho would be elected President and the Communist Party would form the Government.

The "western allies" would have none of that, the U.S. in particular, and through political manuevereing, the country was divided into North & South Vietnams with U.N. approval.

And, if one remembers the French being kicked out, they should also remember why that happened.

When the Japanese invaded French Indo China, the French pretty much cut and ran. The Vietnamese people however resisted the Japanese occupation for the whole length of WW II.

Prior to the French leaving, the standard "sharecropper" arrangement for the peasants was that they could farm the land, but they had to give 1/3 of the crop (or its value) to the French "landowners" every year. (And also recall the French "took", not bought that land from the peasants to start with.)

So what happened when the war was over? The French landowners not only claimed all the land back, but demanded that the sharecroppers who had defended the French interests as well as their own all during the war were told they would have to pay the back rent for all of the war years or be kicked off the land. How were they to do that? The Japanese had raped VietNam economically just as effectively as they ever did Nanking!

No wonder the Viet Minh formed and did so well against the French!!

Anyway, history is written by the winners, accuracy be damned.

The plain fact is we lost the war in 'Nam, just as we are losing the political war in Iraq, and will doubtless lose the one in Af'stan. All wars are political, hence the famous dictum that war is "diplomacy by other means".

American worker folks are good fighters, but American governments on the whole are no great shakes when it comes to international diplomacy.

That's why I think we should force our leaders to mind our own business and use our resources to take care of THIS country and OUR citizens first!!!

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Originally posted by Antelope Sniper:
Both Bushes flew combat aircraft in the service of our country.
Looks like service to me:

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,

"I concluded my speech by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and they might all go to hell, and I would go to Texas. -- Davy Crockett 11AUG1935"

Beeman, Davy Crockett died in 1835

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Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

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Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Let's not parse. Anyone that sez we didn't lose the war needs to review the photos of the last helicoptors evacuating people from Saigon with desperate people hanging from the undercarriage. I'll will agree that the war wasn't lost in the trenches (so to speak)but it was lost in the news rooms and by self-serving beauracrates. Nontheless, it was lost.
When I was in a M1 was a rifle???? How would one get killed in one? And there are numerous reasons why few if any modern fighter jets have been shot down. Invincibility isn't one of them.

You are showing your age (or you have never served in the military) if you think an M1 is a rifle. Today it is a tank. No M1 tank crew has ever lost their life due to an enemy tank hitting them.

I do recall a classified briefing I attended as a young officer in the 80s. An Israeli general said if there was ever a war with the USSR, the US would win the air war without question. I guess he had the advantage of watching the Israeli Air Force shoot down 84 modern Soviet fighters in air combat without losing a single one.

As for the Vietnam war, doesn't anyone recall the Peace Accords? The agreement called for each country to respect the boundaries drawn by the 1954 Geneva agreement. North Vietnam violated that. Nixon had promised to defend SVN with air power if necessary, but he had been driven from office by Watergate. We elected to do nothing when North Vietnam invaded their southern neighbors.

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Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

Another interesting tidbit of history: after Dien Ben Phu fell in 56, the French approached Eisenhower about having the US help out. Ike would have none of it.

I would like to think if we had a president who actually served, we wouldn't have been in Iraq, either. But then again, the guy who did decide to get involved in Vietnam was JFK, a well known war hero.

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Originally posted by wasbeeman:

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Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

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Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Let's not parse. Anyone that sez we didn't lose the war needs to review the photos of the last helicoptors evacuating people from Saigon with desperate people hanging from the undercarriage. I'll will agree that the war wasn't lost in the trenches (so to speak)but it was lost in the news rooms and by self-serving beauracrates. Nontheless, it was lost.
When I was in a M1 was a rifle???? How would one get killed in one? And there are numerous reasons why few if any modern fighter jets have been shot down. Invincibility isn't one of them.

You are showing your age (or you have never served in the military) if you think an M1 is a rifle. Today it is a tank. No M1 tank crew has ever lost their life due to an enemy tank hitting them.

I do recall a classified briefing I attended as a young officer in the 80s. An Israeli general said if there was ever a war with the USSR, the US would win the air war without question. I guess he had the advantage of watching the Israeli Air Force shoot down 84 modern Soviet fighters in air combat without losing a single one.

As for the Vietnam war, doesn't anyone recall the Peace Accords? The agreement called for each country to respect the boundaries drawn by the 1954 Geneva agreement. North Vietnam violated that. Nixon had promised to defend SVN with air power if necessary, but he had been driven from office by Watergate. We elected to do nothing when North Vietnam invaded their southern neighbors.

Six years in the Marine Corp. Two purple hearts. Did you serve or were you in the air force?

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Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Gee AZ, perhaps I am dating myself but I went to google and typed in "m1". I immediately got a several page menu about the Garand rifle. And not a word about a tank. You might want to get hold of Al Gore and tell him to update "his" internet.
Just saying, you know.