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Robert McNamara, ex-defense secretary, dies

Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

F107HyperSabr said:
The Malaysia fight with the commies was earlier and the brits handled that.
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Yup. My point stands.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

rathi said:
Even in '45, the OSS had given Ho chi Mihn support in his struggle against the Japanese. He had communist support, but he was a committed nationalist. He would have cheerfully become a capitalist if it meant independence for his country.

The entire cold war was pretty much a bunch of 3rd world nations pretending to support America/Soviet ideals in return for money and weapons. In truth, they cared nothing for which side they were on, only on what material goods they could get.
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We spported the bleeping devil in WWII as you know we supported Stalin and the USSR how much closer to the devil and communist can you get. We also supported TITO in the former Yugoslavia over the good guy what's his name during WW II.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Tubub said:
No, that wasn't the goal -.- It's that simple... our goal was to try and stop the dominoes falling and continued Communist expansion to the east. Laos and Cambodia falling were directed consequences of Vietnam's fall... But, was there a successful Communist uprising in Malaysia, the Philipinnes, or Indonesia? The answer is no. The dominoes were stopped cold.
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Not completely cold. There was a fairly significant communist presence in the Philippines as late as the early 90s. They killed some American military members and contractors, and had compiled hit lists for some others. There were many areas of the country we couldn't go to because of them when I was stationed there.
 
Re: McNamara dies

Laila said:
Who is he?
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Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) during the administrations of President Kennedy and President Johnson. A lot of people believe that McNamara was in part responsible for the debacle that was the Vietnam War.

And FWIW - Don't be dismayed if you don't know who he is (was). You need to study American political history or the Vietnam War - or else have lived through it - to know his name.

Besides, I'd guess that better than 50% of the posters on this website don't know who James Callaghan is. :)
 
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Re: McNamara dies

SpotsCat said:
Besides, I'd guess that better than 50% of the posters on this website don't know who James Callaghan is. :)
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Big Jim was the only person in English Political History to hold all four major office's, Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.

He was the PM and head of Labor that lost to Lady Thatcher in 1979 he was the PM during what is now called The Winter of Discontent in England (1978-1979).

He was the longest living PM and longest serving public official in England and in 1983 became Father of the House being the longest serving Elected Official in England history and on eof only two to be part of the 1945 elections and still elected.
 
Re: McNamara dies

SpotsCat said:
Besides, I'd guess that better than 50% of the posters on this website don't know who James Callaghan is. :)
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:)
Heh, he was a right old idiot over the winter of discontent and his response
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Scorpion89 said:
Please noted which year I stated 1965 not 1969 big difference if Rolling Thunder had attacked Hanoi and Haiphong in 65 things would have been very different.
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Why would that have made a difference?
 
Re: McNamara dies

F107HyperSabr said:
Give her a break she is too young. She probably thinks that President Hoover founded the vacuum cleaner company instead of starting a depression LOL !!!
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:roll:

I have a pretty good idea on who US's Presidents are generally.
The depression was something that is in our curriculum on this side of the Atlantic. I'm not sure what you were taught in Secondary
 
Re: McNamara dies

justabubba said:
mcnamara was a child prodigy, who subscribed to the belief in his greatness

he thought he could apply his "whiz kid" analytical approaches that he used at ford to create efficiencies in the military

he was very wrong about that, and later about our prospects for success in vietnam

he was the wrong fellow in the wrong job at the wrong time ... the blame most goes to the person who selected him for the position: JFK

later, mcnamara screwed up the world bank about like he did our defense department

he epitomized the saying that being smart is not enough
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You pretty much hit the proverbial nail on the head with this one. Bravo....:applaud
 
Re: McNamara dies

Tucker Case said:
We won Vietnam? :confused:
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OMG, Tucker became a MOD???!!! :rofl Okay hell hath truly frozen over. Congrats dude!

By the way, we did technically win in Vietnam by getting the North to sign a peace agreement. The problem was that they BROKE the agreement and Congress and the President following Nixon broke theirs to the South Vietnamese Government.

And while I am on my soapbox, let's also remember that it was a war started by JFK, exacerbated and expanded by Johnson and finally ended by Nixon. Yet the Left prefers to vilify Nixon and place Kennedy on a pedestal.

Carry on dude!
 
Re: McNamara dies

apdst said:
Because we didn't end the war as we should have.

1) We didn't destroy the Communist forces.

And,

2) We didn't keep our word to support South Vietnam, should the North invade after US forces left the country.

The South was able to fight off the NVA and was doing a good job, until they literally ran out of gas and ammo. Our promise to make sure that didn't happen wasn't kept. I believe, from the research I've done, that the ARVN could have been successful against the NVA, had we conducted massive airlifts of weapons, ammo, food and fuel.

Instead, we did nothing, while The North took down South Vietnam, killing one million South Vietnamese civilians. Pol Pot was freed up to takeover Cambodia, killing a million+ and there were over 100 thousand Hmong tribesmen killed in Laos by the Communist forces there. Remember the whole, "Yellow Rain", thing in the late 70's? Yeah, that was the Pathet Lao Communists using mustard gas to wipe out the Hmong.

To this day, the Hmong are still being murdered by the Communists in Laos and Vietnam.

Laos, Vietnam Troops Slaughter Lao, Hmong: Over 6500 Face Death | Soldier of Fortune
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I do not question your history as you are fairly astute in it, but the REAL reason South Vietnam is Communist is that our Congress and President Ford did not keep their promise to the South Vietnamese to re-engage should the North Communists break the peace treaty they had signed; which no one was surprised they did.

This lack of commitment is what brought us the eventuality of 9-11 and the efforts by terrorist thugs in the ME who CORRECTLY believe that Americans do not have the stomach or the will to fight an protracted engagement and suffer losses.

This is why as a Conservative, I will no longer support placing the men and women of our military at risk for ANY reason OTHER than defending our nation on our own ground. The American people do not deserve or have earned that sacrifice.

The trashing of Bush was a testimony to this.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Sturmrabe said:
If I had any hope of getting a real debate out of this I would, and if it was on ANY other topic I might entertain it anyway even without that hope for the sake of a good argument, but I simply cannot wrap my mind around how you can take that stance.

Really, just the thought that someone could sincerely hold that postition, I don't even know where to begin!

Have you seen the footage of the US evacuation?
I can KINDA see what you are getting at with they whole "they signed a peace treaty then violated" thing... but seriously, that was a fumbling attempt for the US to save face in front of an all out retreat/evacuation as a prelude to complete occupation by the north.
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That "footage" you saw was not the US running from Communists. We had already FORCED the North Vietnamese to the peace treaty table and had an agreement.

They broke that agreement a year later and our Congress and President Ford refused to honor our part of the agreement and allowed the collapse of South Vietnam. That footage you refer to was our evacuation efforts to remove EMBASSY personnel; NOT of our defeat and retreat.
 
Re: McNamara dies

Truth Detector said:
OMG, Tucker became a MOD???!!! :rofl Okay hell hath truly frozen over. Congrats dude!
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Thanks.

By the way, we did technically win in Vietnam by getting the North to sign a peace agreement. The problem was that they BROKE the agreement and Congress and the President following Nixon broke theirs to the South Vietnamese Government.
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I would say that this means we should have won the war, but snatched "defeat from the jaws of victory" as they say.

We could have won, we should have won, but we ended up losing because the goal wasn't achieved.


Now, I don't particularly think Vietnam was ever a good idea. It cost many US lives for little potential gain. Gain that was never achieved.

But, admittedly, that's me looking back at it from the perspective off someone who wasn't even alive at any point during the war and knowing the final results, so that opinion should be taken as fairly useless and irrelevant. I could not say I wouldn't have supported the war if I had been around in 1964 without the benefit of hindsight.

I'm just saying that we could have won, and should have won, does not really mean we won. In truth, we lost because those lives were lost for nothing.

This is actually why once we entered the Iraq war, even though I initially opposed the war, I was in favor of seeing it through to the end. Once the decision is made to enter into a military engagement, I think that an obligation is made to see it through to the end. I did not want another Vietnam in Iraq because I don't feel our troops lives should be wasted by discarding the objective midstream, even if I disagreed with that objective initially.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

rathi said:
Vietnam was already lost in 1954, long before the war went hot. Vietnam had fought off the Japanese in 1945 and were ready to become independent, and then the French decided they wanted to recolonize the area. America sold out is values and backed French imperialism over its own democratic ideals. Then in 1954 after the French got stomped, we then decided to back a horrible dictator like Diem.

Ho Chi Mihn was a nationalist, and had no idealist embracing of communism. He even came to the U.S. in 1919 and asked Wilson to push for the freedom of his country. We made him an enemy by constantly supporting colonialism. He went to the communists because they would support him when we would not.

By 63, the odds were horribly stacked against the U.S. The government in Saigon was utterly unable to stand on its own. Even if we had won a military victory, it would not have been enough. Even a defeated NVA army would have been enough to smash the ARVN forces if we left. Unless we wanted to stay forever, south Vietnam was going to fall.
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Good history, however, the REAL reason Vietnam would be a losing strategy for the US in the long run was the FACT that we would not conduct an all out war to defeat the enemy for fear of expanding the war by engaging China as what happened in Korea.

Had our troops been able to engage the enemy in their own territory and in neighboring nations where their supply routes were, we would have won that victory in short order. The occupation may have been another story.

The bottom line is was a foolish effort that never had a chance of succeeding because we thought we could fight a "limited" engagement. "Limited" engagements only end in disaster and the loss of thousands of our young men and women.

The main difference in the outcomes of Korea and Vietnam was the effort and will of the South Koreans to remain independent versus the lack of will on the part of the South Vietnamese.

The lesson of all this was that by allowing the eventual collapse of the Government in South Vietnam, the end result was millions of other lives lost in the advancement of Communist regimes like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia etc.
 
Re: McNamara dies

Truth Detector said:
I do not question your history as you are fairly astute in it, but the REAL reason South Vietnam is Communist is that our Congress and President Ford did not keep their promise to the South Vietnamese to re-engage should the North Communists break the peace treaty they had signed; which no one was surprised they did.
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I thought I had already mentioned that pint, but maybe not.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Truth Detector said:
Good history, however, the REAL reason Vietnam would be a losing strategy for the US in the long run was the FACT that we would not conduct an all out war to defeat the enemy for fear of expanding the war by engaging China as what happened in Korea.

Had our troops been able to engage the enemy in their own territory and in neighboring nations where their supply routes were, we would have won that victory in short order. The occupation may have been another story.

The bottom line is was a foolish effort that never had a chance of succeeding because we thought we could fight a "limited" engagement. "Limited" engagements only end in disaster and the loss of thousands of our young men and women.

The main difference in the outcomes of Korea and Vietnam was the effort and will of the South Koreans to remain independent versus the lack of will on the part of the South Vietnamese.

The lesson of all this was that by allowing the eventual collapse of the Government in South Vietnam, the end result was millions of other lives lost in the advancement of Communist regimes like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia etc.
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What I dont see is how Diem was worth defending. By defending South Vietnam America was fighting for the preservation of a capitalist dictatorship. Last year vietnams mass games were sponcered by Nike and Mcdonalds among others so I wonder if the outcome would have been that different. Just seams like fighting a war between Coke and Pepsi to me.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Red_Dave said:
What I dont see is how Diem was worth defending. By defending South Vietnam America was fighting for the preservation of a capitalist dictatorship. Last year vietnams mass games were sponcered by Nike and Mcdonalds among others so I wonder if the outcome would have been that different. Just seams like fighting a war between Coke and Pepsi to me.
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Because Communist regimes were a worse alternative; in the aftermath of the Communist takeover of Vietnam and Cambodia, millions died.

I am always amazed when people have issues with supporting Capitalist dictators but then have no qualms with Communist dictators.
 
Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Truth Detector said:
Because Communist regimes were a worse alternative; in the aftermath of the Communist takeover of Vietnam and Cambodia, millions died.

I am always amazed when people have issues with supporting Capitalist dictators but then have no qualms with Communist dictators.
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Well ive never been a huge fan of the soviet bloc if thats what you mean, but captalist dictators were no better. Look at how many died during the dirty war operation Condor etc, not to mention how many Diem killed off. As regards Cambodia are you refering to Pol Pot or the North vietnamise invasion of Cambodia [which removed Pol Pot]?

Still as regards vietnam i was talking more about the different outcomes. Todays outcome is that Vietnam is a state capatilist dictatorship, a similar outcome would have been brought about by Diem so why would it have been worth wasting so many more lives defending him?
 
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Re: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara Dies

Red_Dave said:
Well ive never been a huge fan of the soviet bloc if thats what you mean, but captalist dictators were no better. Look at how many died during the dirty war operation Condor etc, not to mention how many Diem killed off. As regards Cambodia are you refering to Pol Pot or the North vietnamise invasion of Cambodia [which removed Pol Pot]?

Still as regards vietnam i was talking more about the different outcomes. Todays outcome is that Vietnam is a state capatilist dictatorship, a similar outcome would have been brought about by Diem so why would it have been worth wasting so many more lives defending him?
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I cannot defend the politics of the Vietnam War and why we got involved in the first place. I never agreed with it and when I was of draft age, even contemplated hiding out in Canada; my dilemma being that my father served there for a year and was a lifer in the Army. Vietnam was a pimple on China's ass as far as I was concerned.

All I am saying is that I would rather prop up/support a Capitalist dictator over a Communist one if those are the ONLY choices which it was in many instances during the Cold War.

It is very convenient to look back and second guess US actions abroad and in Latin America in the aftermath of the implosion of the Soviet Union. But during those years, there truly was an effort by the Soviet Union to dominate Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America and an effort to support Communist thugs even if it meant through use of force.

We see how well that worked for Cuba. So to look back now and re-think the policies is a moot issue; what is more important in my mind is the loss of credibility and perceptions of our weakness when we back down and do not honor our agreements with former allies and allow them to become overrun by Communist forces who have no compunction breaking all their agreements in order to promote their ideology and take over those who do not agree with it.

I believe this contributes to the notions and perceptions of thugs like Bin Laden stating that all they need to do is kill enough of us and we will back down and results in attacks like 9-11. When terrorists, dictators, despots and communist thugs perceive you are weak, they will always attempt to take advantage of it.

You would think that in the aftermath of a catastrophe of a global WWII we would have learned that lesson by now.
 
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