• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

How should the U.S. have handled Vietnam and Iraq?

Jetboogieman said:
Who gives a **** if he was a liberal or not?

I don't.

I was talking more along the lines of those TODAY who think the war was winnable.
Click to expand...
And who are they?
 
Why do people always assume that bi-partisan support is a selling point? That is when I get the most nervous.
 
How should the U.S. have handled Vietnam and Iraq?
Click to expand...

the US should not have been involved in either war. Vietnam was somewhat unavoidable, as the US hadn't learned not to enter into open ended political wars with no exit strategy. as for Iraq, that was not the case.

currently, there's a real push from both sides to get more heavily involved in the Middle East because of IS. this is a mistake. if something needs to be done there, then it is the responsibility of the region to handle it. if Europe would like to give it a go, that's also an option. however, our nation is not the go-to, pro-bono global police force, and it is not our turn to handle the latest mess in that unstable region of the world. we need to fix our own country and replace our transportation energy model so that we are not so dependent on oil.
 
JC Callender said:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

And concerning Saddam, I don't think much more evidence is needed then the fact that he gassed thousands of his own people. Once you start posing threats after that, they should be taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack
Click to expand...




Of ****.....the United States INVADED purely because Saddam was "stockpiling" WMD's, Collin Powell went to the UN and showed them where they all were. No one said 'we have to invade because he gassed people a year or so ago. The United States used every bit of its political clout to convince the United Nations. The aim was 'regime change" and they had it all figured out....

I don't care which individual lied, the United States, against ALL evidence from Hans Blix invaded creating the biggest mess in the middle east in the history of the middle east.

The "excuses" don't ****ing work. You can't bully the world with a lie and then turn around and say "we had a good excuse to invade"...it was not only a lie like the Gulf Of Kontin, the USS Maine and Iraq....
 
Fearandloathing said:
You mean the FAKED gulf of Konkin incident and the alleged 'follow up'? The one where even Johnson was skeptical. It is so ironic that "those attacks' just happened to coincide with predrafted plans to heavily escalate because the South Vietnamese were tanking badly.

By the way, everything the French projected when Kennedy escalated came true
Click to expand...

It was real. There were shots fired on both sides. I worked for a Chief Machinist Mate who was on board at the time, and he said that they were at GQ for about 6 hours.
 
RetiredUSN said:
It was real. There were shots fired on both sides. I worked for a Chief Machinist Mate who was on board at the time, and he said that they were at GQ for about 6 hours.
Click to expand...

Oh an anecdote......

Please read the Pentagon Papers, written and edited by defense secretary at the time. In the first, the Gulf of Tonkin, it is highly questionable that the Vietnamese fired on the US ship. In the second, reports vary greatly. Anyone who simply takes the word of the administration in the case of Vietnam is a fool.

Like the Spanish American war the 'reason' was invented, the results 500,000 American dead. Nothing else.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Of ****.....the United States INVADED purely because Saddam was "stockpiling" WMD's, Collin Powell went to the UN and showed them where they all were. No one said 'we have to invade because he gassed people a year or so ago. The United States used every bit of its political clout to convince the United Nations. The aim was 'regime change" and they had it all figured out....

I don't care which individual lied, the United States, against ALL evidence from Hans Blix invaded creating the biggest mess in the middle east in the history of the middle east.

The "excuses" don't ****ing work. You can't bully the world with a lie and then turn around and say "we had a good excuse to invade"...it was not only a lie like the Gulf Of Kontin, the USS Maine and Iraq....
Click to expand...

Well, glad you knew all of the facts while most of our own government didn't.
 
JC Callender said:
Well, glad you knew all of the facts while most of our own government didn't.
Click to expand...


Skip the ****ing childish insults, read the Pentagon Papers, published by YOUR government and kept secret until the NYT published them. It's all in there, I have made no claims that are not documented at the time.
 
JC Callender said:
We entered all of the major wars of the 20th century with a Democrat president.
Click to expand...

You mean WWI and WWII I suppose since all the others were only "conflicts". Do you think our involvement in WWII was a mistake?
 
RetiredUSN said:
JFK & LBJ escalated the Vietnam war. And LBJ used the USS Maddox as a propaganda piece for bolstering ground troops by sending it into hostile territorial waters to be fired on.

They were democrats I believe.
Click to expand...

And Nixon was elected in 1968 with a 'secret plan to end the war'. In 1972 we were still there. Then we just gave up. Don't lay this solely on Democrats.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Skip the ****ing childish insults, read the Pentagon Papers, published by YOUR government and kept secret until the NYT published them. It's all in there, I have made no claims that are not documented at the time.
Click to expand...

Do you have any idea why so many politicians on both sides would've supported the Iraq War then?
 
Fearandloathing said:
Oh an anecdote......

Please read the Pentagon Papers, written and edited by defense secretary at the time. In the first, the Gulf of Tonkin, it is highly questionable that the Vietnamese fired on the US ship. In the second, reports vary greatly. Anyone who simply takes the word of the administration in the case of Vietnam is a fool.

Like the Spanish American war the 'reason' was invented, the results 500,000 American dead. Nothing else.
Click to expand...

500,000 American dead? Wow - do you have a scoop. That memorial in DC isn't nearly big enough.

At least get your facts straight. It makes your opinion easier to understand.
 
Wiggen said:
And Nixon was elected in 1968 with a 'secret plan to end the war'. In 1972 we were still there. Then we just gave up. Don't lay this solely on Democrats.
Click to expand...

Much like not laying it all on the republicans.......................votes were taken.

There were plenty of democrat war hawks that saw the same info the president did.
 
Wiggen said:
500,000 American dead? Wow - do you have a scoop. That memorial in DC isn't nearly big enough.

At least get your facts straight. It makes your opinion easier to understand.
Click to expand...



Did I say only Americans?

Your hate for me is controlling you. You need to back down
 
DaveFagan said:
There is no moral, ethical, or logical argument that the USA is the World's policeman. We use US National militaries to acquire resources for private Corporations. We do not protect "liberty and justice for all," and we install compliant Dictatorships, not democracies. We removed a democracy in Haiti. we removed a democracy in Honduras. We removed a democracy in Chile. We removed a corrupt democracy in Ukraine. We removed a "Jamariyah"(sp) in Libya. We removed a democracy in Egypt. We attempted to remove a democracy in Nicaragua. We have caused the deaths of millions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria where rebels have used deadly gas and the rebels are funded, armed and trained by USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. Again, the USA is not a World policeman, but a Hegemonic Militaristic/Economic/Criminal infrastructure dominated by the principles behind the New World Order. The NWO matured from Banking to World Economic Domination via the Federal Reserve CORPORATION.

Bonus question-As a Vietnam Veteran, the Vietnam War was and always will be a mistake. Ho Chi Minh asked us for aid and we refused to support Imperialistic ambitions. Many very good people on both sides died as a result of our Collective Ignorance. That or our Government doesn't ever really tell us what is going on, eh?
Click to expand...

That was an outstanding post! Bravo! :thumbs:
 
JC Callender said:
Fair enough. I think some folks feel a moral obligation to keep the world as safe as possible. You don't seem to share that sentiment as long as our safety isn't jeopardized.
Click to expand...

If you feel that moral obligation why don't you enlist in the infantry and get to helpin'?

Or is passive aggressively calling people out on internet forums your contribution to world safety?
 
JC Callender said:
Do you have any idea why so many politicians on both sides would've supported the Iraq War then?
Click to expand...

Because they were chicken and would not stand up to GW's rhetoric of "either you are with us or on the side of the terrorists". It never would have happened without 911 though. Bush used that tragedy to have his way with Saddam and it was disgusting. Make no mistake, it was ALL Bush's war regardless of the vote for the authorization.
 
Last edited:
RetiredUSN said:
Much like not laying it all on the republicans.......................votes were taken.

There were plenty of democrat war hawks that saw the same info the president did.
Click to expand...

Have you ever figured out what Nixon's 'secret plan' was? I haven't, and it was of some interest to me as I was served in the Vietnam War.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
If you feel that moral obligation why don't you enlist in the infantry and get to helpin'?

Or is passive aggressively calling people out on internet forums your contribution to world safety?
Click to expand...

Actually, I was a reservist in the Marines and joined with the purpose of being ready in case I was needed.
 
JC Callender said:
Many people seem to believe that our wars in Vietnam and Iraq were utter failures that should've been avoided, but there were reasons we went that had bipartisan support. Communism was a pretty big deal back then and it was spreading. And Iraq...would you really be surprised if we did find WMD's? And do you think a guy who gassed his own citizens would possible consider using them on us or our allies?

Bonus question: Would you still say Vietnam was a mistake if we ended up winning in the early 70's?
Click to expand...

Something was a mistake if in hindsight you can see that another way was clearly possible. In Vietnam, there clearly was. Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Vietnam during the years of war when the US was involved, wrote several times to American leaders, beginning as early as 1945. He sought help from and cooperation with the American people. He continued these pleas for help almost yearly until his last letter to President Nixon in 1971, shortly before he died. Ho Chi Minh modeled the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence of 1946, when it fought to free itself from its colonial master, France, after the United States model. I believe had the United States reacted differently toward Ho Chi Minh, there would have been no divided Vietnam, which later led to US involvement in the war there. Instead, there would have been a united nation much more closely aligned to the US, and providing perhaps even an earlier fall to communism in the former Soviet Union, or even prevented the route of the Nationalists in China and the victory of Mao and his communists.

As for Iraq, all I can say is its a mess everywhere. We should have finished the job in Afghanistan first. Saddam was no friend of terrorists. We got rid of someone who was much more ruthless hunting them down than we are.
 
Last edited:
JC Callender said:
Many people seem to believe that our wars in Vietnam and Iraq were utter failures that should've been avoided, but there were reasons we went that had bipartisan support. Communism was a pretty big deal back then and it was spreading. And Iraq...would you really be surprised if we did find WMD's? And do you think a guy who gassed his own citizens would possible consider using them on us or our allies?

Bonus question: Would you still say Vietnam was a mistake if we ended up winning in the early 70's?
Click to expand...

The Soviet Union collapsed under it's own weight. This is what will happen to us if we don't stop. Did we really have to go into Iraq? Was Iraq really a threat to us? Is Iraq better now, or worse? Seems to me that it's worse.

Bonus question: Who was OK with giving Iraq chemical weapons to use against Iran?
 
JC Callender said:
Many people seem to believe that our wars in Vietnam and Iraq were utter failures that should've been avoided, but there were reasons we went that had bipartisan support. Communism was a pretty big deal back then and it was spreading. And Iraq...would you really be surprised if we did find WMD's? And do you think a guy who gassed his own citizens would possible consider using them on us or our allies?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what the answer is for Vietnam. What I can say is that the US justifiably lost a lot of credibility when it thwarted democratic elections, fabricated an attack on a US warship, tore the countryside apart, bombed neutral neighbors of Vietnam, and despite so many advantages, was utterly unable to defeat a dedicated military force with uninspired US soldiers, and littered Southeast Asia with tons of UXO that still kill people today.

Not that the Communists were much better, the massacres by Communist forces in Vietnam and by the Khmer Rouge and other entities were pretty horrendous, they also contributed to the UXO situation. I suspect much of that would have happened with or without US involvement. Impossible to say, except to note that at a minimum, US involvement didn't stop it.

Maybe we should have just stayed out altogether, and found better ways to contain the spread of Communism

Iraq was a deceitful ****-show from start to finish. The US should not have invaded, period. We should have focused on Afghanistan, on nailing OBL, taking down the Taliban. Total mess, totally mishandled, epic fail.


Bonus question: Would you still say Vietnam was a mistake if we ended up winning in the early 70's?
Click to expand...
How? By flattening the entire North with nuclear weapons?

Or, let's put this another way. We successfully invaded Iraq, toppled Hussein, and got the nation to vote. Even if ISIL had not taken advantage of the subsequent weakness, it was still a huge mistake.
 
JC Callender said:
Many people seem to believe that our wars in Vietnam and Iraq were utter failures that should've been avoided, but there were reasons we went that had bipartisan support. Communism was a pretty big deal back then and it was spreading. And Iraq...would you really be surprised if we did find WMD's? And do you think a guy who gassed his own citizens would possible consider using them on us or our allies?

Bonus question: Would you still say Vietnam was a mistake if we ended up winning in the early 70's?
Click to expand...

It was later shown that the Bush Administration wanted to invade Iraq from day 1, ignored evidence that Al Qaeda was preparing to attack, and rushed to attack Iraq based on shoddy evidence.

As for Vietnam, it was obvious that even a lot of the South Vietnamese were on the North Vietnamese side. The South Vietnamese government was basically a dictatorship and oppressed the Buddhists. It was ok to go into the war but we should have realized early on that without strong support from the locals and with the enemy running a guerrilla war, this things was unwinnable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom