Thread: Biggest failure in US history?

Originally Posted by StillBallin75

This is simply factually false.

No kidding.

It's not as if diplomacy and international trade relations were not a staple of American foreign policy since its beginnings.

Originally Posted by Jetboogieman

How does one become this delusional?

Never paying close attention to history does that.

Originally Posted by Medusa

vietnam,maybe..

Actually, we made a deal with the French, who were already inside VietNam: We would replace French "advisers" with American "advisers" if France would join NATO. The biggest mistake with VietNam is that once there and entrenched for years, we were not allowed to actually win the war, which destroyed most of our VietNamese allies. Overall, VietNam was one of the biggest failures in our history.

I'm not going to say slavery, because we are talking about centuries back, when the culture of slavery along with indentured servitude was common throughout most of the world. The Civil War was not really a failure, because it focused on the brutality of slavery and the actual "process" of owning another human being. I'm disappointed that a century later, entrenched institutionalized racism had still not been recognized as wrong in too many parts of the country. Fifty years later, I'm pleased with the progress that has been made.

Most recent failures are first, a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq based upon deceit and worthless intelligence, along with a decades-long occupation that allowed rival tribes and outside forces to create what will no doubt soon be their own civil war.

Second, a botched invasion into Afghanistan, which should have ended in a matter of months at Tora Bora, but didn't because the administration withheld the troops necessary to have surrounded and defeated the Taliban/Al Qaeda in order to have enough resources to later invade Iraq. Then, instead of admitting we screwed up, we proceeded to occupy the country for a decade, allowing the Taliban to rebuild and retake the country the minute we are gone.

We've had a lot of failures over the two centuries of our existance. The only ones that shame me is how long it took for Civil Rights and Equality to be implemented after the Civil War, the treatment of American Indians during the Indian Wars... and the invasion of Iraq.

Originally Posted by digsbe

Because Bush and the current GOP are clearly the biggest failures in US History....

The Bay of Pigs, Trail of Tears, Slavery and other failures clearly do not top Bush or the current GOP members

The Trail of Tears, Slavery, Japense Internment Camps, the War in Iraq combined with the GOP running to criminalize Islam and protesting every mosque being built. We still haven't learned that we go to war with nations, not ethnic and religious groups.

Originally Posted by justabubba

not avoiding the civil war

You got that one right. The northern states should have backed off.

Originally Posted by SheWolf

The Trail of Tears, Slavery, Japense Internment Camps, the War in Iraq combined with the GOP running to criminalize Islam and protesting every mosque being built. We still haven't learned that we go to war with nations, not ethnic and religious groups.

Is it the official GOP platform to ban and protest Mosques that should be built? So when 9/11 happened should we have declared war on Saudi Arabia because many of the hijackers were Saudis?

Please don't be so warped in your partisanship that you literally view the current GOP as on par with the evils of slavery, the Trail of Tears, and other American atrocities.

Eugenic Sterilizations.

Originally Posted by DiAnna

Actually, we made a deal with the French, who were already inside VietNam: We would replace French "advisers" with American "advisers" if France would join NATO. The biggest mistake with VietNam is that once there and entrenched for years, we were not allowed to actually win the war, which destroyed most of our VietNamese allies. Overall, VietNam was one of the biggest failures in our history.

I'm not going to say slavery, because we are talking about centuries back, when the culture of slavery along with indentured servitude was common throughout most of the world. The Civil War was not really a failure, because it focused on the brutality of slavery and the actual "process" of owning another human being. I'm disappointed that a century later, entrenched institutionalized racism had still not been recognized as wrong in too many parts of the country. Fifty years later, I'm pleased with the progress that has been made.

Most recent failures are first, a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq based upon deceit and worthless intelligence, along with a decades-long occupation that allowed rival tribes and outside forces to create what will no doubt soon be their own civil war.

Second, a botched invasion into Afghanistan, which should have ended in a matter of months at Tora Bora, but didn't because the administration withheld the troops necessary to have surrounded and defeated the Taliban/Al Qaeda in order to have enough resources to later invade Iraq. Then, instead of admitting we screwed up, we proceeded to occupy the country for a decade, allowing the Taliban to rebuild and retake the country the minute we are gone.

We've had a lot of failures over the two centuries of our existance. The only ones that shame me is how long it took for Civil Rights and Equality to be implemented after the Civil War, the treatment of American Indians during the Indian Wars... and the invasion of Iraq.

Ho Chi Minh worshipped the USA and expected that we would help him create a nation. when China fell, Truman's inner circle became paranoid and decided to help the decadent french colonialist re-establish their colonial dreams in Viet Nam. That might have been the single biggest strategic mistake of the last 70 years or so. The FDR jurisprudence however along with Wilson and the 16-17th amendments have had the most lasting malignant impact on this nation

Originally Posted by SheWolf

The Trail of Tears, Slavery, Japense Internment Camps, the War in Iraq combined with the GOP running to criminalize Islam and protesting every mosque being built. We still haven't learned that we go to war with nations, not ethnic and religious groups.

what was the long term impact on America in general from the trail of tears or the Internment. I see those as a rape of a group's rights but not something that created decades of harm for all of America. and blaming the GOP for the reaction to Islamist based terrorism is rather specious

Originally Posted by TurtleDude

what was the long term impact on America in general from the trail of tears or the Internment. I see those as a rape of a group's rights but not something that created decades of harm for all of America. and blaming the GOP for the reaction to Islamist based terrorism is rather specious

On America? We immediately benefited by 'getting them out' - that was the point of their forced removal.

They suffered - and were diminished significantly, that was the point.

In the end: it left us filled with a wrongful sense of superiority, furthered our inability to accept those who are different than us, and by erasing their evidence from our country's growth we've lied to our youth and convinced them that we 'did it alone, our ingenuity and get-r-done attitude' - which has, at present, put us in our situation of being a Nanny-nation: filled with a faux sense of self-reliance - and a faux sense of capability and might.

And consider what other countries think of us: they've learned of our history and they don't like it - and that matters a lot in this day and age of transnationalism.