Bush needs to clean up his mess

Vince wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Ed Rasimus wrote:
:
: :No "dolchstoss" involved here. There was certainly no knife in the
: :back in '64-'68. We had the military power to impose our will if we
: :had the political will to do so.
:
: The real problem was a new military strategy called 'gradualism',
: which was intended to show that we were willing to stay in the fight
: as long as required.
:
: It amounted to only putting in enough troops and force to make a
: little headway and then giving the other guy time to adjust before we
: did anything more.
:
: Along about 1964 we should have sunk everything in Haiphong Harbor,
: leveled Hanoi and put a million men in the country marching north.
:
:Except that the Russians quite clearly let us know that we risked
:nuclear war if we did that.

They weren't in a position to want to start such a war. Just follow
standard procedure under international law and declare North Vietnam
as blockaded and sink anything going in or out.

:Not to mention That we didn't have the
:million men in 1964 to spare from confronting the Warsaw Pact.

If we'd been serious about winning we could have gotten them.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Leadfoot" wrote:

:
:"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
.. .
: Ed Rasimus wrote:
:
: :No "dolchstoss" involved here. There was certainly no knife in the
: :back in '64-'68. We had the military power to impose our will if we
: :had the political will to do so.
:
: The real problem was a new military strategy called 'gradualism',
: which was intended to show that we were willing to stay in the fight
: as long as required.
:
: It amounted to only putting in enough troops and force to make a
: little headway and then giving the other guy time to adjust before we
: did anything more.
:
: Along about 1964 we should have sunk everything in Haiphong Harbor,
: leveled Hanoi and put a million men in the country marching north.
:
:And Red China jumps in to protect NVN with World War III starting shortly
:thereafter.

Hogwash. That would never happen. Look at a map. All we'd have to
do is promise to stop at Hanoi.

:A true Military genius you are.

Brighter than you, apparently. Your strategy seems to amount to doing
what we already know failed.

--
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed
and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks
that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has
nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more
important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature,
and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the
exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill

On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:35:38 -0700, "Robert" wrote:


"Vince" wrote in message
...
Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ed Rasimus wrote:


Along about 1964 we should have sunk everything in Haiphong Harbor,
leveled Hanoi and put a million men in the country marching north.


Except that the Russians quite clearly let us know that we risked nuclear
war if we did that. Not to mention That we didn't have the million men in
1964 to spare from confronting the Warsaw Pact.


You REALLY need to view Vietnam in context, not in hind sight.

View it as the war after Korea.
Where when the west was in danger of 'wining' militarily the ChiComs sent in
large numbers of troops instead of just supplies. And kicked butt.

That was why all the 'pussy footing' around happened. Fear of getting into
an actual shooting war with China, again.


First, let me suggest that you edit more carefully--my name at the top
of this has nothing to do with either of the quotes you've retained. I
said neither.

Then, review Korea. The Korean war was a UN action. The Security
Council voted to deploy UN forces (not USA) and that was to maintain
the integrity of the south from a manifest invasion. Fixed,
conventional military forces, not revolutionaries. You are correct
that the Chinese intervened when it was apparent that their proxies
could not get the job done.

Note that the intervention was NOT nuclear. Note that the Soviets were
NOT involved either.

Now, review the relationship between Vietnam and China. Vietnam was
and is NOT a friend of China. There was NOT an invasion (until well
into 1968) and the war was not a conventional fixed piece, traditional
front sort of conflict. The US forces did not move N. of the 17th
parallel and weren't anywhere near the Chinese border, even if China
were a supporter of NVN.

Much different situation than Korea.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

Ricardo wrote:

:
:
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Ricardo wrote:
:
: :Johnny Bravo wrote:
: : On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:16:38 GMT, Ricardo wrote:
: :
: :
: :The Iraqis ARE standing up and fighting for themselves but the trouble
: :is, like when the Germans invaded France in WW2 (although at least the
: :French had declared war on Germany), the occupying power with its
: :indiscriminate killing of civilians then brands anyone who reacts to
: :this as a 'terrorist'.
: :
: :
: : So how many civilians have we rounded up according to policy and shot in
: : reprisal?
: :
: : If you answered none, you'd be correct.
: :
: : How many did the Germans execute?
: :
: : If you answered, a hell of a lot more than none, you'd be correct.
: :
: : Don't compare us to Nazis kid, it just belittles those who actually lived
: : through German occupation.
: :
: :And you lived through it?
:
: Reading not your strong suit? Where id he say that?
:
:He didn't, I just wanted to know his viewpoint. After all the Germans
:were in Paris long before America was forced into WW2 by the Japanese.

I see. Just more rhetorical bull****.

Son, you're not even a GOOD troll....

: :Most recent news on the subject:
: :
: :http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle13637.htm
:
: That's nice. You'll notice that we arrest them and try them when we
: catch them at it. Three, seven million, no big difference to you,
: right?
:
: :Think what happened to the French, at the hands
: :of their fellow countrymen who did collaborate with the Nazis of the
: :1940s, when they got their country back!
: :
: :With over 250,000 Iraqi civilians dead it's small wonder that those with
: :any guts have decided to fight the oppressor.
: :
: : Got any other numbers you'd like to pull out of your ass?
: :
: : In October 2004 the best scientific data in the world on civilian casualties
: : in Iraq was analysed and they came up with a guess; they were 95% sure it was
: : somewhere between 6,000 and 194,000 and they didn't, or couldn't, even try to
: : narrow it down further.
: :
: :Oh, sorry, you're an American - they're just 'collateral damage' so it's
: :just not worth keeping figures!
:
: Oh, sorry, you're a European - you can't count past 3 so there's no
: difference in the numbers to you.
:
: :We're nearly two years on now. Try this:
: :
: :http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle11674.htm
:
: The same bull****, which even The Lancet says are unfounded and
: preposterously large numbers.
:
: How's your German?
:
:I'm not sure of the relevance of that comment but my German is probably
:better than yours,

Don't bet on it.

:as is my English,

Don't bet on it.

:Spanish and French, although I've
:not lived in France.

Hard to believe. You make 'surrender monkey' sorts of sounds, after
all.

:And as for counting past 3, well...it is precisely why I said that we
:were two years on from the death 'estimates' of 2004, and, let's face
:it, the killing hasn't stopped in that time. The problem with being able
:to count seems to rest with the US military who are unable to say how
:many civilians they have killed. 'Estimates vary'.

Quite true. Of course, you're too stupid to recognize that the
problem is that with two sides in a firefight it is:

1) difficult to tell if a body is 'civilian' or not, and
2) difficult to know which side got them killed...

.... particularly when the locals have been known to lie about this.

:Just for the record, the BBC news in England have, in the last 24 hours,
:reported yet more arrests of US military personnel, this time for murder
:and abduction of a disabled Iraqi civilian, plus the planting of a
:weapon on his body following his murder. Obviously, they are innocent
:until proved guilty...

The BBC is slow. I'll simply point out once again that we ARREST them
when we find them, so your bull**** is still only that ... bull****.

:I bet, however, that they don't end up in a cosy American run Cuban
:concentration camp for four years with no charges made against them.

I bet they don't, too, because

1) There are no 'concentration camps' in Cuba. It's only dumb****s
like you who don't know what 'concentration camp' means who think so.

2) If guilty, they'll wind up tried and convicted and in the military
prison in Leavenworth (if they don't draw a death penalty, which is
pretty unlikely in a military court).

3) They're being held in a military brig here in the States, with
conditions probably worse than those in Cuba.

--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Paul J. Adam wrote:
...

Where has any official policy been annunciated at any time which
indicated an intent to establish "Permanent bases in Iraq"?

The withdrawal of MND(SE) forces from al-Muthanna province and the
handover there to Iraqi security is a small point of support. (Small,
because al-Muthanna is large, empty and quiet and hence suitable for an
early handover - though a cynic would say that's exactly the sort of
place the Evil US would _want_ a huge military complex put, and I'm not
aware of any such being constructed)


Personally, I expect the Kurds would be happy to have a nice big
premanent American base right up by the Turkish border. Off-hand
I would have no objections either.

--

FF

On 23 Jun 2006 10:40:36 -0700, wrote:

This may be opening a can or worms but when we (mostly)
left Vietnam we HAD won. There was a treaty in place
recognizing a South Vietnamese 'line of control' if not
complete sovreignity.

South Vietnam was snuffed out by an armored assault that could have
been planned by Erwin Romel. It was a blatant violation of a treaty
obligation. We ignored it.

Just like we ignored the genocide in Cambodia.

So much for "never again!", eh? :-(

Where has any official policy been annunciated at any time which
indicated an intent to establish "Permanent bases in Iraq"?

I haven't heard one way or the other, have you?

The chances of permant bases in Iraq are comparable to those of a
snowball on a Bagdad streecorner at noon in July.

Besides, we don't need them.

But I don't recall any previous time when what was presented as a
quick campaign became a six year plus war.

While the ACW and WWI were not six years long,they were planned as
"quick campaigns." WWII did go about six years and it, too, was
planned as a "short, victorious war" by its instigators. Many
aphorisms come to mind on that type of plan.

Now that we are comitted in Iraq we can make the situation even
worse than it is now by a hasty withdrawal. But the fact is that
Iraqis will fight us as long as we are there. We have to leave in
order to win.

Some will fight us, others will help us. The picture is not clear.

I sometimes get pessimistic about an ultimate success because of what
I heard from a educated Afghani on the radio a few mornings back. He
was very enthusiastic about "liberty" for Afghanistan, but insisted it
be "Islamic liberty." He was highly critical of "Western liberty."
This is discouraging because "liberty" is liberty. It means what it
says. As soon as you attach an adjective you don't have "liberty"
anymore. I'm not sure what you do have, but I know what you don't
have.

It's gonna be a while before the Fat Lady sings, here.


Bill Kambic
Haras Lucero, Kingston, TN
Mangalarga Marchador: Uma Raça, Uma Paixão

Johnny Bravo wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:16:38 GMT, Ricardo wrote:

The Iraqis ARE standing up and fighting for themselves but the trouble
is, like when the Germans invaded France in WW2 (although at least the
French had declared war on Germany), the occupying power with its
indiscriminate killing of civilians then brands anyone who reacts to
this as a 'terrorist'.

So how many civilians have we rounded up according to policy and shot in
reprisal?

If you answered none, you'd be correct.

That has yet to be determined. At present the accusation stands
around 27, with three of those deaths being prosecuted and the
other 24 still under invstigation.

Plus there were the two prioners beaten to death in Bagram
prison in Afghanistan. Men convicted for contributing to those
murders have been fined, reduced in rank and returned to duty.
This stands in stark contrast to the vigorous prosecutions of
persons involved in lesser crimes at Abu Ghraib which shows
that the sentence a man recieves is more influenced by the
publicity surrounding the crime than by its severity.

We're a whole lot better than Nazis, but less than perfect and
if we forget that, we'll become a whole lot more like the
Nazis.

In October 2004 the best scientific data in the world on civilian casualties
in Iraq was analysed and they came up with a guess; they were 95% sure it was
somewhere between 6,000 and 194,000 and they didn't, or couldn't, even try to
narrow it down further.

Since you are not familiar with statistics, let me explain
a bit here, though an actuary or an epidemiologist coudl
explain better.

The Lancet study used the methods of epidemiology, the
statistical study of illness and death to test the hypothesis
that mortality in Iraq had imporved after the invasion.

The study addressed overall mortality without regard to cause of
death. It was not an estimate of deaths from direct US action.

Some of the data were gathered by interviews with persons to
determine date of death of immediate family members. This
may lead to overstimates due to exagerration, a tendency for
people to remember such events as being more recent
than the really are, and multiple counting of deaths of persons
with close ties to two or more families.

OTOH, it was considered to be too dangerous to conduct interviews
in some areas, those were assumed to have the same mortality
rates and the safer surrounding areas. That tends to underestimate
mortality.

The numbers 6,000 to 194,000 were not estimated total deaths.
They were an estimate of deaths in excess of the number of deaths
in a similar period before the invasion. Thus the conclusion, was
that the hypothesis was false, with better than 95% confidence.

I do not remember the median value exactly, it was around 100,000.
That implies a 50% confidence that the excess deaths were less
than 100,000 and simultaneously 50% confidence that they were
greater.

It is important to keep in mind that it is not possible for statistics
to answer a question. Statistics can only tell us the probablity
that a given answer is correct.

A lot of people don't like that, but that's just tough ****.

--

FF

Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:35:38 -0700, "Robert" wrote:


"Vince" wrote in message
...
Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ed Rasimus wrote:


Along about 1964 we should have sunk everything in Haiphong Harbor,
leveled Hanoi and put a million men in the country marching north.


Except that the Russians quite clearly let us know that we risked nuclear
war if we did that. Not to mention That we didn't have the million men in
1964 to spare from confronting the Warsaw Pact.


You REALLY need to view Vietnam in context, not in hind sight.

View it as the war after Korea.
Where when the west was in danger of 'wining' militarily the ChiComs sent in
large numbers of troops instead of just supplies. And kicked butt.

That was why all the 'pussy footing' around happened. Fear of getting into
an actual shooting war with China, again.


First, let me suggest that you edit more carefully--my name at the top
of this has nothing to do with either of the quotes you've retained. I
said neither.

The '' in the left margin make it clear as to whom wrote what.
SOME newsreaders are prone to misinterpreting plain text as
formatting instructions which may oscure that.


Then, review Korea. The Korean war was a UN action. The Security
Council voted to deploy UN forces (not USA) and that was to maintain
the integrity of the south from a manifest invasion. Fixed,
conventional military forces, not revolutionaries. You are correct
that the Chinese intervened when it was apparent that their proxies
could not get the job done.

Note that the intervention was NOT nuclear. Note that the Soviets were
NOT involved either.

Who made the MIGs flown by the Communists in Korea?

The Soviets would have vetoed UN action in Korea had
they not walked out on the Security Council. That's a
mistake (assuming it was a mistake) they have yet to repeat.


Now, review the relationship between Vietnam and China. Vietnam was
and is NOT a friend of China. There was NOT an invasion (until well
into 1968) and the war was not a conventional fixed piece, traditional
front sort of conflict. The US forces did not move N. of the 17th
parallel and weren't anywhere near the Chinese border, even if China
were a supporter of NVN.

Much different situation than Korea.

Also Korea was a Penninsula, the communists could not spread
the war to neighboring countries like they did in IndoChina.

But to what degree was Vietnam different precisely because we
adopted a different strategy against the North?

--

FF

"~^ beancounter ~^" wrote in message
oups.com...
Clintion policies led Bush into the 9/11 mess....

When was Clinton suppose to invade Afghansitan?

wrote in message
oups.com...

Johnny Bravo wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:16:38 GMT, Ricardo wrote:

The Iraqis ARE standing up and fighting for themselves but the trouble
is, like when the Germans invaded France in WW2 (although at least the
French had declared war on Germany), the occupying power with its
indiscriminate killing of civilians then brands anyone who reacts to
this as a 'terrorist'.

So how many civilians have we rounded up according to policy and shot
in
reprisal?

If you answered none, you'd be correct.

That has yet to be determined. At present the accusation stands
around 27, with three of those deaths being prosecuted and the
other 24 still under invstigation.

You are either being willfully ignorant to due to your idiology, or you're
having a reading comprehension problem there.

What you seem to over look is "according to policy". If those 27 were
'according to policy" there woudln't be _ANY_ investigation. Just buisness
as normal.

We're a whole lot better than Nazis, but less than perfect and
if we forget that, we'll become a whole lot more like the
Nazis.

And Canadian peace keepers in Aftrica, and UN peace keepers in africa, etc.
No one is claming the troops are perfect. Whet they are claming is that
there isn't an institutal sweep-it-under-the-rug behavior - unlike the UN.