Two MOH Winners say Bush Didn't Serve

Lisakbernacchia wrote:

They kicked our ass. Rasimus hasn't tthe guts to admit it.


They may have kicked your ass, Lisa my dear, but Ed and I came home winners,
just as we left.

LBJ, MacNamara and a host of other losers just like yourelf lost that war. It is
also untrue that the country has been divided ever since. Only a relatively few
unrepentant fools, as they have grown older, still hold on to their sophomoric
and unquestioning hatred of the flag and the people who defend it.



Jack

In message , Jarg
writes
"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

You lost no wars? I was under the impression that after we left that sad,
unfortunate country, the only thing we had to show for our efforts was
that big,
black wall in Washington and a grievously divided nation that apparently
exists
to this day. What was it that we supposedly won?

The United States certainly did not achieve our political objectives in
Vietnam. On the other hand, it is a stretch to say the US lost the war
since it won all the military actions, and left several years before North
Vietnam overran the south.

But wasn't the whole point of the US presence to prevent the North
grabbing the South? They kept fighting until the US withdrew, then moved
on to achieve their goal. Sounds like a success to me, even if the end
result wasn't the Socialist Worker's Paradise they'd hoped for.


You're absolutely right on the military success side (though some of the
victories were expensive: on the other hand, there were lessons learned
and put to use) but the final objective - an independent non-communist
South Vietnam - was lost.


There's a supposed a quote I'd like to get a proper source for (and to
know it correctly) that goes along the lines of a senior North
Vietnamese being told that the US never lost a battle in Vietnam, and
replying that this is quite true, but also quite irrelevant. (It's got a
lot of resonance for current "effects-based" doctrine)

Finally, if you have been to Vietnam recently,
as I have, you would be hard pressed to say they won, or it was a Pyrrhic
victory at best.

Perhaps: but by that argument, wouldn't the US victory be even greater
if back in the late 1940s it had told the French to get out of their
ex-colony and offered generous aid and support to Ho Chi Minh? Communist
or not, I'll bet he'd rather have sold rubber to Firestone and Goodyear
for hard dollars than to the USSR for roubles. (Fifty years of hindsight
applies, of course)


Anyone saying there's an easy simple answer to this discussion hasn't
studied it

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
"War crimes" need to be defined as violations of international accords
regarding the conduct of armed conflict. We can't ascribe the term to
whatever offends our particular sensibilities or suits our political
needs of the moment.

Certainly there are some who "might make the argument" that I "most
certainly did commit either an atrocity or a war crime (that's either
an interesting distinction or a redundancy) IF your bombs landed on
innocent enemy (oxymoron???) civilians."

As I understand it, there would be a need to prove either recklessness
or intent for there to be a crime. Proving "Intent" would be difficult
because the prosecution would have to show that you deliberately
intended your jettisoned weapons/tanks/racks to strike the victim,
knowing they held protected status. (Not necessarily that you aimed at a
particular person, but that you knowingly and deliberately dumped them
where they would be more likely to hurt noncombatants than if they were
dumped elsewhere)


Proving "recklessness" is easier in some ways because you just had to be
careless about the danger: on the other hand, it requires that you be
shown to owe a duty of care to the victims.

I'm not a lawyer, nor an expert on military law: but from the limited
study summarised above, I don't think there's a case against Mr Rasimus.


For example, one example I've heard of his "jettisoning ordnance
recklessly" involved him cleaning up his aircraft to avoid an attacking
enemy fighter, and aiming what he dropped in the direction of an AAA
site that was also engaging him. I'll be *very* interested in meeting
the lawyer who can show that a pilot owes a "duty of care" to gunners
trying to shoot him down!

The purpose of military operations is to "kill people and break
things". Doing anything less is a sure route to defeat.

Too much can be bad, as can too little. Trouble is, you never get the
answers: you just find out whether you got it "right enough" or not.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...
Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 09:59:56 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

I committed no atrocities, am guilty of no war crimes, .....

If, in your entire career flying bomb-carrying combat aircraft, you
ever
jettisoned your bomb load for whatever reason on other than your
assigned
bona-fide target (let's say in a free fire zone), there are some who
might
make the argument that you most certainly did commit either an atrocity
or a
war crime if your bombs landed on innocent enemy civilians. I
personally
don't care to pursue that point, but you ought not be shocked to learn
that
some people might, and they're not necessarily unpatriotic because they
feel
that way.

"War crimes" need to be defined as violations of international accords
regarding the conduct of armed conflict. We can't ascribe the term to
whatever offends our particular sensibilities or suits our political
needs of the moment.

Jettisoning weapons in emergencies, for personal defense, etc, is NOT
a war crime. There is considerable difference between jettisoning a
weapons load and targeting innocents. One is acknowledged as an
unavoidable risk of a combat zone while the other is most assuredly
proscribed.

A "free-fire zone" is, in its entirety an area of unrestricted weapons
employment with only small exceptions, such as hospitals, refugee
camps, churches (religious buildings), and white flags exempt.
Delivering in a free-fire zone is not a war crime.

Certainly there are some who "might make the argument" that I "most
certainly did commit either an atrocity or a war crime (that's either
an interesting distinction or a redundancy) IF your bombs landed on
innocent enemy (oxymoron???) civilians." But making the argument isn't
following the definition of a war crime. Some might even accuse the
military of genocide or wholesale murder, but they would be employing
a despicable level of hyperbole.

The purpose of military operations is to "kill people and break
things". Doing anything less is a sure route to defeat.

Ed, I expected you to argue all of the points I posed as a matter of
self-defense, and you didn't disappoint me. The point that I was trying
to
make, and it does not require a response from you, was that there are
people who
don't see things the way you do, and they're not necessarily wrong just
because
they differ with you.

I could argue some of the points you make, as for example your referring
to
"innocent enemy (oxymoron???) civilians", by asking how you would
categorize
the three day or week or month old Vietnamese infant blown apart by one of
your
jettisoned weapons in his or her own home, but I'll let others more
qualified
than I deal with that.

Did you really retire from the military? It is hard to believe that you did,
based upon the above drivel. War results in death, and sometimes the deaths
are of noncombatants. As Ed has already told you, however, intent matters.
Even you, with your obvious incapacity for handling reality, should be able
to get a grasp of that incontrovertable fact.

Brooks


George Z.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Jarg
writes
"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...

You lost no wars? I was under the impression that after we left that
sad,
unfortunate country, the only thing we had to show for our efforts was
that big,
black wall in Washington and a grievously divided nation that
apparently
exists
to this day. What was it that we supposedly won?

The United States certainly did not achieve our political objectives in
Vietnam. On the other hand, it is a stretch to say the US lost the war
since it won all the military actions, and left several years before
North
Vietnam overran the south.

But wasn't the whole point of the US presence to prevent the North
grabbing the South? They kept fighting until the US withdrew, then moved
on to achieve their goal. Sounds like a success to me, even if the end
result wasn't the Socialist Worker's Paradise they'd hoped for.


Well, you could make the arguement that the US objective changed at the end.




You're absolutely right on the military success side (though some of the
victories were expensive: on the other hand, there were lessons learned
and put to use) but the final objective - an independent non-communist
South Vietnam - was lost.


There's a supposed a quote I'd like to get a proper source for (and to
know it correctly) that goes along the lines of a senior North
Vietnamese being told that the US never lost a battle in Vietnam, and
replying that this is quite true, but also quite irrelevant. (It's got a
lot of resonance for current "effects-based" doctrine)



Yep, I've also seen the quote to which you are referring:

You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,' said the American
colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment.
'That may be so,' he replied, 'but it is also irrelevant.'-- (On Strategy,
Harry Summers, p. 21)

And from the point of view of the communist Vietnamese leadership, that view
was correct. They did achieve their political objectives, though
practically destroying themselves and S. Vietnam in the process.


Finally, if you have been to Vietnam recently,
as I have, you would be hard pressed to say they won, or it was a Pyrrhic
victory at best.

Perhaps: but by that argument, wouldn't the US victory be even greater
if back in the late 1940s it had told the French to get out of their
ex-colony and offered generous aid and support to Ho Chi Minh? Communist
or not, I'll bet he'd rather have sold rubber to Firestone and Goodyear
for hard dollars than to the USSR for roubles. (Fifty years of hindsight
applies, of course)




I never said the US won in Vietnam! But if that is victory, I'm not sure it
was worth winning. I'm certain Vietnam would be a far better place had the
North lost.


Anyone saying there's an easy simple answer to this discussion hasn't
studied it



Indeed.

Jarg

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

Georgr:

By refusing to acknowledge that there is such a thing as "objective
truth," you are ceding much of what it means to be a rational human being-
and for that, I pity you. You will never know the joy of rational inquiry.

Much of what separates Man from the Animal Kingdom is the awareness of
Truth- and the joy in its pursuit.

Of course I will let you have the last word- your kind needs it so very
much; you have little else.

And besides, this whole thing is so far off topic I am beginning to
despair of ever getting the newsgroup back.

Steve Swartz



"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...
Yeff wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:00:09 -0400, George Z. Bush wrote:

Ed, I expected you to argue all of the points I posed as a matter of
self-defense, and you didn't disappoint me. The point that I was
trying to
make, and it does not require a response from you, was that there are
people
who don't see things the way you do, and they're not necessarily wrong
just
because they differ with you.

But sometimes they *are* necessarily wrong. People arguing that
something
is a war crime when what they're arguing about doesn't meet that
definition
means those people are wrong. Period.

You might be right and you might be wrong, and putting "Period" at the end
of
your comment doesn't mean that the matter's been decided. You might wish
it'd
be that way, but that's not the way it works.

George Z.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote

Perhaps: but by that argument, wouldn't the US victory be even greater
if back in the late 1940s it had told the French to get out of their
ex-colony and offered generous aid and support to Ho Chi Minh? Communist
or not, I'll bet he'd rather have sold rubber to Firestone and Goodyear
for hard dollars than to the USSR for roubles. (Fifty years of hindsight
applies, of course)

And 50 yrs later, people would be writing about "Another evil dictator that
the Americans kept in power"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Pete

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...

Perhaps: but by that argument, wouldn't the US victory be even greater
if back in the late 1940s it had told the French to get out of their
ex-colony


Yes.



and offered generous aid and support to Ho Chi Minh?


No.

But wasn't the whole point of the US presence to prevent the North
grabbing the South? They kept fighting until the US withdrew, then moved
on to achieve their goal.

Two years passed between those two events. That's a long time: an
entire hitch, for a draftee. There were troops who entered the army
after the last American combat unit left Vietnam in March 1973, who
served out their term, and who were back in civilian life before Hue
fell in March 1975.

It is true, of course, that the U.S. accepted in 1975 what it wouldn't
have accepted in 1965: a North Vietnamese invasion across the DMZ.
There were three U.S. presidents involved in making policy on Vietnam
(four if you include Eisenhower), so there is little wonder that the
policy changed. Why should Nixon have felt obligated to carry out a
policy formulated by the president who preceded the president who
preceded him?


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! www.vivabush.org

If you want to allege influence, it was over the
length of the drop, not over the fact that he got one.

"The official record of Bush's military service indicates that Bush did not
report in person for the last two years of his service. In addition, superior
officers in both Alabama and Texas say they never saw him during this period.
And George Magazine offers no credible evidence to contradict this...."


"Bush did accumulate the days of service required for an honorable discharge,
but these appear to be no-show days that were credited to him as part of the
extraordinary favoritism that characterized his service from the beginning to
the end of his service."

http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=157

Walt