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3. If we learned anything from Viet Nam, allowing public opinion to sway military strategy is a bad thing, and normally costs more lives of our young soldiers.

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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3. If we learned anything from Viet Nam, allowing public opinion to sway military strategy is a bad thing, and normally costs more lives of our young soldiers.

What history book did "we" learn this from, I read a different one

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ORIGINAL: Thadius


Another example of such insanity was the Marine barracks in Beirut, where sentries were given one round of ammunition. 

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ORIGINAL: Thadius

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ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

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3. If we learned anything from Viet Nam, allowing public opinion to sway military strategy is a bad thing, and normally costs more lives of our young soldiers.

What history book did "we" learn this from, I read a different one

I learned this in the texts I was provided during my tech schools after bootcamp... but also by looking at the different policies, general orders, and terms of engagement put in place during various periods during the war.  Just a simple example of this would be "do not fire until fired upon", which sounds like a sound strategy until put into place.

Another example of such insanity was the Marine barracks in Beirut, where sentries were given one round of ammunition.  There are numerous others, but there is no need to belabor the point I am trying to make.  After the attrocities that occurred in Mi Lai, the stomach of the country really turned south on the Viet Nam war.  Which spurred attempts by the government to play the propoganda game with the folks at home.  Policy changes took place to try and effect public opinion, but put the soldiers that were in harms way at more risk.

I remember even as late as '90 seeing signs on lawns in San Diego, "No Dogs, Sailors or Marines allowed on Grass' and other fun little slogans.  If one wishes to be antiwar then be so, and argue the policy, debate the whys and wherefores... but by all means do not put those men and women that are protecting your rights to do so in a bind by cutting funding, or other drastic actions; simply because of your political stance on the issue.

I wish you well,
Thadius

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remember even as late as '90 seeing signs on lawns in San Diego, "No Dogs, Sailors or Marines allowed on Grass' and other fun little slogans.  If one wishes to be antiwar then be so, and argue the policy, debate the whys and wherefores... but by all means do not put those men and women that are protecting your rights to do so in a bind by cutting funding, or other drastic actions; simply because of your political stance on the issue.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

 
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

 
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

 
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

 
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

 
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

 
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

 
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

Now you may think that it is not a civilians job to oversee what you do, but we pay the bills, we get to vote, and we have every right to not agree and to do what ever necessary under the law to change what we want.. it is called the American way, which earlier you professed to support... so stop making straw men.
 

 

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but by all means do not put those men and women that are protecting your rights to do so in a bind

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I am not sure where you are coming up with the number of 7000 dead, but as of Jan. 16 2007, 1000 EST the total number of deaths (kia and non hostile causes) for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom combined was 3566.

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Now you may think that it is not a civilians job to oversee what you do

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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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ORIGINAL: LaTigresse

These threads always remind me of the phrase "armchair quarterbacks"

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ORIGINAL: LaTigresse
These threads always remind me of the phrase "armchair quarterbacks"

... and can't accept anyone else's point of view as anything but nefarious, but expect you to accept theirs.

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There are people, that don't want to leave with our tail between our legs ... no matter what happened before ... no matter how fucked up things are ... we just don't think we have to lose.

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Don't you remember the Civil War post ... it's been over for a long time, and we still can't agree on why it was fought.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Oh really ...

I've read most of the memoirs written by period people of import, and they don't seem to come to any formal conclusion.

Your insult, while typical, is probably misplaced. I would bet I can run circles around most here, in American Civil War period history.

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ORIGINAL: caitlyn

And what was his message with the Emancipation Proclamation?

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What was Lincoln's message, when he continually approved military strategy, based on promisses made by him, and then went aganst those promisses? What was his message when he backed off his promisses, suffered defeat, and then threw his generals under the bus in the press?