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Originally Posted by Lebell
Discussion is fine, but most of TFP avoids the Politics board because it ISN'T discussion, it is browbeating each other until one side gives up out of shear fatigue.
This is what is not enjoyable to me anymore and one of the reasons why I have been extremely scarce.
If you choose to believe that's a copout, I can live with that.
Since you asked a simple question without the embellishing sarcasm (another thing that is endemic to this board and something I've given into more than once, to my shame), I'll answer you.
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I don't believe I was browbeating you, or you me. And I hopefully wasn't being sarcastic. In fact, I was rather enjoying this discussion.
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The enemy in Vietnam was not only the VC, but also the North Vietnamese. These were the people who were supporting the rebels and destabilizing the South.
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The ultra-corrupt South Vietnamese regime itself was also not helping. In fact, it later became an embarrassment for the US to be seen propping them up. But, yes of course the NVA were also the enemy. That's why you bombed the shit out of their capital. To no avail.
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As it was, we dealt with the simptoms, not the disease, while the fifth column was hard at work in America undermining support for the war.
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The fifth column?! Come on! You honestly don't believe that the anti-war movement was being funded or directed by the North Vietnamese? Because that's what a fifth column is. Another group of
enemies.
You mention elsewhere you were glad you lived in a country where you could state your opinion. Does that right not extend to those opposed to the Vietnam war? Or was the shooting dead of those student protestors by the National Guard justified. Be consistent.
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As you said, Tet was a huge loss for the VC, but if you ask the average semi-informed US adult, they think that we lost big...and we did where it mattered, in the arena of public opinion.
So the VC won not because they were better but because they used basic game strategy: they caused us to keep from committing all our forces while they strung out the war, undermining support for it back home...which is what the left is trying to do now in Iraq.
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I don't think the VC had anything to do with undermining the support for the war "back home". 40,000 US military deaths, pictures of attrocities, war fatigue, the utter corruption of South Vietnamese President Thieu and his extravagant wife... all these contributed to the anti-war movement.
Let me ask you this. Do you think Iraqi "elements" are funding/supporting a secret fifth column in the US today? Don't you think that's a bit unlikely? Perhaps the people now, as they did back in the Vietnam era, just
don't want the war?
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So in that regard, yes, Iraq has the potential to become another Viet Nam.
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Yes. Yes it does.
Mr Mephisto