what legitimate charges these "weapons of mass destruction" that will never be found. the gulf of tonkin never happened these WMD are nowhere to be found both are lies. a lie is alie is a lie no matter how big and is it really worth people dying without proof?

did anyone hear the Stanley Karnow interview on CBC Radio 1 about 2 weeks ago he had very goood arguments for my point, i'm attempting to find transcripts, i'll get back

In Veitnam after we pulled out the communists killed over one third of Cambodia, if the democrates have their way and we pull out of Iraq too soon, can they be held responcible for the deaths that occure from the sudden withdrawl? I mean, we are supposed to learn from history, correct?

yes we are, but communists in Cambodia were there because the americans left them there a good hiding spot for the NVA. The communists were taking Cambodia irregardless if the US stayed in Vietnam or not. the Khymer and the NVA/VC were not the best of friends. are the people in charge going to take responsibility for the death occuring right now, even while the US is still in Iraq. the longer the war lasts the more it is going t oresemble Vietnam, morale can only stay high for so long. i don't mean to sound like i want these things to happen cause i don't

Were any of you even alive when the Vietnam war happened?

If not, why do you think you know enough to compare that to this war?

They are completely different. Anyone who thinks differently has no grasp of comparison.

It's because it's a nice simple statement to make that immediately casts an ugly shadow on the operation. Forget about facts, man. It's about 5 second sound bites and trying to "prove" that George Bush is an egomaniac who cares nothing about the troops and is only interested in exercising "his" power.

It's also one of the few areas where GWB may have a kink in his armor coming into the next election. Without this fear mongering, the supporters of the Democratic candidates have little hope to get in the White House.

In order for someone to make a historical comparison, one has to have been alive in order to make those comparisons? You just put the history channel and 90% of its world war 2 correspondents out of a job. :rolleyes:

I assume you never heard of books, or research? I guess no one could ever speak about anthing before their time? Its time to scream at my Roman HIstory proffessor.

Heh, what i said was quite silly. I wrote it at 3am.

I was making a point at people saying 'people are against both wars' when there is a definate difference in the amount of people against each. I'm sure a lot of you that are against this war still respect the hell out of the servicemen and woman over there fighting, and would never think of spitting or insulting them.

By the way, i wasn't alive during Vietnam.

I don't understand how people can compare 500 deaths to 50,000 when this war isn't even over yet.

There is a totally different reason for each conflict, both in different styles of warfare.

No problem.

the comparrisson isn't between body counts, if iraq get to the body count of Vietnam then it will be a grave day, i am talking about the way the wars started lies, the way they are fought, and the public and world reaction to both. Comparing body counts between a war that went on for ever as opposed to a war that hasn't even been going on for a year would be ridiculous.

Glad too see you realised the error of your ways with your post Kiwiman

War...what is it good for...absolutley nothing.
Say it again:

War...what is it good for...absolutley nothing.

we need to hand the problem over to the UN and get the hell out,PERIOD.

LOL the UN? Just like they botched Liberia? Kosovo? the Rowanda Genocide? Cambodia? Somolia? Afganistan? Wow. The UN failed so many times to protect people, yet you want them to take over in Iraq?

The UN.... what is it good for? Indifference, and Libya as the head of the Human Rights commission, Say it again!

The UN.... what is it good for.,. three of five secrity council members willing to trade weapons for oil thus violating its own resolutions Say it again!

The UN...,what is it good for...absolutley nothing.

who mentioned the UN?

Mr Buck right above my post.

Tell me, why is the UN so inneffective? What makes the US a better actor?


SLM3

Um its numereous failures. The Us is better due to its numerous successes.

Tell me, why do YOU think the UN is so effective?

Um its numereous successes. :rolleyes:

This thread is going nowhere...

Please list the success, its going nowere cause no one can provide its successes. I already made a partial list of its deadly failures, and no one listed any of its successes.

Endymon32, you provided six country names, but didn't back it up with anything close to resembling "evidence" or "proof". The rhetoric and hyperbole stand for itself, though.

Hows the UN doing in Kosovo? We getting out anytime soon?

Pretty well, check out the website:

http://www.unmikonline.org/

I'm not sure what 'we' you're referring to. If you mean the UN, the answer is not anytime soon- mid-2005 at the earliest. If you mean the US, our troop commitment is negligible in comparison with those supplied by European countries.

Who asked for proof. This is just off the top of my head. I will list more as I find more.

And Kosovo was a cess pool untill the US took charge and went in.


UN faliures
Dutch Government resigns as a result of U.N. "peace-keeping".
http://www.truthnews.net/comment/200...cekeeping.html

U.N. fails to condemn slavery in Sudan.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...0/165110.shtml

The U.N. is even a joke in Sierra Leone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/933288.stm

Where was the U.N. during the massacre in Rwanda in 1994?
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9806...a.congo.probe/

Where were they when Mugabe expunged all white farmers from Zimbabwe, and caused a famine that threatens to kill 8 million? Now they are talking with Mugabe about how to avert the disaster. What a joke!
http://www.aegis.com/news/afp/2002/AF021258.html

They impede or war in Iraq, claiming diplomacy and inspections are the only answer. At the same time, they refuse to discuss the North Korea's brazen moves.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...534058398.html

U.N. ignores more human rights abuses. This time in Iran.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/04/iranno042202.htm

U.N. takes over in East Timor, and then drops the ball leading to further violence and anarchy.
http://web.amnesty.org/web/wire.nsf/...001/east_timor

Remember those Buddist statues in Afghanistan that the Taliban destroyed? Well, you guessed it. The U.N. failed to save them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1201763.stm


The U.N. fails to protect those displaced by a civil war in Angola.
http://www.afrol.com/News2002/ang007_un_hrw_idps.htm

That's right. The U.N. failed in Kashmir, too.
http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/archive...20030105a.html


The U.N. failed in Somalia.

The U.N. failed in Bosnia.

The U.N. failed in Israel.

The U.N. failed in Columbia.

The U. N. failed in Iraq

You mean NATO, right? The UN wasn't even involved prior to NATO involvement...

Broken link...

The human rights commission is a travesty, no question. However, you can't condemn the entire organization on the basis of one committee, in my opinion.

Not a single NATO country is contributing troops. What a joke...

Where was the U.S.?

So we should be meddling in these countries internal affairs when it is of no political or economical interest to the U.S.? I applaud you.

As long as China continues to protect North Korea in the Security Council, nothing will happen...

See my earlier line about the human rights commission.

That's a 2 and a half year old link. The country has since achieved independence, thanks to the UN (with most of the props going to Australia).

The UN doesn't have jurisdiction over these landmarks, how exactly were they supposed to save them? I could just as well argue that my Aunt Betsy failed to save the Buddhist statues...

The UN supports many relief and humanitarian missions in Africa. By the way, where is that money to fight AIDS in Africa that Bush promised in the state of the union? Probably the same place the Americorps funding is...

From your link: "vested interests by the western countries and India had deprived the Kashmiris of their rights".

Can you think of anything else "off the top of your head"?

So you do support unilateral action on the part of the US?


Off the top of his head or not, Somalia, Bosnia, and Israel are pretty clearly fuck-ups on the part of the UN.

how did this get from similarities between Iraq and Vietnam yet now it has turned into the condemnation of the UN or the US whatever your opinion is. can we stick to the topic, the last UN & US thread turned into a fiasco.

Sparhawk

The US is not the worlds peacekeeper, yet the UN does make that claim. So the "where was the US" is not a valid critique. Where are all the successes that you champion?

No, it doesn't make that claim. And it can only go into a country to peacekeep under two conditions:

1. It has the permission of the country in question.
2. The Security Council (I think we all know by now who the members of the council are) authorizes it.

They have never been the world's policeman, nor can they be, nor should they be.

Blaming an internal revolt/civil war specific to a country on a world body like the UN is grasping at straws. Then again, laying blame is a lot easier than actually looking at the root causes of the bloodshed/starvation/genocide.

Which in these cases was not the US. The blame lies with the UN because they were/are absolutely ineffectual at dealing with the problems once they manifested.

*edited clear.

This thread has gone completely off topic. The new topic isn't bad, just not where the thread's owner started. Let's bring it back on topic. I encourage folks that want to debate the relative merits of the UN to start a new thread and see where it goes from there.

thanks peetster, the new topic is fine and i would like to discuss it . someone should start up another about the merit of the UN and it's effectiveness.

You have failed to provide any successes that the UN is respocible for.

seriously start a new thread if you want to discuss this. i never intended for this to become a UN & US debate. both have had successes and both have had failures, now the title of the thread is Similarities Between Iraq and Vietnam, and the last page basically has been off topic and going nowhere. can we please get back to the original topic.

here's the link for the Stanley Karnow interview that was on CBC Radio One a few weeks back, click listen to part two:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2003/200312/20031208.html