There have been maybe about a 100 armed conflicts of various sizes since WW2 and most have involved the US to some extent, despite the US being remote from nearly all of them. 1964 In 1964 next to the coast of Indochina a US Navy destroyer was sailing along and got hit by one, just one, bullet from a burst of machine gun fire, allegedly. Which happened to hit in the right place to photograph it and take the evidence to Congress to start a war, approval being the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. 11 Years later the goals had been achieved. 4 million Vietnamese were dead, the US economy had given enough money to the weapons makers to go off the gold standard, and Esso got the rights to the oil off the South coast of Vietnam, and yes that might be oversimplified. EXCUSE FOR WAR: If we don't stop communism in Vietnam then it will spread until all of the world except America is communist and then they will all attack America. This was called the Domino Theory. ALTERNATIVE: Communism is so inefficient it will collapse all by itself. RESULT: You are supposed to believe both narratives at the same time. That's called 'doublethink'. It's a sign of intelligence and conformity.
There's the evidence, if it had hit a bit lower it might have sunk the ship. No, I'm not sure how it ended up pointing that way. But it calls for revenge and 4 million Vietnamese killed and some Laotians and some Cambodians and more tons of bombs than were dropped in WW2 should bring the 'peace and stability' which was the alleged aim of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
How many Americans died in that conflict? I recall teenagers being sent to fight and die there. Then there was the carpet bombing, including napalm.
There were also nearly 60,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. I notice you're fine with calling liberals commies even though that's just as false. Anyway, the Vietnam war has been over for 50 years; what's your point? The worlds a dangerous place, but has never enjoyed the relative peace in prosperity that it has since These United States and it's Allies made the decision to stand up to tyranny wherever and whenever it rears it's ugly head. That peace may be coming to end; just yesterday tRaitor tRump affirmed that he would end NATO.
2001 Was supposed to be a Space Odyssey, but instead two planes hit two buildings in New York City and three came down. We were told not to investigate it at all but to concentrate on revenge or fixing the root cause or something. So we went to war in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq. This brought badly needed business to the weapons industry which had not done well in the previous decade after the end of the Cold War, although the US economy was in the black for the first time in a long time. EXCUSE: If we don't fight them there we will have to fight them here ALTERNATIVE THOUGHTS: Should we let known terrorists into the country? Isn't it normal to fly a fighter up to see who is flying a hijacked plane, instead of just letting it fly around for an hour?
The problem was lax security on US domestic flights. Warnings were given but ignored. Those highjackings should never have happened. But then Afghan and Iraq were punished althiough they had nothing to do with it.100,000 dead and the country wrecked for nothing except American pride.
Very good questions. Something like 58,000 Americans died in that conflict, so about 1.5% of the total. A precise number seems impossible to obtain because some GI's quietly defected and joined the Vietnamese and got married there, and others were killed, and some were walking around in the jungle years later. The Carpet bombing included Arc Light missions where a flight of six 52s dropped bombs and destroyed 2 square miles of jungle containing villages and rice paddies. The overall objective was, as stated in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, to bring Peace and Stability to S E Asia.
War? Sells lotsa expensive equipment that get's torn up and wasted and needing even more replacements. It is why the deepstate hates Trump.... he didn't creaTE any new markets for them... but good ol' Joe did.. starting with leaving a few billions worth of war material to our sworn enemies and then supplying the most corrupt regime in Europe with even 100's of billion more.
I'm looking for a trend here, the narrative/excuse for war we follow is the one to benefit the weapons makers, despite all the other possibilities, we always pick the one that brings the weapons lobby the most money. Vietnam: the Domino Theory: look ahead a few decades when the entire world has fallen to communism, so go to war now before we have to, if indeed we ever will have to, but don't miss the opportunity. 2001: Again, Look ahead - to when instead of 19 hijackers we have millions of foreigners in the country doing things, so it's better to fight them over there than wait until they all come over here. For the current proxy war between the US and Russia in Ukraine the same narrative type is chosen. Look ahead to when instead of just protecting Donetsk, Russia has decided to take over all of Europe. Don't keep the battle inside Ukraine, but launch drones from Finland a full 1,200 miles into Russia. Atta boy.
An aspect of the overall trend is the US public looks at the situation and says: Vietnam is 8,000 miles away, and I'm not sure they are communists either. But then the weapons industry advertising visionary arrives and says: that's now but in 20 years from now after Vietnam and other countries have become more communist and there are more countries joined up, then they will gang up against us and we will be worse off than dead, after all, 'better dead than red'. So we go to Vietnam and kill people because although there is no danger, one day there will be.
If everyone is just defending their own countries then nobody will be doing any attacking, and there will be no wars*, *except possibly border disputes. Somebody has to do the attacking and it might as well be us. And that is our role in the world.
Interesting thread. Usually when one has the gift of hindsight they can see the mistakes that were made and what SHOULD have been done...but not here.
I constantly think I'm reading contradictions. Someone will write in this forum that the US is always trying to avoid war, but when I write against having yet another war I'm accused of being a foreigner, as though trying to avoid war is un American.
they said the same during the war in Vietnam, that people like Noam Chomsky, from New York was in the pay of Ho Chi Minh. Anyone who does not favor war must be a foreigner and is an enemy, get used to it.
