There is no such thing as a nice war.

studebaker hoch: There is no such thing as a nice war.

War is terrible. But we can find meaning in it. (new window)

El Freak

The press was heavily censored during WWII.

We fought WWII the right way. Full use of all industrial and military power, draft of US citizens of fighting age, rationing of resources in the US, use of everything we had in our arsenal including nuclear weapons.

It was horrible, nasty and the US and our allies won.

That's how you fight a war.

LeroyBourne

Some of those soldiers looked like children.

Picture 5 looks like he got pulled off his skateboard to be a marine.

That is one the most moving things I have ever seen. Mezmerizing, horrifically sad.

mandingueiro: Fano: mandingueiro: Fano: "suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem"

Suspected my ass. He had killed several people just a few minutes before.

according to who? and if in fact he just killed these people, what were their political affiliations?

This is a contentious issue (new window)

yeah, that article is about Loan not Nguyen.

Nguyen was rounded up on the second day of the Tet offensive suspected of killing the family members of police officers.

Wiki "Bay Lop"

Lake Palin

How can you compare a battle of coalitions of industrialized roughly equivalent economic powers fighting for the very essentials of their ideology with something like Vietnam?

They both seem like war to me.

Of course we could have nuked all of southeast asia into a glass parking lot. Can you think of why we didn't?

I'm guessing because Russia had the bomb by then, and if we used nukes, they'd respond in kind, and we'd have ended the Cold War in one afternoon.

So what happened was we fought half-assed instead.

/and lost.

I don't usually advocate burning books, but you can start a nice bonfire with this one. (new window)

mandingueiro: Fano: mandingueiro: Fano: "suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem"

Suspected my ass. He had killed several people just a few minutes before.

according to who? and if in fact he just killed these people, what were their political affiliations?

This is a contentious issue (new window)

yeah, that article is about Loan not Nguyen.

Quick hint:

"Nguyen" is the family name, and it is quite common. Both the prisoner being executed, Lem, and the executioner, Loan, had this family name.

moralpanic: The US did a lot of bad things during that war, stuff like using deforestation agents to clear the jungle (anything that can kill a tree is going to affect people, and that stuff went everywhere), but what nobody talks about is the way the war 'ended'. The US just fled. They didn't negotiate a peace. So all those hundreds of thousands that fought with the US were massacred when the North won.

Cowards.


The only cowards were the hacks in DC, not our troops.

studebaker hoch: Lake Palin

How can you compare a battle of coalitions of industrialized roughly equivalent economic powers fighting for the very essentials of their ideology with something like Vietnam?

They both seem like war to me.

Of course we could have nuked all of southeast asia into a glass parking lot. Can you think of why we didn't?

I'm guessing because Russia had the bomb by then, and if we used nukes, they'd respond in kind, and we'd have ended the Cold War in one afternoon.

So what happened was we fought half-assed instead.

/and lost.

Unless we'd killed everyone and turned the entire country into a glass parking lot, we couldn't have won. We're talking about a country that managed to retain a national identity through 1000 years of Chinese domination.

America hasn't been around that long, we don't really understand that sort of long historical memory, but when you have a people whose national identity is shaped by the national memory of 1000 years of struggle against the Chinese and then by the struggle against French colonialism, they aren't going to give up easily. If we hadn't left, we'd probably still be embroiled in an insurgency to this day.

uncletogie: LegacyDL: I'd like to think of WWII as the last legitimate war America has fought in. Everything else that followed to this very point in time is just an offshoot bastard child of that war.

WWII -> Cold War, Gulf War, War on Terror.


The bolded one doesn't count as a real war.

Yeah, if you're including the "War on Terror", then you might as well include the "War on Drugs", the "War on Cancer", and the "War on High Prices" down at the used car lot.

Sid_6.7: mandingueiro: Fano: mandingueiro: Fano: "suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem"

Suspected my ass. He had killed several people just a few minutes before.

according to who? and if in fact he just killed these people, what were their political affiliations?

This is a contentious issue (new window)

yeah, that article is about Loan not Nguyen.

Quick hint:

"Nguyen" is the family name, and it is quite common. Both the prisoner being executed, Lem, and the executioner, Loan, had this family name.

mandingueiro knows his asians, don't worry.

UNC_Samurai: NewportBarGuy: I don't usually advocate burning books, but you can start a nice bonfire with this one. (new window)

That whole series angers me greatly. The garbage that guy spews is unbelievable - a series of half-assed opinions with a veneer of research cherry-picked from dubious sources masquerading as some great insightful repository. It follows that "things the MSM mainstream media won't tell you" crap that's borderline tinfoil hattery.

The sad thing is that is the conservative historical viewpoint. It smacked me in the face during a Revolutionary War class I took a few years ago. It's like there are two different histories. Sometimes three. I can get that, it happened 240 years ago.

But, Vietnam? C'mon! I think these people have an addiction to the Forever War. It's kind of sick actually, because the people who believe that shiat are pasty white people who are ugly and picked on for smelling like feet. Or they are airsofters, either way. Sometimes both!

Is it so hard to learn from history one simple lesson... Never unleash your dogs of war unless you are under direct threat of attack. And then, you let them loose to destroy everything in a Total War concept. You only stop after they are begging you to have mercy, you push a little harder, and then force terms.

Though, this new, more modern force, trained in small unit tactics and counter-insurgency? I see politicians using them for even more adventures in foreign policy missions. We shall see if that fares any better. Probably not.

LegacyDL: WWII -> Cold War, Gulf War, War on Terror.

You forgot Korea. Don't worry, everyone does.