Just watched the documentary Last Days in Vietnam, and I am ashamed to be an American

The Plain Truth wrote:

"Diplomacy is the shadow cast by military power"

- Henry Kissinger

You messed up the quote and thus contorted the context.

"Diplomacy: the art of restraining power."

-Henry Kissinger

Diplomacy comes first, then utilize the military if necessary. Countless American lives could have been saved with forward thinking as to what is best for the American people. Instead, decisions are made by the oligopoly of interested parties and lobbyists through the Military Industrial Complex. That policy has bankrupted us morally and financially.

diplomacy wrote:

The Plain Truth wrote:

"Diplomacy is the shadow cast by military power"

- Henry Kissinger

You messed up the quote and thus contorted the context.

"Diplomacy: the art of restraining power."

-Henry Kissinger

Diplomacy comes first, then utilize the military if necessary. Countless American lives could have been saved with forward thinking as to what is best for the American people. Instead, decisions are made by the oligopoly of interested parties and lobbyists through the Military Industrial Complex. That policy has bankrupted us morally and financially.

Without a strong military, there will be no diplomacy other than terms of surrender.

Experience has taught us that preparedness deters aggression and that weakness invites it.

-- Reagan

DiscoGary wrote:

[

Experience has taught us that preparedness deters aggression and that weakness invites it.

-- Reagan

Says Reagan, the wimp who died with no American Infantry time on his resume ;-[

I'm a WIMP too wrote:

DiscoGary wrote:

[

Experience has taught us that preparedness deters aggression and that weakness invites it.

-- Reagan

Says Reagan, the wimp who died with no American Infantry time on his resume ;-[

Whatever. That is most POTUS candidates. John McCain and John Kerry are exceptions. Went to cushy colleges instead of defending this country.

I still don't know how Kerry the Vietnam vet could have been railroaded by a PAC advocating a guy who flew in the champagne brigade.

Whatever.

I'm a WIMP too wrote:

Says Reagan, the wimp who died with no American Infantry time on his resume ;-[

Reagan volunteered in 1937. When did you volunteer?

Both of you are correct.

He did volunteer.

But he was not in the trenches. He made movies and stuff.

"Lieutenant Reagan was ordered to active duty on 19 April 1942. Due to eyesight difficulties, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. Upon the request of the Army Air Forces (AAF), he applied for a transfer from the Cavalry to the AAF on 15 May 1942; the transfer was approved on 9 June 1942. He was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California. Reagan was promoted to First Lieutenant on 14 January 1943 and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is The Army at Burbank, California. Following this duty, he returned to the 1st Motion Picture Unit, and on 22 July 1943 was promoted to Captain.

In January 1944, Captain Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the sixth War Loan Drive. He was assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit, Culver City, California on 14 November 1944, where he remained until the end of the war. He was recommended for promotion to Major on 2 February 1945, but this recommendation was disapproved on July 17 of that year. On 8 September 1945, he was ordered to report to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on 9 December 1945.

While on active duty with the 1st Motion Picture Unit and the 18th Army Air Forces Base Unit, Captain Reagan served as Personnel Officer, Post Adjutant, and Executive Officer. By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films for the Army Air Forces."

China would never have allowed Kim to run a united korea. he would have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

40 Years Ago wrote:

In addition to exposing your smug arrogance, this post shows how fundamentally ignorant you are about the nature of the Kim dynasty in north Korea versus the communist party regimes in Vietnam and China. There is no reason North Korea could not have opened up economically like China and Vietnam have done. North Korea hasn't because it is actually a totalitarian state that justifies itself through the cult of personality. China and Vietnam are repressive and anti-democratic in many ways, but they at least have collective leadership, methods to replace and refresh leadership, and a willingness to recognize that communism as an economic system was a failure.

asldkjlsajfd wrote:

You are ashamed to be an American? Really?

Go sit in a dump of a country and watch what our young men do for other people. Go tell the families of the dead soldiers that you are ashamed.

If you are ashamed of something that happened a half a century ago then go to Japan or Italy or Germany. Oh wait, they murdered tens of millions of people for no good reason. Guess you need to live on an island.

Screw your documentary and screw your shame.

Actually, I am very proud of being an American, but April 1975 was not our finest hour.

The documentary is actually very pro American, if anything. It's really just the story of those last critical days and how chaotic it was. Many of the embassy staff, like the Defense Attache, were incredibly creative and courageous in trying to save as many Vietnamese as possible.

Actually, you titled this thread "Just watched the documentary Last Days in Vietnam, and I am ashamed to be an American."

So there's that.

asdlkfjldsakf;jdsaf wrote:

40 Years Ago wrote:

Actually, I am very proud of being an American, but April 1975 was not our finest hour.

The documentary is actually very pro American, if anything. It's really just the story of those last critical days and how chaotic it was. Many of the embassy staff, like the Defense Attache, were incredibly creative and courageous in trying to save as many Vietnamese as possible.

Actually, you titled this thread "Just watched the documentary Last Days in Vietnam, and I am ashamed to be an American."

So there's that.

Ouch....usausausa!

oldtiger wrote:

but it's not like it's common knowledge that we should have just let the communists invade a sovereign country and kill people.

Yes, we invaded a sovereign country and killed people, but we weren't communists, they were.

We didn't invade South Vietnam you moron. They invited us in.

Polly P wrote:

What about the French? Didn't they have a moral obligation to live up to?

Yes, they were obligated to build a rail road system and then defend it so they could extract resources from the country. They were morally obligated to enrich themselves.

Being the same geniuses who built the Maginot Line in WW-I, they decided to build an airfield in a deep valley surrounded by forest and place their best troops there to be slaughtered, then cry for help.

The French Indochina war was resolved with the promise of free eections that would have united the country. We backed the dictator Diem and avoided elections, which would have seen Ho elected. We were pathologically afraid of Ho's brand of Communism during the raging Cold War. The irony is that we now do business with the rag - tag nation that defeated us, even though we rained bombs and napalm on a nation that resisted our brand of colonialism. Our martial efforts at nation building don't end; we don't learn from the past and hence we repeat it.

discogary is way to the right of me, but I have to mostly agree with him here.

Fact is, without wars in Korea and Vietnam and near wars elsewhere, Russia and China would have taken over many more countries and far more lives would have been lost. Because that is what communists do - they wind up killing their own people.

Vietnam as it happened was a disaster but it was one more battle that stopped Russia and China. It was dirty and nasty and bad things were done, but the alternative was worse.

40 Years Ago wrote:

We didn't invade South Vietnam you moron. They invited us in.

Whatever guy you are ashamed to be an American nobody wants to hear it anymore.