Diaphone Jim wrote:

Worthwhile read:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/26/a-very-long-war/

At least from that article, he has thrown everything different and unrelated into one big soup.  And then looks for an answer from the smell.

He has failed to put the various parameters required to have and win a war in perspective.  Every war, won or lost, is defined by some simple concepts.  Answers to each category result in volumes of material  - facts and numbers. Much of which is missing in his article.
 

Victories.  Korea.  Desert Storm.  The Balkan.  In every case, a strategic objective was clearly defined and meet.  A smoking gun existed to justify that war (it was not promoted by a lie).  And the appropriate exit strategy (ie phase four planning) existed.

Afghanistan could have been won.  But we violated basic military concepts.  We surrendered in 2005 so as to invent another unjustified war in Iraq.  Then did what did not work.  We went back and tried to do it right a second time.  Then did things (just like in Nam) that made us an enemy of the people.

One is suppose to learn from mistakes.  In every case, those mistakes were made by extremists who know better using their emotions; by not learning any facts (ie Guantanamo, Lebanon).

One need only view Israel's stupidity in Lebanon to appreciate same.  Or the USSR in Afghanistan.
 

tw wrote:

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

This guy repeats what I heard from a dozen people who went through the same thing.
 

He discusses Time Magazine.  Those articles were not written by the reporters whose name were on the byline.  Well defined in so many publications.  And clearly defined in books such as "A Bright and Shining Lie"  and "Making of a Quagmire".  Reporters in Nam would receive their Time Maganizes two weeks later (it took that long for a ship to deliver it).  They would not read anything they wrote.  Because Henry Luce was an extremists (not a moderate).  He did not like what his reporters in Nam were writing.  So he had all those articles rewritten in Washington and New York - just like Fox News does today.

 

who the fuck are you today man?

sit down.

Ho Chi Minh...
Is that the famous hiker they named a trail after?
 

BigV wrote:

 who the fuck are you today man?

Profanity and insults are a first indication of an adult who is still a child.

Those who are better educated also know that Ho Chi Minh wrote five letters to the US president asking that the US make Vietnam a protectorate - just like the Phillippines.  Extrermists have so much emotion and so little knowledge as to call Ho Chi Minh evil rather than help him to become an American ally.

 

Last edited by tw (2/01/2022 5:09 pm)