Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
you really shouldn't start walking through history without a good map and maybe a guidebook, a dictionary and possibly an infomred
tour-guide...
I can give you a postal address if you want to send me gifts, money and or written advice. See if you can influence my beliefs better than you have by
typing.
I'd be real hard-pressed to describe the pilot of a USAAF p-40 as a "civilian", I also really don't think
this guy was a civilian, either...
Yes, and i am sure the Vietnamese just handed out Sa-2 missile complex to citizens like candy. Oh wait, they didn't even have much food.
Which Vietnam, exactly, are you talking about? Hint: get a clue about the conflict, where it was and who was involved BEFORE typing.
We are talking about the citizens of Vietnam; all of them. Neither initiated hostilities against the United States.
I'd love you to show me the evidence of "Many thousands" of fraggings. No, really. You see, I've been hearing about it all my life, but
NOT ONE VN vet, Aussie, US or NZ, I've ever spoken to has described such an incident to me.
Vietnam
Source of Data Fratricide Rate
WE'___' (autopsy) 14% Killed in Action (rifle)
WE'___' (autopsy) 11% Killed in Action (fragments)
WE'___' 11% Casualties
Hawkins 14% Casualties
www.carlisle.army.mil...
Or for a summary:
query.nytimes.com...
Basically war is a mess and IFF isn't just a problem for Americans or in BVR aerial combat.
And who the US could likewise not follow home to finish the war. Again, get a clue about said war BEFORE typing.
Yes, the US extensively bombed northern Vietnam as well as a couple of surrounding countries while mostly destroying Southern Vietnam. Either way the
war was visited mainly on the people of South Vietnam and they had absolutely no where to escape to.
Neither did the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) passively sit back and allow the US to "secure" the Republic of Vietnam against the communist
invaders.
There were no communist invaders and this is admitted in the Pentagon papers. The US national security state well understood that this was a INTERNAL
rebellion that were logically supported ( but not started or enabled ) by the North and thus could not be solved by bombing the North, the South or
really shooting and bombing anyone. They tried any ways ( that's what empires do) and eventually had to leave.
Well, it could be that the USSR-supplied advisors were really good at explaining how the USSR-supplied SAM systems worked.
So good that attrition rates were apparently very near that of the USAF in the second world war. Since the Vietnamese could not have been all that
well trained ( or exceedingly efficient then) i suppose we will have to credit either technology in general or Russian technology in particular.
Either way my intent was to show that uniformed North Vietnamese personal shot down American planes in the same way that uniformed American soldiers
shot down North Vietnamese aircraft; Mccain were not shot down by the Innocent civilians anymore than German schoolgirls were responsible for
'Liberators' being destroyed
Well, you said "Many thousands" of US troops were fragged by other US troops, with zero evidence to back it up.
They always knew it was at least 2% ( a little bit more than 1000) and as that indicates it was in fact much higher.
As for Vietnamese killing Vietnamese, I suggest you find out something about Hue. You might even discover that it was the single-biggest war
crime of the Vietnamese conflict (apart from the North's deliberate mistreatment of prisoners), dwarfing by many times the celibrated My Lai
massacre.
War crimes which were enabled by the fact that there was a war sponsored by a aggressive external power that did not even bother to back the leader
that would have won a internationally sponsored/required election. What you are not addressing is the fact that any such atrocities would be INTERNAL
thus a problem to be settled by the Vietnamese people. There is a HUGE difference between citizens who have some idea of each other's history and
situation ending up killing each other and a totally foreign force interjecting itself on behalf of the interest of a very small minority
Once again, your history is worse than Budski's. I try to make it a point not to post about topics I've never studied. Clearly not your
policy. your next bit makes that obvious.
Yes, yes, i don't know anything and i just make random comments from random google searches. The other guy must always be deaf, dumb and blind.
You do know who the Republic of Vietnam was, don't you? Well, maybe not. Because if you did, you'd know whose army the US was fighting in the
A-Shau Valley and at Khe San and who the Australians fought at Long Tan.
Yes, and exactly how long were the Vietnamese in the North supposed to sit around and watch fellow Vietnamese being slaughtered for attempting to make
a decent living in the South? Do you think the South Vietnamese were inspired to resist because they wanted 'freedom' so badly ( and no, they
didn't, not many does) or were they fighting for a basic survival that were not being allowed them in the South?
That perfectly-good choice was clearly not the choice of everyone in Vietnam (both of them).
Well US leaders chose to intervene before they had allowed Ho Chi Minh to make reform mistakes that would cost him much support. Maybe the Vietnamese
would in fact have been deeply devided as to who to support as a leader in the 1956 internationally agreed upon election? Why rob them of the
opportunity to make a relatively free decision?
Even in a democracy, people who choose the loser are not punished for it and in a few years they are given another choice.
So do we have such unequivocal evidence that without the US intervention those who did not support Ho chi Minh would have been persecuted and if so
why were so many allowed to simply leave the North? RIght and since Bush stole the last two elections your case is clearly proved. Americans, and many
others, ( far be it from me to call what they have in the US a proper democracy) are free to vote for whoever they want because their wishes simply
wont be respected.
Since the "re-unification" of Vietnam, how many times have the people been given the choice of leaders? No, well, how about this one: Since
the "re-unification" of Vietnam, how many people have had their property restored to them? No, okaay, well, how about this one: Since the
"re-unification" of Vietnam, how much money has the gov't spent on caring for the war cemetaries of the Republic of Vietnam?
Points that are largely mooted by the fact that national liberation movements are normally massively corrupted by the process of fighting such
extended and devastating wars. Maybe if the French ( or those before them) had not been occupying it before or if Roosevelt actually responded to Ho
Chi Minh's attempts for Vietnam's independence all of the rest of what happened to Vietnam could have been avoided. We will never know because the
US national security state chose to support France ( as it did almost every other repressive regime that would follow it's lead) instead of
democracy in Vietnam.
Continued
