Saddam Hussein Execution Tonight

[native]

We have learned NOTHING from history. America was supposed to be "The City on the Hill" created "for the people" as "one nation under God with liberty and justice for all". This country was supposed to be an example of "freedom, justice, and equality" to the rest of the world. America was to be the best example of democracy the world had ever seen, "the clean and refreshing water" compared to the muddy and diseased drainage of Imperialistic Europe.

"Woe to the hypocrites"

We are not perfect, but the U.S. is still more of a City on the Hill than any previous nation or empire in history, and still the last best hope on earth for freedom.

Criticize where approprate, but give credit where credit is due.

 

[native]

Notice how questions like that seem to get skipped over for a bunch of "Feel Good" speeches.

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

I apologize for my long-winded speechifying, Staggalee, but I have to answer the Marxists and America-haters in detail, lest they accuse me of not telling the truth or avoiding the subject.

I could not agree more with your posts on this thread! :tup:

 

[Attack Dog]

Native,

Read my responses in their context and you will see the points. I am not a Marxist nor American hater, just don't p**s down my back and tell me it's raining.

 

[native]

Native,
Read my responses in their context and you will see the points. I am not a Marxist nor American hater, just don't p**s down my back and tell me it's raining.

Attack Dog, I answered your five point post about Aguinaldo, etc., in good faith and, I think, in context. Heck, I quoted your entire post in my detailed response, so what context did I miss? If I misunderstood your context, please spell it out for me. Why have you failed to address a single element of my rebuttal to your post?

If you say you are not a Marxist nor an America-hater, I take you at your word. However, some of your posts follow the same tired pattern of Marxist attacks on colonialism and American policy, making you naive at best, a fellow traveler at worst.

The communist attacks on colonialism were valid when Lenin first made them a hundred years ago, and it is easy to understand why a downtrodden freedom fighter like Ho Chi Minh might have succumbed to the allure of anti-colonial communist propoganda at that time. But within a decade Lenin proved himself and his movement to be no better than the colonial powers, and within two generations Lenin's communist successors committed imperial transgressions and atrocities including "democide" (government-sponsored murder) far exceeding in scope and scale the colonial atrocites of the previous two centuries.

For example, Mao's tally is 76.7 million intentionally murdered non-combatant civilians, not including combat casualties. The Soviets murdered 61.9 million. The average Russian under the Tsars at the turn of the century ate twice the red meat of the average Soviet citizen in 1987! The result of communist imperialism is the same in regimes large and small: destruction of economic productivity, reduction of the masses to poverty, and murder of innocent civilians on a massive scale. Adding up the civilian victims from the various communist regimes yields a total of nearly 150 million. For at least the past sixty years, there has been no excuse for swallowing the communist line.

Although the communists have proven the worst in recorded history, all totalitarian regimes, such as Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, have committed the same kind of atrocites and democide.

During the same period, the United States helped both Japan and Germany rebuild their economies following WWII. They are now the second and third largest economies in the world, as a result of their political and economic interaction with the United States. (North Vietnam screwed up by winning. Had they lost gracefully, they would probably be in the top ten by now.)

But it is important to acknowledge the terrible mistakes made by the United States. From the Philippine insurrection forward, the U.S. is probably responsible for the deaths (murders if you prefer) of 0.58 million people domestically and overseas, mostly non-combatant civilian victims of American bombs in WWII. We rightfully criticize ourselves and seek correction in such cases, but the numbers are tiny by comparison to totalitarian regimes, very small in the context of the the scope and scale of the conflicts in which we were involved at the time, and the long term effects of engaging in close political and economic intercourse with the United States have clearly proven to be peace and prosperity.

These points are salient because you and JayRob initiated the discussion of colonialism by claiming the United States to be colonialist, and you failed to give the U.S. credit for successes in protecting and feeding people. Your accusation of U.S. "colonialism," and comparison of the U.S. to previous communist and imperial powers, with or without the word "covert," is therefore grossly inappropriate and misleading.

That's not me p***ing down your back, Attack Dog. Until you speak up with logical and factual analysis, that's you p***ing into the wind.

 

[JayRob]

Native,
"WARNING: VERY LONG POST!:lecture:

True. What is your point?

Your use of the word "controlled" is an overstatement. For example, my kids live in my home for 18 years and have been dependent on me for most of that time. I would like to think that I have strongly influenced their behavior but I certainly have not been able to control them, just as the United States has been unable to control either Japan or Germany.

The U.S. government (unbeknownst to the American populace) has always used the CIA, NSA, Peace Corp, missionaries (religion) and other covert agencies to infiltrate and take over governments around the world. The U.S. has been the military arm of the U.N. for the past sixty plus years the same as Russia's been.
The two nations are primarily responsible for the spread of Socialism throughout the world, on behalf of the U.N. and their international controllers.
This has led to the building and sustenance of a future one world government.
In reality, the U.S. government and the Russian governments, unbeknownst to the American people, are working together for the greater goal of bringing the world nations under one government.
Those nations who refuse to bow down and comply, will and are being demonised as "rogue" nations.

What is your point, that this proves the United States to be colonialist? If so, I think you have stretched the word "colonial" beyond usefulness, because our presence in those places does not resemble either pre-Revolutionary British colonialism in the U.S. or European colonialism in Africa. I would not call Germany and Japan "puppet" or colonial governments in the same way that the minority-Tutsi government in 20th-century colonial Rwanda might have been considered a puppet government. ...or for that matter, the Soviet controlled puppet governments in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. That was true colonialism. I think the distinction is important.

Why, after more than 60 years, do we still have troops in Germany and Japan?
You don't get it. The U.S. is keeping these nations under control on behalf of the U.N., and all that it entail. Russia's doing the same thing for those nations under their sphere of control.

What should the United States have done after WWII with regard to Germany or Japan? Do you think we did a good job for the people in those countries and for our own people? I certainly think the United States deserves great credit for its post WWII comportment in Germany and Japan following WWII. What would you have done differently?

Native, who started WW2? Do you really know why the war began between the U.S. and Japan? Do you know the circumstances involving the U.S. entering the war and the real reason the U.S. entered the war?
On the SURFACE, the U.S. did a good job in helping to rebuild Germany. They gave money and material resources to help rebuild Germany and Japan, but in whose image. Guess what, BOTH governments are Socialist.

Why were these nations attacked in the first place? Britain didn't give a damn about Poland or Czechoslavakia. There's more to why the U.S. had to enter the war than meets the eye. The globalists had a lot to do with the financing of both the Axis and Allied powers.
Several American corporations funded Hitler during WW2, and many are still in business today. Why?
There's so much information about WW2 before, during and after, that's not being taught in history classes in our schools.

OK. So what? Again, what is your point? You think the world is controlled by an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers? Plans come and go. Some succeed and most fail. Are you next going to proclaim that the protocols of Zion were not forgeries? That the holocaust did not happen?

Who mentioned "Jewish" anything? For one thing, true Jews (Sephardic) reside in the Middle East, not in Europe. Jews in Europe are called "Ashkenazi" Jews. They are not Jewish by blood and have NO historical ties to the Middle East. This is old knowledge, proven long ago.
European Jews reside in Israel due to the Balfour Declaration and the globalists.

I have no idea who wrote the Protocols, however when you look at history and the present, the words in that document are right on target.
I do believe the holocaust occurred, however no where near six million Jews were killed by Hitler. The Red Cross documents released by Russia in 1989 has all but admitted this. Less than one million Jews died in Germany.
http://www.stormfront.org/truth_at_last/holocaust.htm

The following is reprinted from the New York Post ,
March 26, 1992.

Auschwitz death toll is reduced to 1.5M
Warsaw, Poland (UPI) - "Newly released documents confirm that 1.5 million victims died at the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II, not 4 million - as claimed by the former Soviet Union - Jewish and Polish officials said yesterday.
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a member of the Council for Dialogue between Poles and Jews, said the official account of the number of victims was reduced following verification of archives recently returned by Soviet authorities to Poland.
Polish communist authorities used the 4 million figure because it was established by a postwar Soviet commission on Nazi crimes.

The historians and experts calculated that it would have taken 68 years to gas 6 million people, and that it would take 35 years to cremate 6 million bodies if the
crematoriums at the camps operated 24 hours a day, every day, cremating the maximum number of bodies that they could hold."

The Germans though, had nothing on Stalin. He killed over 50 million Russians. Most of the Russian leaders making decisions during WW2 were Jews, plain and simple. That doesn't making me a "Jew" basher, that's just fact. Jews just get more "press" for various reasons, but their holocaust is nothing compared to the Russian holocaust.

P.S. Thanks for the previous reference to the neocon "Project for a New American Century." Their web site was better than I anticipated.

You're welcome.

My opinion? We screwed up!

1. Roosevelt was too trustful of Stalin and too distrustful of Churchill. He blindly and mistakenly allowed the Soviets to make the gains you mention when it might have been possible to deflect the Soviet empire.

Native, you couldn't be further from the truth. This was no mistake at all.
WW2 was predicted long before it occurred.

WW2 was fought for the purpose of bringing about Communism and making the U.S. a world power, in order to spread Democracy around the globe.
Both Communism and Democracy are nothing more than different words for Socialism, where corporations, bankers and the elite control the political, governmental and religious entities, plain and simple. For example, in this nation, less than one percent of the population controls 60 percent of the nations wealth. Five percent, 85 percent of the nations' wealth.
This Socialism if I ever heard of it.
Germany and Japan had to be put down because they were the two strongest powers in Europe and Asia. WW2 destroyed both nations and the living standards of it's people.
Under the auspices of Russia and the U.S., the governments of both countries were uprooted and replaced and brought under the control of the international bankers. Germany had to be divided because the German people were an industrious and creative people. In time, they would've rebelled against their globalists masters. The globalists could not allow this to happen as it had in past history, so they divided the nation, until an opportune time.

Russia was intentionally given Eastern Europe even though U.S. generals protested. Roosevelt was a pawn of the globalists, so he followed orders and gave Russia Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.
This was nothing more than the beginning of the "cold war" version of the Hegelian Dialectic principle.
Communism versus Democracy leads to World Socialism.

2. When Truman finally woke up it was too late to do too much overtly.

3. Eisenhower and subsequent Presidents continued to limit our engagements. Korea and Vietnam were both significantly limited wars.

Really! What is your point? Why do you think we allowed it to happen?

Truman could've reversed this situation, but he was handpicked. He wasn't going to go against his globalist masters or he would've been taken out.
Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation, warned America and the world about the globalist agenda. He labeled the globalists and their plan as the "military-industrial" complex, world domination of all nations and the resources of those nations.
This is one of the greatest and most important speeches of modern times. Too bad he waited until the end of his Presidency to make this speech.
Read it sometime or listen to it on the internet.
http://www.archive.org/details/dde_1961_0117 (simply click on stream-15 minutes long).

What is your thesis? Please spell it out. Is it that the entire "Left vs Right" and "Democracy vs Communism" is just a facade as we march toward a destiny pre-determined by the "Hegelian Dialectic?"

We're marching toward a one-world government by way of the Hegelian Dialectic principle. This is a simple, yet complex blueprint to bring about change in politics, economics and religion on a worldwide basis.

Major international events are planned and controlled by whom? Certainly not by the clowns at the United Nations. But I don't laugh at the UN, I cry. I think it is a big fat tragic failure.

Major international events are being controlled by no more than 13 powerful families around the world.

They control the IMF, the UN, the World Court, Trilateral Commission, the CFR, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the European Union, the Asian Union and the soon coming American Union and other sub-organizations, global drug trade, oil, Stock Markets, wars around the world, etc.
Sounds conspiratorial doesn't it? That's what they want us to think. They've done a good job of it.

Sorry JayRob, I don't get it. What is your point? Are you a serious Marxist for real?! ...or a serious anarchist for real?! ...or do you subscribe to some other "synthesis" conspiracy that transcends Marxism?

HECK NO, I'm not a Marxist! I'm a Constitutionalist at heart. If our leaders would follow our Constitution, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.
I subscribe to our leadership abiding by our Constitution and that alone.
Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism and Democracy are all one and the same, just different names.
The aforementioned forms of government are all forms of tyranny and completely alien to our Constitutional rights.
The U.S. is supposed to be a REPUBLIC, a nation that's not ruled by the majority, but by our Constitution. "Demo" simply means majority rule. In other words, if the majority of Americans voted to reinstitute slavery, they can. This is NOT what our Constitution is about.
A Republican form of government relies on the Constitution as it's guide, not majority rule.

Thank you for a fascinating hour studying the "Hegelian Dialectic." I have never been much of a student of Marxism, except to note the pain and suffering it causes. One of the threads I picked up in researching Marxist Hegelan Dialectic is that the extreme disfunction of the United Nations is an intended consequence of the Hegelian Dialectic. Scary stuff.

Are you a proponent or an opponent of the "Hegelian Dialectic?" Many of your posts sound Marxist; i.e., in favor of the Hegelian Dialectic. This post sounds skeptical of the Hegelian Dialectic. Which is it? Have you made up your mind?

Hopefully, by now, I've answered this question.

Again, sorry for the long :lecture:.

 

[native]

Native,
"WARNING: VERY LONG POST!:lecture:

... I'm a Constitutionalist at heart. If our leaders would follow our Constitution, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. I subscribe to our leadership abiding by our Constitution and that alone....

Hopefully, by now, I've answered this question.

I suppose the warning was for everyone else but me? :lmao: :lmao:

Thanks for the elucidating post, JayRob. I don't agree with all of your analysis or facts, but I think I get a better idea of where you are coming from.

So, do you consider yourself a libertarian? ... an objectivist? No document in the history of mankind is more libertarian than the United States Constitution.

 

[Attack Dog]

Attack Dog, I answered your five point post about Aguinaldo, etc., in good faith and, I think, in context. Heck, I quoted your entire post in my detailed response, so what context did I miss? If I misunderstood your context, please spell it out for me. Why have you failed to address a single element of my rebuttal to your post?

If you say you are not a Marxist nor an America-hater, I take you at your word. However, some of your posts follow the same tired pattern of Marxist attacks on colonialism and American policy, making you naive at best, a fellow traveler at worst.
I am a Marxist because I don't like how we portray ourselves as "saviors" of the world, because we follow a path much different than the one this country was created to follow? I am naive because so many of our leaders have desrespected the principles on which this country was created? I am naive because I don't blindly follow party lines? I am naive because I think that we have not made our best efforts towards perfection?

The communist attacks on colonialism were valid when Lenin first made them a hundred years ago, and it is easy to understand why a downtrodden freedom fighter like Ho Chi Minh might have succumbed to the allure of anti-colonial communist propoganda at that time. But within a decade Lenin proved himself and his movement to be no better than the colonial powers, and within two generations Lenin's communist successors committed imperial transgressions and atrocities including "democide" (government-sponsored murder) far exceeding in scope and scale the colonial atrocites of the previous two centuries.

True. No better than the colonial powers becuase they moved away from the basic principles, which is true of us today. If we were truly the things that we profess our reality would be different. I don't think it's naive to think that a colony that had to fight to gain its freedom should not engage in colonization in any way, manner, shape, or form.

For example, Mao's tally is 76.7 million intentionally murdered non-combatant civilians, not including combat casualties. The Soviets murdered 61.9 million. The average Russian under the Tsars at the turn of the century ate twice the red meat of the average Soviet citizen in 1987! The result of communist imperialism is the same in regimes large and small: destruction of economic productivity, reduction of the masses to poverty, and murder of innocent civilians on a massive scale. Adding up the civilian victims from the various communist regimes yields a total of nearly 150 million. For at least the past sixty years, there has been no excuse for swallowing the communist line.

Unjustifiable, but overt.

Although the communists have proven the worst in recorded history, all totalitarian regimes, such as Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, have committed the same kind of atrocites and democide.

During the same period, the United States helped both Japan and Germany rebuild their economies following WWII. They are now the second and third largest economies in the world, as a result of their political and economic interaction with the United States. (North Vietnam screwed up by winning. Had they lost gracefully, they would probably be in the top ten by now.)

So take their independence and then be their friend ("Unconditional Surrender")?

But it is important to acknowledge the terrible mistakes made by the United States. From the Philippine insurrection forward, the U.S. is probably responsible for the deaths (murders if you prefer) of 0.58 million people domestically and overseas, mostly non-combatant civilian victims of American bombs in WWII. We rightfully criticize ourselves and seek correction in such cases, but the numbers are tiny by comparison to totalitarian regimes, very small in the context of the the scope and scale of the conflicts in which we were involved at the time, and the long term effects of engaging in close political and economic intercourse with the United States have clearly proven to be peace and prosperity.

Could the numbers be "tiny" becuase we have others do our dirty work for us?

These points are salient because you and JayRob initiated the discussion of colonialism by claiming the United States to be colonialist, and you failed to give the U.S. credit for successes in protecting and feeding people. Your accusation of U.S. "colonialism," and comparison of the U.S. to previous communist and imperial powers, with or without the word "covert," is therefore grossly inappropriate and misleading.

So I guess the ends justify the means? The U.S. has used the bullet and the dollor to gain and maintain influence in other countries.

That's not me p***ing down your back, Attack Dog. Until you speak up with logical and factual analysis, that's you p***ing into the wind.

Logic dictates that a freedom fighter does not deny others the freedom that they fought for and gained, nor does he turn his back on others who are oppressed that come to him for help or become an oppresor himself. The fact is that we seek to be an Empire without being called an Empire.

 

[Attack Dog]

Great post Jay Rob!!

 

[native]

Logic dictates that a freedom fighter does not deny others the freedom that they fought for and gained, nor does he turn his back on others who are oppressed that come to him for help or become an oppresor himself. The fact is that we seek to be an Empire without being called an Empire.

To which "other" freedom fighters do you refer? Aguinaldo? Dewey may not have dealt with him fairly, but we, the United States, ultimately kept our promises of independence for the Philippines, and Aguinaldo lived to see it with his own eyes.

Freedom fighters come in all shapes and sizes. When you and JayRob pick and choose, you seem to pick only the tuly evil bad guys, like Lenin, Mao, Saddam Hussein, Ho Chi Minh. When the US backs a "freedom fighter," we sometimes pick losers, too, but we seem to select pickpockets and thugs instead of mass murderers. It is truly naive, at best, not to notice the difference.

In terms of government-sponsored murder, Ho Chi Minh was worse than Diem by a factor of at least ten to one. The communist government sponsored murders ramped up from an already atronomical level within three years of our departure from Vietnam.

The U.S. and all of our minions have committed fewer than one half of one percent of the atrocities of our adversaries. That fact is obviously of little import to you, but I suspect it makes a great deal of difference difference to the hundreds of millions of victims of communist and other totalitarian horrors. The inescapable conclusion is that we make things better than they otherwise would have been.

 

[JayRob]

To which "other" freedom fighters do you refer? Aguinaldo? Dewey may not have dealt with him fairly, but we, the United States, ultimately kept our promises of independence for the Philippines, and Aguinaldo lived to see it with his own eyes.

Independence AFTER we put in a "puppet regime.

Freedom fighters come in all shapes and sizes. When you and JayRob pick and choose, you seem to pick only the tuly evil bad guys, like Lenin, Mao, Saddam Hussein, Ho Chi Minh. When the US backs a "freedom fighter," we sometimes pick losers, too, but we seem to select pickpockets and thugs instead of mass murderers. It is truly naive, at best, not to notice the difference.

You can't spell native without including n-a-i-v-e, so think first before you label someone as being naive.

Who put Sadaam in power? Who put the Shah in power? Who supported Stalin in WW2? Who gave military weapons to the regime who killed more than 50 million of his own people, THEN turned around and gave him all of Eastern Europe, and allowed Stalin to take over a huge portion of China.
One wonders what history would be like if the U.S. had supported an independent VietCong rather than the colonialist French.
Would there ever have been a need for the Vietnam War?
55,000 Americans died and Vietnam still became Communist.

In terms of government-sponsored murder, Ho Chi Minh was worse than Diem by a factor of at least ten to one. The communist government sponsored murders ramped up from an already atronomical level within three years of our departure from Vietnam.

Russia wouldn't have been so strong militarily if the U.S. hadn't supported them after WW2. The U.S. allotted billions of dollars in aid to Russia, a known Communist state. Why?

The U.S. and all of our minions have committed fewer than one half of one percent of the atrocities of our adversaries. That fact is obviously of little import to you, but I suspect it makes a great deal of difference difference to the hundreds of millions of victims of communist and other totalitarian horrors. The inescapable conclusion is that we make things better than they otherwise would have been

.
Get your facts straight. The U.S. supported Stalin financially and politically, so how was that better for the Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese and other sovereign states taken over by Communism?
It was no mistake that the U.S. didn't put the reins on Stalin after WW2.
Our generals called for it, but Truman didn't do it. Why?
The U.S. gave Stalin the finances and land (comprised of huge natural resources like oil and wheat) he needed to become a world power.
What more proof does one need to see that Russian power was intentionally created to rival that of the U.S. in order to create the Hegelian Dialectic of Democracy versus Communism?
This will end up with world Socialism, with the UN being the seat of political power.
The U.S., under Truman, allowed Mao Tse Tung to be put in power by calling a four month truce in the war between Chiang (Democrat) and Mao (Communists) in China. Truman threatened to withdraw aide to Chiang if he didn't agree to the truce.
This didn't make any sense at all, and still doesn't.
Chiang was a few days away from driving the Communists out of China, but low and behold, the U.S. called for a truce. Why? The four month truce ended up allowing Stalin to reinforce Mao Tse Tung and strenghthen the Communist forces.
Why did the U.S. intervene when Chiang was winning?
Mao came to power and ended up killing between 30-50 million of his own people. Some sources claim more than 73 million people were either starved to death or slaughtered under Mao's regime.

Nixon and Kissinger years later, made overtures to financially support this Communist mass murderer and opened trade with China.

The U.S. supported two of the most ruthless men in world history, but this is not taught in our schools. This is a travesty hidden from American history as is so much else done by our government in our name.

 

[J C]

Native,

Some scholars are taking another look at Ho Chi Minh and coming away with the impression that he was more nationalistic than communistic. I agree under his leadership the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong committed horrible atrocities against other Vietnamese. As you recall he asked the U.S. for help in the fight against the French colonists in 1945. We sided with the French which brought us into an ongoing civil war when the French withdrew.

I am a product of that era and that war still haunts our consciousness. As you know we are now trading partners with Vietnam and the domino theory put forth by proponents of the war were wrong. It is believed by many the extension of our then containment policy to Asia was a mistake. The policy was established to contain the Russians in Europe, which worked in the long run.

I ask, what would be different today if Johnson had never gotten us involved in Vietnam? Would a strong and prosperous Vietnam help contain our main competition in the world today, the Chinese. As we know now but our politicians didn't know then that Vietnam and China were ancient rivals.

I hope this rambling make some kind of sense.

 

[native]

Native,
... I hope this rambling make some kind of sense.

Thank you for your post, JC. Yes, I understand your points, but please consider the following:

...Some scholars are taking another look at Ho Chi Minh and coming away with the impression that he was more nationalistic than communistic. I agree under his leadership the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong committed horrible atrocities against other Vietnamese. As you recall he asked the U.S. for help in the fight against the French colonists in 1945. We sided with the French which brought us into an ongoing civil war when the French withdrew...

I am familiar with the line of scholarship which proposes Ho Chi Minh as nationalist first, communist second. However, "more nationalist than communist" is a stretch. This is a fascinating thread which leads to many interesting scenarios. In the end, what might have happened is unknowable, but worthy of investigation nentheless.

Ho made more than one overture to the US after WWII, but Ho said a lot of things to a lot of people, so it is difficult to guage the sincerity of his overture based on his words. In my view, it is important to study Ho Chi Minh's actions after succumbing to the siren song of Lenin (in the twenties?).

Here are some important points to remember about Ho Chi Minh:
1. Ho never wavered from his anti-capitalist, communist beliefs after his communist indoctrination
2. Ho severely persecuted his own people both before and after direct American involvement in Vetnam.
3. Ho was never at any point independent from foreign economic and political patronage, including Chinese, Soviet and at times even American. He ultimately chose the Soviets.
4. Ho benefitted from American support during WWII, but never quite payed it straight with the US, playing off the Americans against the French, Chinese against the Americans, etc.
5. From early on, Ho assassinated his rivals for power, communist including rivals.
6. There were legitimate non-communist independence-minded alternatives to Ho Chi Minh. He assassinated them.

Vietnamese "independence" may have been inevitable, but Ho Chi Minh was not. It troubles me deeply when we say that communist freedom fighters have been the equivalent of the American freedom fighters of our own revolution. We did NOT engage in the wholesale execution of our own Tory neighbors during or after the Revolution, as the communists including Ho Chi Minh have consistently done with their political rivals.

It is important that we pick and choose wisely. John F. Kennedy chose the Diem brothers, whose oldest brother was one of Ho's assassination victims. They may or may not have been a good choice, but they were better than the communist alternative. We abandoned them.

...I am a product of that era and that war still haunts our consciousness. As you know we are now trading partners with Vietnam and the domino theory put forth by proponents of the war were wrong. It is believed by many the extension of our then containment policy to Asia was a mistake. The policy was established to contain the Russians in Europe, which worked in the long run...

Both Laos and Cambodia fell to communism following our withdrawal from Vietnam, with horrific consequences to the people there. My family with dead relatves in Laos does not think the Domino Theory was proven wrong. It appears to us that the Domino Theory was proven correct. Another non-European case in point is Korea, where we may not have won but we achieved a stalemate which can be argued to have protected Japan and Taiwan.

...I ask, what would be different today if Johnson had never gotten us involved in Vietnam? Would a strong and prosperous Vietnam help contain our main competition in the world today, the Chinese. As we know now but our politicians didn't know then that Vietnam and China were ancient rivals...

Johnson only escalated. Vietnam and Laos were part of John F. Kennedy's "...pay any price, bear any burden..." policy in the name of liberty. Eisenhower, his predecessor, did not care for the French, but held hisnose and eventually supported them as part of a strategy of saving Europe from the communists. Had we not engaged in Vietnam, I suspect it would still have been a client state of the Soviets because they needed someone's support to resist the Chinese and Ho himself was clear that he would have never joined with the capitalist system supported by the US in the Pacific Rim. It is difficult to argue that a communist Vietnam under Ho could ever have been "prosperous."

I acknowledge that there are truthful elements in some of the posts critical of US policies. However, US policies are usually compared in a vacuum to some impossible theoretical ideal rather than compared fairly and realistically to the real world. The critics of US engagement on this thread are making the same mistake.

There are usually three basic options for the US:
1. To engage and fail.
2. To fail to engage.
3. To engage and prevail.

When we engage and fail, as in Vietnam, the horrific consequences are enormous.

When we fail to engage, as in Rwanda, or Hungary, the horrific consequences are enormous.

When we engage and prevail, as in South Korea, we foster freedom and prosperity.

Thanks again for your thoughtful and sincere post, JC.