Jay Rob, where do I begin? Your posts provide what we in the military call a "target rich environment."
1. Richard Nixon inherited the Vietnam War. Here are the American casualties in Vietnam broken down by presidential era:
1961-65 (Kennedy-Johnson): 1,864
1966-68 (Johnson): 33,622
Note: Richard Nixon was inaugurated in January 1969. In Nixon's first year of office, US casualties were reduced 30%, from 16,511 to 11,527.
1969-72 (Nixon): 20,501
2. Our premature withdrawal from Vietnam led directly to the execution of at least 60,000 South Vietnamese in post-war communist prisons, and to the communist takeover of both Laos and Cambodia. Non-combatant teenagers from my family were shot and killed by the communists in Laos just for trying to cross the border, unarmed, into Thailand. The result of Pol Pot's takeover in Cambodia was the greatest genocide in my lifetime.
3. Saddam Hussein is estimated by New York Times correspondent John F. Burns to have killed between 300,000 and 500,000 in his war against the Iranians, and 200,000 in his gulags. (NYT 27 Jan 2003) My Chaldean neighbor (i.e., Iraqi Christian) is the only surviving brother in his family. The rest were hanged by Saddam.
Sometimes, your posts contain little nuggets of truth or logic, but they are usually obscured by all the bull***t. Your arguments often lack balance, nuance and sometimes truthfulness, thereby undermining the points you try to make. Why not use your passion and intelligence to make valid points and engage in reasonable, adult discourse? Instead you seem to throw a "Hail Mary" (or maybe a firebomb?) on every post! Perhaps a better analogy is throwing a bunch of sh*t on the wall, just to see what sticks! You can do better, JayRob!
Native, you must have that last paragraph cemented in your memory bank because you used that same discription of me in the past.
You're entitled to your own thoughts just as others.
SLT, if it's funny, have at it.
Native, first of all, I'm deeply sorry that members of your family were injured or killed in that senseless war.
The point I was hoping to make was that Vietnam never threatened or attacked the U.S. in any way.
You practically accused me of putting out false information. If I did so, enlighten me, then I'll be the more wiser. Specifically point out to me where I put forth false information.
President Johnson basically lied to Congress regarding the Gulf of Tonkin to get our military involved in Vietnam. We had NO business being over there.
Many peoples have issues with their governments in their part of the world, just as we have our issues in this nation. We can't, neither should we try to solve the problems of people halfway around the world when we can't even solve our own problems here at home.
Our involvement in Vietnam was a mistake, just as our involvement in Iraq is a major mistake and blunder.
I'm not here to defend anyone, Sadaam included, however I will continue to state my opinions in my own way.
Who put Sadaam in power? Who supplied
both Iran and Iraq with military weapons to keep the Iran/Iraq War ongoing for an entire decade in order to weaken the military of both nations?
Who indiscriminately carpet bombed entire cities where NO bin Laden or weapons of mass destruction ever existed?
Even though Sadaam had his ills, you failed to mention that Iraq had one of the
best economies in the Middle East before the Iran/Iraq War.
Iraq was one of the few nations in the Middle East to allow Christians to freely worship. As a matter of fact, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Aziz, was a Christian.
He kept the various religious factions under control, something that we'll never be able to do over there now.
If he was such a tyrant,
why did our government continue to sell weapons to him?
I think it's very disingenuous of you to accuse me of not presenting a balanced post while you're guilty of it yourself, for whatever reason.
You seemed to think that it was okay for us to send thousands and thousands of our teenaged-troops halfway around the world to die for a cause that we had no business participating in?
I wholeheartedly disagree.
As Muhammed Ali said, "ain't no Vietcong ever called me n*gger." He was right then, and those who disagree with us being in Iraq are right as well.
No Iraqi has ever threatened me, my countrymen or this country.
So why in the heck are we over there?
My point is that we accuse other nations of mass killings when our leadership's history clearly show that in our name, they are guilty of killing far more people than Sadaam could ever have dreamed of.
Look at our history of infiltrating Africa, Asia, South America, Latin America, treatment of Blacks, Indians, Chinese and other minorities, yet we assassinate a leader of a
sovereign nation because he supposedly had WMD's? Pure hypocrisy, plain and simple.
Sooner or later, justice or karma will come around to
our front door for all that we've done to other peoples around the world. I shudder to think of the pain and suffering we'll have to endure due to what our leaders have done and continue to do in our name.
