Shoe Thrower a Hit in the Arab World

[Michael Tee]

<<Well at least you admitted the similarities between you and Saddam . . . >>

We were both Stalinists once.  Saddam much more so than I.  Kinda like saying that Strom Thurmond and Hubert Humphrey were both Democrats once.

[richpo64]

Except they didn't kill people by the millions now did they.

 

[Michael Tee]

<<Except they didn't kill people by the millions now did they.>>

Hubert sure as hell did.  Two million dead in Viet Nam, and he was an integral part of the Johnson administration that started that war, and he defended it as long as he held office.

[richpo64]

>>Hubert sure as hell did.<<

Hubert Humphrey killed millions of Americans? I was a kid in the 60's and 70's and I don't recall starving to death or being rounded up and sent to Vermont to freeze to death in a work camp.

You're a real waste of time Mike. At some point, some point soon I hope, you'll be able to put aside your twisted hatred of America. As all of us have admitted hundreds of times, America has made mistakes. However, America is the greatest force for good in this world. It is because of America ... democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and atheist too that billions of people are free today.

I've been through this before, so I won't go on listing all the good America has done. Most people know. You're rants against America are just stupid. Stupid.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Vietnam was also a big mistake, and Humphrey supported it.
I don;t think I would blame him for killing millions of people, but he could have done a lot more to end it, and didn't.

[Michael Tee]

Vietnam was much more than a "mistake."  As Jane Fonda pointed out at the time, it was a crime.  A crime for which none of the major perpetrators was ever held accountable and punished.

[Plane]

Vietnam was much more than a "mistake."  As Jane Fonda pointed out at the time, it was a crime.  A crime for which none of the major perpetrators was ever held accountable and punished.

What was the alternative ?

To resist Communism as it spread was the basic decision and I really beleive it was wise to do so.

Smaller tactical decisions were frequently flubed but the basic idea of giveing Communism a hard time was not a mistake at all.

In Viet Nam a more agressive war might have won for us , or it might have caused us to fight WWIII as the Chineese and Russians might have more openly fought us .

Giveing up sooner or fighting somewhat less might have saved a lot of suffering for us , but the outcome in VietNam would have been sadly the same , just sooner.

Kennedy had the option of allowing an election to proceed as planned , but with more than half the votes being garunteed by force to be for the Communists Kennedy didn't think that a fair election would be possible , so giveing Vietnam over with no resistance was a better choice?

I hardly think so .

The Communism that was at the time spreading with an evangilistic zeal and a crusadeing violence needed to be resisted , and I am glad it was resisted.

The tactics chosen were often so bad that it seemed as if the administration was trying to avoid a victory , I wish that weren't so , but that is a diffrent question. 

[Michael Tee]

<<What was the alternative ?>>

The alternative, obviously, was to allow the Vietnamese people, who had been fighting the French, then the Japs and then the French again, to determine their own destiny.  Pure and simple.


<<Kennedy had the option of allowing an election to proceed as planned , but with more than half the votes being garunteed by force to be for the Communists Kennedy didn't think that a fair election would be possible . . . >>

That is a completely false version of what actually happened.  The alternative was to hold the free elections that were scheduled to be held in the South and which Eisenhower (not Kennedy) refused to allow to proceed.  Ike was at least honest in his reasons: in a free election, 80% would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, a national hero.

[Plane]

<<What was the alternative ?>>

The alternative, obviously, was to allow the Vietnamese people, who had been fighting the French, then the Japs and then the French again, to determine their own destiny.  Pure and simple.


<<Kennedy had the option of allowing an election to proceed as planned , but with more than half the votes being garunteed by force to be for the Communists Kennedy didn't think that a fair election would be possible . . . >>

That is a completely false version of what actually happened.  The alternative was to hold the free elections that were scheduled to be held in the South and which Eisenhower (not Kennedy) refused to allow to proceed.  Ike was at least honest in his reasons: in a free election, 80% would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, a national hero.

Kennedy did not like the Election idea either.
If 80% had voted for Ho Chi Minh there would have been a 20% casualty rate , pretty much what happened anyway.

The idea was not to prevent the Vietnameese from determineing thjeir own destiny , but to prevent the imperial Communists from takeing them over and determineing their destiny for them.

Spring had already failed in Prague , there was no expectation that the Communists were going to respect the rights of a people to determine their own destiny. Or especially not of persons either.

So no there was no alternative availible that would have left the Vietnameese alone , they were going to have us or the Communists , we gave them a chance anyway.

By the way if Ho Chi Minh were really heroic , then he was also not very smart to throw in with Communists.

[Michael Tee]

<<If 80% had voted for Ho Chi Minh there would have been a 20% casualty rate , pretty much what happened anyway.>>

Yeah right, plane.  Based on what evidence?  That 20% of North Vietnam's population was lost when Ho Chi Minh took over there?  And it's NOT what happened anyway.

<<The idea was not to prevent the Vietnameese from determineing thjeir own destiny , but to prevent the imperial Communists from takeing them over and determineing their destiny for them.>>

Yeah.  In a free election.  The idea was to PREVENT a free election in the South precisely on the grounds that Ho Chi Minh was a national hero and as Ike said, 80% of the vote would have gone his way.  If that's not preventing a people from determining their own destiny, I need to look for a second language to express myself in.

<<Spring had already failed in Prague , there was no expectation that the Communists were going to respect the rights of a people to determine their own destiny. Or especially not of persons either.>>

I see.  The Prague Spring failed during the Eisenhower administration, when the decision was taken to abort the scheduled elections and support an "independent" Republic of South Viet Nam under the benevolent dictatorship of the Roman Catholic Diem brothers.  Interesting theory of history there, plane.

<<So no there was no alternative availible that would have left the Vietnameese alone , they were going to have us or the Communists , we gave them a chance anyway.>>

No, they were NOT going to have "us or the communists," I don't know how much plainer I can make this than Ike already did, they were going to have THE COMMUNISTS and by a margin of 4 to 1. 

<<By the way if Ho Chi Minh were really heroic , then he was also not very smart to throw in with Communists.>>

Oh, thanks for the heads-up, plane.  So Uncle Ho was Not Very Smart.  I'll try to keep that in mind.  Have you communicated your findings to any historical associations?  I'm sure they'd find that also very interesting.  FYI, he didn't "throw in" with the communists, he was one of the FOUNDERS of the Vietnamese Communist Party.

[Xavier_Onassis]

<<If 80% had voted for Ho Chi Minh there would have been a 20% casualty rate , pretty much what happened anyway.>>

Yeah right, plane.  Based on what evidence?  That 20% of North Vietnam's population was lost when Ho Chi Minh took over there?  And it's NOT what happened anyway.

<<The idea was not to prevent the Vietnameese from determineing thjeir own destiny , but to prevent the imperial Communists from takeing them over and determineing their destiny for them.>>

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Actually, the war killed a lot more people than any Communist regime would have done.

At the end of WWII John Foster Dulles met with a group of people who had been conquered by the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh offered to shake his hand, Dulles refused even to shake Ho's hand. The US actually delivered US made new uniforms for the Japanese occupation police in Vietnam to wear until the French could send enough to restaff the colony in Indochina. The idea of allowing the Vietnamese to police their own country apparently never occurred to them.

The US never controlled Vietnam, needed none of its resources, and Vietnam posed no threat whatever to the US. Had there been elections, it is probable that the capital would have been moved back to Saigon and the South Vietnamese would have been increasingly more in control. Ho was Saigonese, by the way.

The US pissed away billions of dollars, ended up with a huge number of wounded, and last about 60,000 military people iin Vietnam, and the world, all of it, would have been a far better place had they just let the elections stipulated by the treaty taken place. Everyone who died or was wounded there was just wasted by an assortment of idiotic administration policies from Truman through Ford. 

Though there were individual acts of bravery, camaraderie, love and friendship involved in the war, nothing positive for America resulted from this mess. Everyone would have been much better off without it.