(no subject)
Oct. 2nd, 2002 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7and oh, the last president of south vietnam was Theiu, not Theim. I got a letter wrong.
I still haven't got a clue what the hell was going on, and I don't think anyone else knew either. We had no business there. Nobody had any business there. But I can't really blame anybody for getting involved. Everyone thought they were doing what was best, but nobody knew what the hell was going on so really all they were doing was killing each other and undermining themselves and everybody else. And, in the end, nobody got what they wanted. So... there you have it. A mess. Americans need to realize that isolationists cannot be a world policing force. And we are isolationists. Anything that lasts longer than 4 years we of course cannot guarantee, and we're hard put to stick by something longer than two years without deceiving the public. We're just that fickle. We don't have the attention span to properly research what we're doing, and we don't have the ability to keep a consistent approach to something. Why do we keep trying? Misbegotten concepts of an outdated world. And as Dad says, we're always ready to fight the last war. In Vietnam, we were perfectly suited to winning a war in Eastern European cities. Only we were in a jungle. Hm.
And we're not so good at changing plans. Politicians hate losing face just as much as any culture-steeped Asian.
So anyhow. I'm still opposed to war in Iraq because, just like all those other times, we don't really know what we're doing.
Don't get me wrong-- Vietnam was an important lesson. We shouldn't just ignore the world and stay home, or we'll stagnate and become even more ignorant and detached than we are. Vietnam was the best thing that could have happened to the armed forces, for example. They learned a vast number of absolutely invaluable lessons from the conflict, and totally reshaped the way they do things, from recruitment and training to deployment and tactics. Today's Army would be nothing like it is now had it not been for the terrible lessons of Vietnam. And it's widely accepted today that we have the best armed forces in the world. And, as dad is quick to point out, Vietnam did a lot to avert World War III. The US, because of Vietnam, had something in the millions, I think, of experienced combat veterans. A lot of people cycled through what LBJ termed "that little pissant country", and a lot of them dealt with it very well. The Soviets had, by the time Vietnam ended, almost no combat veterans in their armies, and they knew that would be a tremendous factor should they decide to get involved in an armed conflict.
Anyhow, this is not time for an essay; i just wanted to correct my earlier error.
I still haven't got a clue what the hell was going on, and I don't think anyone else knew either. We had no business there. Nobody had any business there. But I can't really blame anybody for getting involved. Everyone thought they were doing what was best, but nobody knew what the hell was going on so really all they were doing was killing each other and undermining themselves and everybody else. And, in the end, nobody got what they wanted. So... there you have it. A mess. Americans need to realize that isolationists cannot be a world policing force. And we are isolationists. Anything that lasts longer than 4 years we of course cannot guarantee, and we're hard put to stick by something longer than two years without deceiving the public. We're just that fickle. We don't have the attention span to properly research what we're doing, and we don't have the ability to keep a consistent approach to something. Why do we keep trying? Misbegotten concepts of an outdated world. And as Dad says, we're always ready to fight the last war. In Vietnam, we were perfectly suited to winning a war in Eastern European cities. Only we were in a jungle. Hm.
And we're not so good at changing plans. Politicians hate losing face just as much as any culture-steeped Asian.
So anyhow. I'm still opposed to war in Iraq because, just like all those other times, we don't really know what we're doing.
Don't get me wrong-- Vietnam was an important lesson. We shouldn't just ignore the world and stay home, or we'll stagnate and become even more ignorant and detached than we are. Vietnam was the best thing that could have happened to the armed forces, for example. They learned a vast number of absolutely invaluable lessons from the conflict, and totally reshaped the way they do things, from recruitment and training to deployment and tactics. Today's Army would be nothing like it is now had it not been for the terrible lessons of Vietnam. And it's widely accepted today that we have the best armed forces in the world. And, as dad is quick to point out, Vietnam did a lot to avert World War III. The US, because of Vietnam, had something in the millions, I think, of experienced combat veterans. A lot of people cycled through what LBJ termed "that little pissant country", and a lot of them dealt with it very well. The Soviets had, by the time Vietnam ended, almost no combat veterans in their armies, and they knew that would be a tremendous factor should they decide to get involved in an armed conflict.
Anyhow, this is not time for an essay; i just wanted to correct my earlier error.
