blake murphy wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:40:58 -0400, Dave Smith wrote:
>
>> TammyM wrote:
>>>> How long will you be singing the "Bush did it song"? Since the Kennedy
>>>> name is in play you do know for example that it was Kennedy's brother
>>>> who got us into the Vietnam War with a planned no win position where
>>>> the only outcome was lots of military suppliers made lots of money?
>>>> Nothing new began or ended with Bush.
>>> Wasn't it the Eisenhower administration that initially sent "advisers"
>>> to Vietnam? Maybe I'm misremembering that, it's early and I haven't yet
>>> had my coffee.
>> Wasn't it also the Eisenhower administration that helped to end the
>> civil war in Vietnam by dividing the country in two with the promise of
>> a plebiscite on reunification, and then backed the South's crooked
>> regime when they refused to hold the promised election because they knew
>> that the north would win?
>
> what difference does it make? bush still started the ****upathon in iraq,
> for no reason other than he and the neocons wanted to.


I certainly won't argue that Bush started an unjustified war in Iraq. He
also dumped on long time friends and allies who were refused to support
him.He had that "you're either with us or against us attitude" when he
clued into the fact that most of us did not believe the claims about
Iraq having a massive arsenal of WMDs, and that most thought that as
much a tyrant as Saddam was, he was keeping a lid on internal troubles
and that ousting him would be opening up a hornet nest. It was likely
to lead to another Vietnam conflict. I am no fan of Reagan, but he and
his inner circle figured out that they could screw the Soviet Union by
creating a Vietnam for them in Afghanistan.

However..... there are some similarities. The Vietnam conflict could
have been avoided. It started off as a nationalist movement. Ho Chi
Minh was used by the US to fight the Japanese. The Vietnamese did not
have a problem with the French being ousted from their country, and they
were willing to fight with the Allies to get rid of the Japanese
occupiers. As soon as the was was over, the Allies handed Vietnam back
to the French. The Vietnamese fought to get rid of the French. The US
refused to help out in the crucial battle that saw the French booted
out. The communists seem to have been the best organized and most likely
to defeat the French.

There was an agreement to end the civil war, and part of that deal was
to partition the country and the promise of a plebiscite on
reunification of the country. That would be the democratic thing to
do.... let the people vote and accept the will of the majority. However,
the corrupt regime in the South refused to hold the elections and the US
backers, knowing that the North would win, supported that decision to
break the accord. It seems that the democratic rule that the US boasts
of is only a good idea when popular vote goes their way. They would not
stand for a free vote that would see communists win.