The Syrian "Revolution": A Farce from Beginning to End

It was no doubt a military adventure and a disaster, I would never try to deny that. It just irks me whenever someone talks about that retreat as if the Viet Cong mercifully chose to cancel the invasion of California once the Americans left, or that trained Americans flail about like headless chickens as soon as they step into a jungle.

At least in Syria the US would be fighting for the peoples' right to choose their own leaders instead of supporting some handpicked corrupt despot.

 

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Re: Vietnam, the US won every large battle it fought in Vietnam, however the military ''victories'' were seemingly trite because the US didn't really have a clear definition of who the 'opposition' was, and frankly, part of the US' involvement was due to its own paranoia about the potential spread of communism. Let's fight hypotheticals! Yeah! (never a good idea)

The US also lost more lives in Vietnam than in WWII, so just from these history points, it didn't really emerge as a victor.

 

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I think you got your facts wrong there! WWII was very costly wasn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

 

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The Victory We Always Wanted

And we can only imagine the landing at San Pedro had we never sent our troops in the first place.

Okay, okay, but you know what I mean. This is just a strange time; it's clear that nobody is going to listen to the outright pacifists, but it really is hard to figure out where to go next. Meanwhile, if any of the wars we've had since the Second Great are morally justified, it looks like we need to go to Syria. It's just that I don't think airstrikes will do the job, and a ground war will probably make what happened in Vietnam look like the victory we've always been supposed to pretend it was.

 

The US never had a chance to win in Vietnam because the victory conditions were never even defined (supporting an unpopular despot doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment even in the best of times). In terms of accomplished goals, the Vietnam war was a clear defeat, but as a war of choice it's the kind Americans could easily afford to lose. It's pretty heartwarming to see that mere decades later, the US and Vietnam seem to be getting along on very good terms.

Surprisingly, the casualty numbers are nearly identical. The Japanese front featured intense fighting, but most of America's war effort was focussed on Germany, and by the time the US entered that conflict in force, most of the heavy fighting had already been completed and Germany was on the retreat.

 

Well, that was indeed too much. I apologize: I didn't mean to insult their effort, or the sacrifices of the Americans in prosecuting that war. But how much did it cost the US, and what political persuasion is Vietnam now? They bled the American economy in that conflict. My point to joe is not to underestimate the Syrians.

 

So how many casualities in Vietnam then?

 

You mean the Syrian backers, China, Russia and Iran.

 

I can't reject your rationale- there are clear risks and no one can prove that the rewards will outweigh the consequences. Genuine pacifists deserve to be respected and heeded; what gets under my skin is when people try to sell Iranian militancy as another form of pacifism.

 

Like I said, about 50,000.

 

War should never, ever be considered a cakewalk.

 

Of the 3 million total casualities in Vietnam war, that you're naming CptBork, are you including Vietnamese civilians in that number?

 

Well with the exception that the US won every major battle in Vietnam, the rest of your post just isn’t true. US military deaths in WWII numbered about 416k whereas about 58K Americans died in Vietnam. And the US didn’t lose Vietnam because of any hypothetical or definition problems. It lost because it failed to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. The US pursued a military solution when it really needed a political solution. That is why the US failed in Vietnam.

Our troops can kill people all day long. But at the end of the day, if you do not have the locals invested in a government they support, you have achieved nothing. That is the lesson of Vietnam. The war in Vietnam was a civil war that began long before the US entered that war. And the US made many political mistakes with regard to Vietnam long before a single American boot touched Vietnamese soil. And those political mistakes didn’t stop until the US withdrew its military forces many years later. Truman set the stage for US involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Vietnam is a political text book of what not to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#United_States_armed_forces
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Yes, I am indeed. I don't know of any official stats about how many of the dead were actually involved in the fighting, and I wouldn't take a Vietnamese government estimate as being entirely reliable, given the limited nature of media freedom there. I'm pretty sure that however you look at it, there was never a question since WW2 of America winning the day whenever its security was genuinely threatened.

 

Here's a few points that I think get a little overlooked.

The Middle East of the past three decades has been about various Islamic groups trying to pull a number of countries together under an Islamic banner, it's very reminiscent of the 1950-60's global Communism movement (which is probably why Russia and China have acted as "Observers")

What I could deduce of why Bin Laden started attacking the US it was down to his militia groups not being used for protection of what I'd assume he'd see to be predominately Islamic countries which had taken various security contracts with Westernised groups due to various contracts involve resources.

The current troubles in the Middle East are still that vested interest in their own interim governance (Namely not all Middle Eastern countries want to abide by what the Saudi's say) and the problem with their alternative is that it isn't compatible with the rest of the world. For instance in the Syrian Revolt you've got two known "terrorist" groups on either side, the Rebels with Al-Quada and Assad with Hezbollah, both of which are "foreign fighters on Syrian soil", both of which have their own oppressive views and Islamic agendas. I guess it can be stated that a Syrian Civil war hasn't been a true Civil war, since foreign intervention has been involved in it's fighting since day one.

Why do these foreigners fight over Syrian soil? I'd hazzard it was to gain ground, after all having countries to hid in is what most of these groups are after and of course to extend their power base. (This was the concern with both Somalia and Egypt) If they control a number of countries then they have to be taken more serious than just "Terrorists" at least that's what I'd assume their reasoning is.

 

Firstly I must retract my statement that only 50,000 Americans died in WW2. I just checked your total of 416k, on Wikipedia it says 418k. My mistake, perhaps the 50,000 figure is only referring to the fighting in Europe, but whatever it is, it seems I've long vastly underestimated the sacrifices America made in that war. Secondly, I would still contend that the US had no clear aims in the Vietnam war, but only because I don't see indefinite support of a despot as a clear aim with well-defined objectives and an exit strategy.

To add to your commentary, I would note that it appears amongst the rebels there is huge hope for an American strike, although not always with the hope that it's accompanied by American democracy. While it has its own unique perils, this would certainly not be a Vietnam war scenario where the US is entering with questionable moral objectives, comedically flimsy justifications (Gulf of Tonkin) and supporting an unpopular politician who's drives his own people to immolate themselves. This is more like the real deal the US has been waiting for since Korea (and Rwanda where the whole world dropped the ball), there are far too many innocents caught in the middle between Assad and Al Qaeda who deserve to have someone sticking up for them.

 

If you have a point you'd like to make, and it's a reasonable and rational point, then you ought to be able to do it without relying on Holocaust deniers to make the point for you.

 

Oh my, why did I think that...that's odd. (the number of casualties between vietnam and WWII)

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Here is a table for anyone interested showing war casualties and other stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

While what you say is true, there were several contributing factors that caused the US to fail in Vietnam. The truth is joe we shouldn't have been there to begin with, so it was sort of set up to fail from the onset, no?

Going with what you're saying about Vietnam being a civil war long before the US arrived...do you envision a similar outcome should the US 'invade' Syria with ground troops? (if it turned into something like that)

 

I thought the same thing. Earth's magnetic poles must be switching, or something...

 

:scratchin: haha, I like that answer.