Vietnam 50 years on

[Cybermat47]

When I was a lot younger, I had the honour of meeting Keith Payne. I can't begin to imagine what it must've been like to serve in Vietnam.

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I disagree about Vietnam and the others in all honesty.You must look at the Vietnam through the lens of the Cold War the logic at the time was to prevent the spread of Soviet backed governments Vietnam was really a civil war but this was not understood at the time.

what jacked up things in Afghanistan was actually the Iraq War that pulled troops and resources away from Afghanistan the Taliban was gone then they realized that there where hardly any troops to deal with so they just in most cases walked right back into town.Personally I think had Iraq never happened they would have actually been able to stabilize things in Afghanistan as a matter of fact they where in the process of doing just this when the Taliban started making moves again in 2006 after that it was like a reset button was hit and things went right back to pre 2002 almost over night because it was not possible to commit enough combat forces to Afghanistan until 2010 after Iraq was a done deal by that point it was too late and the entire counter insurgency process has to start all over again.

I fail to understand why western governments involve them selves in Counter-Insurgencies in the first place they are very difficult and typically the population (of the Western nation) tires of the effort long before it is a success.Only a handful have worked Malay in the early 60's and Timmor in the late 90's.The stupid thing about Afghanistan is that we where actually succeeding and then just abandoned it thanks to Iraq and once Iraq was "done" by that point the support was gone.

France did loose their colonies in Laos in Cambodia in and in Vietnam 1954 not sure what makes you think they still had them or that the US was doing the exact same thing as the French not the case at all.The US simply viewed these countries as "keystones".

I have no idea what feedom is.

Even if all you say is true about money vultures and power and all that jazz well I recon that is just a part of human nature and that my friend is something that you can not change.So if if that is way it is then everyone else is gonna be that way as well so looking at it that way I'd rather the money vulture be one of my kind than one of their kind so if that is what the military also represents and it does protect a nations interests then that also means the economic ones and I am confident that China or Russia would treat people a lot worse than we do speaking of governments here not people.

That is a damn fine post