AQ aiding Syrian rebels?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

The issue was whether the Viet Cong were the ones who won the war. They were not. That was the North Vietnamese Army backed by the Red Chinese. The VC were finished as a fighting and political force after Tet as was I expect the NVA's plan from the start.

No, the original issue raised was that North Vietnam one and the United States lost. You chose to nitpick the names of the winners to suit your own agenda, and then tried to change the nature of the "issue".

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You chose to nitpick the names of the winners to suit your own agenda, and then tried to change the nature of the "issue".

Um, he did not as far as I can tell. This started from a specific comparison between AQ and the Viet Cong. I'm no expert on Vietnam war, but in this case it seems to me that August has a valid point. It makes sense to make a difference between a traditional army and a mostly guerilla force.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

In case of Vietnam I think there can be no doubt about what the final standing was. I do not need neither Chinese nor Vietnamese PR officials to tell me that.

Oh indeed, but there is still many in the US who believe that if operations such as Linebacker had continued, instead of being stopped every time the DRV wanted to talk (aka wanted a break to rebuild and rearm) then the war might have had a different outcome. Or if the US had actually gone into North Vietnam in force, perhaps through an amphibious assault to bypass the heavily fortified border.
What ifs and maybes, just as there are after every war, but certainly the goals that the US set out to achieve were not met as the ROV ceased to exist.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Um, he did not as far as I can tell. This started from a specific comparison between AQ and the Viet Cong. I'm no expert on Vietnam war, but in this case it seems to me that August has a valid point. It makes sense to make a difference between a traditional army and a mostly guerilla force.

Skybird's original point:

In Vietnam the Vietcong also lost every ground battle and offensive it tried - and still won the war.

was correct, and he reiterated it later. His point was that the Vietnamese won and the Americans lost. While he was technically in error as to the proper names of the victors his point is still correct. August used that error to "prove" Skybird "wrong", but also changed the point of Sky's original argument to suit his own ends, and changed the subject of that argument. He then claimed that his point was the original one, which is not true. This is a classic example of the 'Red Herring' debate tactic.
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html

That's a really good fallacy synopsis. Should be required reading for posting around here.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Skybird's original point: [snip]

was correct, and he reiterated it later. His point was that the Vietnamese won and the Americans lost.

I've read that a few times now, but still just see it the other way. As I see it, the question specifically is if the Viet Cong won the war or not. That is, would the NVA have won without the VC anyway. It would be different if August had started by claiming the North Vietnamese didn't win in the first place, but he says no such thing.

To first say "The Viet Cong [as in political guerilla force like the AQ] won the war" is quite different from saying: "The North Vietnamese [as in including also NVA, a traditional army armed with the traditional army stuff and fighting like a traditional army] won the war".

But maybe I'll stop here trying to interprete them too much and let them continue. I feel like the Devil reading the Bible here.

[August]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

I've read that a few times now, but still just see it the other way. As I see it, the question specifically is if the Viet Cong won the war or not. That is, would the NVA have won without the VC anyway. It would be different if August had started by claiming the North Vietnamese didn't win in the first place, but he says no such thing.

To first say "The Viet Cong [as in political guerilla force like the AQ] won the war" is quite different from saying: "The North Vietnamese [as in including also NVA, a traditional army armed with the traditional army stuff and fighting like a traditional army] won the war".

But maybe I'll stop here trying to interprete them too much and let them continue. I feel like the Devil reading the Bible here.

Thanks Hottentot. You pretty much spell out my position on the subject.

[Sailor Steve]

Skybird restated his original intent very clearly when he posted

Originally Posted by Skybird

Your enemy won, you lost. Everything else is just technical hairsplitting to avoid the statement: "they won, we lost".

His original point was unmistable: Vietnam won, America lost. August never addressed that point, but created a new one, then claimed that it was Sky's original point.

Who cares what the final standing was? That's not the issue.

This is changing the subject to suit your own ends at its finest.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

That's a really good fallacy synopsis. Should be required reading for posting around here.

Here is another one, even better but harder to follow:
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

His original point was unmistable: Vietnam won, America lost.

His original three paragraphs were:

AQ is no field army, and thus should not be measured by performance in field battles. It is a mix of guerilla and terror, political, social and religious involvement. They amkew the West investing horren dious sums of money worldwide to boost security anbd engage in miliutary actions. That means they are very well potent enough to make us sacrificing a solid ammount of our economic and financial ressources for the military, because of them.

Same could be said about the Taliban, who also seem to suffer defeats in open field battles - still are short of becoming the unconditional victor in the Afghanistan war.

In Vietnam the Vietcong also lost every ground battle and offensive it tried - and still won the war.

This is a direct comparison between the AQ and the Viet Cong, and therefore in my opinion a statement that the VC won the war with their tactics, similar to those of AQ (or the other way around, the AQ is winning with the same tactics as the VC).

Only in the second post, after the difference was made between the NVA and the VC, did it become "your enemy" instead of the VC. Again, as I see it, the question is not if America lost or not, because no one has said it didn't. It is if the guerilla tactics caused that loss or not.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Skybird restated his original intent very clearly when he posted


His original point was unmistable: Vietnam won, America lost. August never addressed that point, but created a new one, then claimed that it was Sky's original point.

This is changing the subject to suit your own ends at its finest.

This is why I keep you on ignore Steve. I never addressed that point? Well bullcrap. Try looking at post number 6 of this thread and again in post 14 where I very clearly say that the NVA (and Chinese) won the war.

Skybird said VietCONG, not "VietNAMESE" and even that argument is highly debatable since the South Vietnamese were Viets too and they certainly ended up loosing, not only the war, but their country as well.

[Penguin]

What if we look a decade earlier? The Viet Minh, as a non-regular force had some success in conventional battles, with Diem Bien Phu being the most famous. If they won the war is debatable, at least they won the North, which was a success to them.

There is also the question how much NVA's tactics have been conventional, certainly at Khe Sanh, however they had many aspects of guerilla warfare, for example the transportation of equipment via the Ho Chi minh trail.

Originally Posted by Hottentot

As I see it, the question specifically is if the Viet Cong won the war or not. That is, would the NVA have won without the VC anyway.

Yup, that's the question. Certainly the Vietcong prepared the grounds for the NVA, I would imagine a conventional war among the DMZ as the frontline would have been a totally different war.

I don't know however how many VC went into the NVA after Tet, how much those forces more or less grew together in the early 70s.

[eddie]

I don't mean to get off topic, but from what few articles that I have read, it doesn't sound like AQ has much of a followinhg in Syria at the moment. The goals of AQ and the FSA are quite different, and don't believe the Syrians want AQ dictating anything to them.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

That's a really good fallacy synopsis. Should be required reading for posting around here.

Fully and wholeheartedly agreed.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Oh indeed, but there is still many in the US who believe that if operations such as Linebacker had continued, instead of being stopped every time the DRV wanted to talk (aka wanted a break to rebuild and rearm) then the war might have had a different outcome. Or if the US had actually gone into North Vietnam in force, perhaps through an amphibious assault to bypass the heavily fortified border.
What ifs and maybes, just as there are after every war, but certainly the goals that the US set out to achieve were not met as the ROV ceased to exist.

I even agree that American (naive) politicians and self-restrictions have hampered the war effort. Oh those precious Paris talks and all that Hanoi area protection argument and not to draw China into the war while it already was. The war would have gone differently witholut all that. Whether it would hjave been won, we will never know.

But for now we know how it ended because team America - all players that formed it up - played the way it did. And it did play bad, by final results.

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Oh my, what's the noise about here. Vietnam, Vietcong, China, and now even throwing South and North Vietnamese into the same camp. August tries to bypass the essence of what I said by distracting attention from it via rethoric tricks, or discussing semantics. But the point still is and will always be: Vietnam was a lost war, while the other side (no matter how you call it en detail avec haute precision) has won it.

I canot believe that this even is being discussed here anymore. Or is this turning into the attempt to rewrite history?

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And now: Syria. Al Quaeda. USA. Britain. Continue when ready.