America won the vietnam war

[jaxmike]

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Not the best sources for accurate information.

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Sorry, just as accurate as the Washington Post, AP, etc.

[jaxmike]

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This speaks for itself. If you think that Yalta and Pottsdam were "disastrous," then you think that those who were responsible for it must have been disastrous.

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And?

[SheetWise]

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And?

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Agreed.

[lehighguy]

An acceptable set of conclusions.

[lehighguy]

My friend runs a business in Vietnam. His yearly budget for bribes in quite large. Even with the bribes government officials occasionally confiscate land and property for thier own enrichment. It's also not very uncommon for a piece of land to get bought up by communists officials right before announcing that it is a new economic developement zone. I certainly doubt these people are noble but misguided.

[lehighguy]

The only concievable difference would be Iraq. And Kerry both voted for the war and supported continuing occupation.

Communism/facism/theocracy denies the freedom of its citizens completely and absolutely until such time as it is overthrown. Therefore, there can no arguement that allowing it respects the freedom or self determination of the populace. Those governmental systems usually result from great stress and revolution, and people end up regretting thier fervor once they realize thier posistion (like modern day Iranians). Unfortunately, by that time it is to late to do anything about it because the government can silence decent, denying people both freedom and self determination.

[andyfox]

"Not the best sources for accurate information."

Not a great comment by me. I should just have addressed the biases and inaccuracies I saw in the two sites.

[andyfox]

Buchanan and others situated at about the same point as he on the political spectrum often speak of Yalta (especially) and Potsdam and a sell-out and that the decisions made there must have been influenced by those soft on communism or worse. So a site that ediitorially characterizes Yalta and Potsdam as "disastrous" will not be one where fairness about the actions of the Far East department will be viewed objectively. McCarthy and his supporters hounded many of the old China hands because they reported accurately on Chiang Kai-Shek's weaknesses and Mao's strengths. This was seen as being disloyal or unpatriotic by the right.

[Cyrus]

Thank you for not wasting more bandwidth. We can agree, then, that America's involvement in Vietnam did practically nothing to stop "the spread of communism elsewhere" as the original claim was.

We can also agree, if you had black coffee, that on the contrary, America's involvement in Vietnam, even if only viewed in retrospect, damaged America's stance in the world, radicalised towards the Left large numbers of people around the world and was no help in the Cold War effort at all.

You can have that second cup now.

[nicky g]

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My friend runs a business in Vietnam. His yearly budget for bribes in quite large. Even with the bribes government officials occasionally confiscate land and property for thier own enrichment. It's also not very uncommon for a piece of land to get bought up by communists officials right before announcing that it is a new economic developement zone. I certainly doubt these people are noble but misguided.

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That might be the case in Vietnam. It's not IMO been a characteristic of communist regimes in general. Also, as I understand it the Vietnamese government has evolved similarly to the Chinese in that it monopolises political power but has opened up the economy a lot, which IMO isn't really communism in any real sense any more. Also I nevef said they were noble. I just don't think communists are generally in it for self-enrichment in the way a Mobutu was, say.