<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
		>
<channel>
	<title>Comments on: Is Iraq like Vietnam? Dubious history.</title>
	<atom:link href="http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/</link>
	<description>Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:58:18 -0800</lastBuildDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4</generator>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<item>
		<title>By: Caleb Cambee</title>
		<link>http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/comment-page-1/#comment-385991</link>
		<dc:creator>Caleb Cambee</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:08:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/#comment-385991</guid>
		<description>You bring up interesting points and I would like to add a comparison that seems to be left out, which is the soldierâ€™s reporting on the war.  In Vietnam the G.I.â€™s were creating underground newspapers.  Now in Iraq there are soldiers blogging about the war.  Thereâ€™s one aspect about war that will always remain and that is soldiers wanting to write about their experiences.  I didnâ€™t even really know about the whole G.I. movement, but I just saw this documentary on it called, Sir! No sir!  Itâ€™s pretty interesting.

http://www.sirnosir.com</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You bring up interesting points and I would like to add a comparison that seems to be left out, which is the soldierâ€™s reporting on the war.  In Vietnam the G.I.â€™s were creating underground newspapers.  Now in Iraq there are soldiers blogging about the war.  Thereâ€™s one aspect about war that will always remain and that is soldiers wanting to write about their experiences.  I didnâ€™t even really know about the whole G.I. movement, but I just saw this documentary on it called, Sir! No sir!  Itâ€™s pretty interesting.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sirnosir.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.sirnosir.com</a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Jeremy</title>
		<link>http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/comment-page-1/#comment-381836</link>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:26:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/#comment-381836</guid>
		<description>&quot;Not sure about â€œevilâ€ but yeah&quot;

Any man that can call killing 2 million Vietnamese and causing the the death of 50,000 Americans meets my definition of evil, especially when this inhuman piece of garbage continues to pretend that that policy was &quot;honorable.&quot; It this simple, Vietnam wasn&#039;t our G&#039;damn country, it wasn&#039;t in danger of a &quot;Communist&quot; takeover. The North Vietnamese sought the help of the west to gain their rightful independence from the Japanese and then the French colonizers. No western power listened. Then North Vietnam turned to the only power that would listen, the newly Communist lead China. 

So America can rushing in on the side of colonial France which was trying to hold on to everything it possibly could after the Second World War. France was occupying and colonizing a country that had for the last century been occupied or colonized by one form of government or another. But most specifically the Japanese during the course of the Second World War. They wanted to govern their own country, to be their own masters. Of all people, Americans should understand this desire perfectly! 

But America, instead, lead by a young John F. Kennedy administration got embroiled in a slow and unforeseeable quagmire. Which had a great deal to do with the poor advice he had received from his Joint Chiefs of Staff and military advisers at that time. Remember that it was these same advisers that &quot;advised&quot; him to invade Cuba. Effectively what we had was a military brass that was invasion happy, bolstered by the &quot;successes&quot; of containing the communist U.S.S.R they felt it made sense to apply this &quot;containment theory&quot; across the globe. They failed to take one small fact in to account. China didn&#039;t want S.E. Asia. 

But since an western power such as France was looking to capitalize on the 
defeat of the Japanese and their subsequent withdraw from their S.E. Asia war time possessions, France thought they could establish another foothold in Vietnam, taking it back as a post-WW2 colony. And America leda by Kennedy got sucked into this meddling. Instead of supporting Vietnams right to be a free and sovereign country we bolstered and upheld Frances illegal occupation of that country. 

So? With all this &quot;domino theory&quot; bullshit being waved around by these pro war, pro colonizer, pro industrial war complex people like Kissinger, I don&#039;t find it at all surprising that his version of history is warped. Kissinger is evil, as evil and calculatingly callus as a human being can get. At least in this country anyway. This idea that we were somehow &quot;saving&quot; or &quot;helping&quot; or brothers in arms (the South Vietnamese) is garbage. Their is but one Vietnamese people, and we killed 2 million of them. And the most ironically sick and twisted bit of reality is that these same people we called &quot;animals&quot; and the enemy, we are now trading happily with. We&#039;ve got a trade agreement with these animals now. What a crock of shit! What a sack of lies. What happened to Vietnam after we left it? Did it fall to the evil Communists? Well they ARE communist alright, but they are good enough to  trade with lol!  

50,000 American men lost their lives for this sick war. Men that could have had families and futures. Instead they became casualties of everything that 
is wrong about or government, mainly corruption. Free market? yes! Occupation and murder of sovereign countries under bullshit pretexts and lies? NO!!!!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Not sure about â€œevilâ€ but yeah&#8221;</p>
<p>Any man that can call killing 2 million Vietnamese and causing the the death of 50,000 Americans meets my definition of evil, especially when this inhuman piece of garbage continues to pretend that that policy was &#8220;honorable.&#8221; It this simple, Vietnam wasn&#8217;t our G&#8217;damn country, it wasn&#8217;t in danger of a &#8220;Communist&#8221; takeover. The North Vietnamese sought the help of the west to gain their rightful independence from the Japanese and then the French colonizers. No western power listened. Then North Vietnam turned to the only power that would listen, the newly Communist lead China. </p>
<p>So America can rushing in on the side of colonial France which was trying to hold on to everything it possibly could after the Second World War. France was occupying and colonizing a country that had for the last century been occupied or colonized by one form of government or another. But most specifically the Japanese during the course of the Second World War. They wanted to govern their own country, to be their own masters. Of all people, Americans should understand this desire perfectly! </p>
<p>But America, instead, lead by a young John F. Kennedy administration got embroiled in a slow and unforeseeable quagmire. Which had a great deal to do with the poor advice he had received from his Joint Chiefs of Staff and military advisers at that time. Remember that it was these same advisers that &#8220;advised&#8221; him to invade Cuba. Effectively what we had was a military brass that was invasion happy, bolstered by the &#8220;successes&#8221; of containing the communist U.S.S.R they felt it made sense to apply this &#8220;containment theory&#8221; across the globe. They failed to take one small fact in to account. China didn&#8217;t want S.E. Asia. </p>
<p>But since an western power such as France was looking to capitalize on the<br />
defeat of the Japanese and their subsequent withdraw from their S.E. Asia war time possessions, France thought they could establish another foothold in Vietnam, taking it back as a post-WW2 colony. And America leda by Kennedy got sucked into this meddling. Instead of supporting Vietnams right to be a free and sovereign country we bolstered and upheld Frances illegal occupation of that country. </p>
<p>So? With all this &#8220;domino theory&#8221; bullshit being waved around by these pro war, pro colonizer, pro industrial war complex people like Kissinger, I don&#8217;t find it at all surprising that his version of history is warped. Kissinger is evil, as evil and calculatingly callus as a human being can get. At least in this country anyway. This idea that we were somehow &#8220;saving&#8221; or &#8220;helping&#8221; or brothers in arms (the South Vietnamese) is garbage. Their is but one Vietnamese people, and we killed 2 million of them. And the most ironically sick and twisted bit of reality is that these same people we called &#8220;animals&#8221; and the enemy, we are now trading happily with. We&#8217;ve got a trade agreement with these animals now. What a crock of shit! What a sack of lies. What happened to Vietnam after we left it? Did it fall to the evil Communists? Well they ARE communist alright, but they are good enough to  trade with lol!  </p>
<p>50,000 American men lost their lives for this sick war. Men that could have had families and futures. Instead they became casualties of everything that<br />
is wrong about or government, mainly corruption. Free market? yes! Occupation and murder of sovereign countries under bullshit pretexts and lies? NO!!!!</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: mw</title>
		<link>http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/comment-page-1/#comment-381799</link>
		<dc:creator>mw</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:12:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/#comment-381799</guid>
		<description>&lt;i&gt;&quot;Life really is stranger than fiction.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;

Not sure about &quot;evil&quot; but yeah  and then it gets even stranger. While researching this post, I came across this May, 1975 draft of a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/exhibits/vietnam/750512f.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;memo  to President Ford &lt;/a&gt;from Henry Kissinger, the month after Saigon fell, apparently never sent:

&lt;i&gt;&quot;...When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the Communist movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engluf us all.  Therefore, in our public statements. I believe we can honorably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterize our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster. I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politicallyh were notin vain. We paid a hight price but we gained ten years of time and we changed what then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum. I do not believe our solders or our people need to be ashamed. &lt;/i&gt;

 So there you have it. In another 6 years, maybe we&#039;ll have another Secretary of State writing a memo to the President saying &lt;i&gt;&quot;..When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the islamofascist movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engluf us all... &quot;&lt;/i&gt;</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i>&#8220;Life really is stranger than fiction.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Not sure about &#8220;evil&#8221; but yeah  and then it gets even stranger. While researching this post, I came across this May, 1975 draft of a <a href="http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/exhibits/vietnam/750512f.htm" rel="nofollow">memo  to President Ford </a>from Henry Kissinger, the month after Saigon fell, apparently never sent:</p>
<p><i>&#8220;&#8230;When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the Communist movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engluf us all.  Therefore, in our public statements. I believe we can honorably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterize our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster. I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politicallyh were notin vain. We paid a hight price but we gained ten years of time and we changed what then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum. I do not believe our solders or our people need to be ashamed. </i></p>
<p> So there you have it. In another 6 years, maybe we&#8217;ll have another Secretary of State writing a memo to the President saying <i>&#8220;..When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the islamofascist movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engluf us all&#8230; &#8220;</i></p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Jeremy</title>
		<link>http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/comment-page-1/#comment-381782</link>
		<dc:creator>Jeremy</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:45:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://donklephant.com/2007/09/05/is-iraq-like-vietnam-dubious-history/#comment-381782</guid>
		<description>Let&#039;s be frank, Kissinger is evil. Any president that is going to call on Kissinger&#039;s &quot;expertise&quot; is a moron, thus have you, Bush. I don&#039;t know if it was Kissinger&#039;s involvement in the last pathetic war (Vietnam) or this one, but can someone tell me why exactly Kissinger has anything to impart about conducting a successful war? Unless, of course, he&#039;s supposed to have sage advice because he&#039;s learned from all of his mistakes, how many only God knows. Isn&#039;t this the same soulless individual that helped Nixon pretend that Vietnam was a war worth fighting? Life really is stranger than fiction.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Let&#8217;s be frank, Kissinger is evil. Any president that is going to call on Kissinger&#8217;s &#8220;expertise&#8221; is a moron, thus have you, Bush. I don&#8217;t know if it was Kissinger&#8217;s involvement in the last pathetic war (Vietnam) or this one, but can someone tell me why exactly Kissinger has anything to impart about conducting a successful war? Unless, of course, he&#8217;s supposed to have sage advice because he&#8217;s learned from all of his mistakes, how many only God knows. Isn&#8217;t this the same soulless individual that helped Nixon pretend that Vietnam was a war worth fighting? Life really is stranger than fiction.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>
