Just Who Is the Hero?

[Werewolf]

What did shorten it was the US home front's growing displeasure at feeling the pinch from a war they didn't see a benefit from. That sound familiar?

Way to go! Thank you for proving my point.

The war ended when it did because in the eyes of America it was too horrible to continue (it wasn't but the gutless hippy bastards of that age - I still hate those scumbag cowards - thought it was). They were loud enough to end the war. And that doesn't begin to change the fact that we fought it half-ass due to gutless politicians afraid of the chinese and what the rest of the world might think.

You fight wars to win. Our military wasn't allowed to win in Vietnam.

[De Selby]

At least insofar as the Geneva Conventions are concerned, I think the NVA (he was not Viet Cong) neatly eliminated himself from their purview when he took off his uniform. Let's look at it. Convention #3 deals with prisoners of war. Convention #4 deals with civilians.

You are absolutely right about taking himself out of the purview of the Geneva Conventions POW protections.

That's what I was saying-a soldier who gets POW status is immune from prosecution for killing and all other acts as long as they are within the international custom of warfare.  So even though you do something that might be murder under domestic statutes, wearing a uniform makes you immune from prosecution under the geneva conventions.

The non-uniformed insurgents who fought by disguising themselves as civilians were clearly not entitled to POW status.  There is no real debate there at all.

This appears to say that spies may be detained under such circumstances and conditions as the "occupying power" (in other words, the captor) deems necessary to protect its own security -- but it doesn't appear to support summary execution. It appears to require a "fair and regular" trial at the earliest practicable date. It does not seem to require or provide, however, that the trial be conducted by or under the civilan laws of the country/jurisdiction in which the capture is effected. With the usual IANAL disclaimer, it doesn't appear to me that the Convention precludes subjecting a spy or saboteur to a military trial.

Absolutely agree-this is how the law works on this subject.  I think we are saying the same thing here.

[Werewolf]

Apparently you and Osama Bin Laden are on the same page on this point.

There's a name for the tack you just took. Not being a logician I don't know what it is but it can't be flattering. Demonizing me instead of attacking the argument...

Personally, I think the results of terrorism and murder speak for themselves-you turn whole nations against you, and become reviled in history as barbaric.   If you survive long enough to read the histories that are written, that is, which many people who have chosen this "total war" path do not manage to achieve.

Terrorism is not Total War and it is because it is not total war that it can drag on and on.

In any Total War one side survives and one doesn't. Total war leads to final and complete victory. there are many examples but just in case your education in history is lacking here's just a few.

American Civil War - some consider this the 1st total war, I don't but anyway how many guys in grey uniforms you had to fight off lately? Can you say end of slavery? How about union restored. Lots'a bubbas like to think the south will rise again. Hasn't happened yet and probably never will.

WWI - Central Powers defeated which resulted in the end of monarchies in Europe and rise of European democracies and yes even in Germany a democracy - it was a democracy unti 1933 when Hitler did his thing (mostly because the Allies failed to totally crush the Germans).

WWII - Germany - annhilated - no more NAZI's. Japan - annhilated - nuff said.

Ancient times - Rome crushed Carthage - end of that problem for them. In fact Rome crushed pretty much everyone they went up against until 200 AD or so. No one dared to fight them - again - after they'd been beaten - it was a losing proposition. Result 800 year empire.

The best way to end a war and make sure you don't have to fight that particular enemy again is to wipe him out.

That won't end war but it sure as hell will make it so you don't have to fight the same guys over and over again.

You guys who want war to be clean can preach about brutality and barbarism and what everyone else thinks about you afterwards all you want but the fact is the guys who fight to win and use what ever means is necessary are still alive when its all over. Because they've wiped out their opponent they'll have the luxury of pandering to you sheep and pretending to be all civilized. Right up until the next war.

I'll paraphrase a common quote:

Sheep can sleep easily at night because brave and brutal men are willing to do what ever is necessary to protect them - even when those self same men are slandered and called evil by those self same sheep!

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i don't believe the man would describe himself as heroic. rather as a man doing what needed doing. he has never been apologetic for what he did. he din't need then or now the blessing of any remf.from either country.i believe he'd do it again.... and in his shoes i probably woulda capped the lil sob myself

[wooderson]

Way to go! Thank you for proving my point.

The war ended when it did because in the eyes of America it was too horrible to continue (it wasn't but the gutless hippy bastards of that age - I still hate those scumbag cowards - thought it was).

Er... no.

The greatest number of casualties, on both sides, came years before the pullout. The peak in American casualties (1968) wasn't even enough 'horror' to elect an anti-war candidate.

They were loud enough to end the war.

Wrong again. The 1960s anti-war movement had value, but we didn't leave Vietnam until the tide had turned in Middle America. Americans got tired of a war they didn't believe in, that had no outcome benefitting them, that was not being won in any appreciable sense. - they were unaffected by the brutality of the war (which was felt primarily by Vietnamese), and casualties had tapered off greatly by 1971-3.

And that doesn't begin to change the fact that we fought it half-ass due to gutless politicians afraid of the chinese and what the rest of the world might think.

Which is the old "we coulda killed 'em all!!!!" argument - except that removes any rational or moral basis for pursuing a war, so it is entirely irrelevant.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

wooderson   your memory of that time differs from mine

[roo_ster]

i don't believe the man would describe himself as heroic. rather as a man doing what needed doing. he has never been apologetic for what he did. he din't need then or now the blessing of any remf.from either country.i believe he'd do it again.... and in his shoes i probably woulda capped the lil sob myself

Pretty much sums up my view.

[roo_ster]

I have a hard time believing that victory was always around the corner, yet the war dragged on for more than a decade and the North Vietnamese side obliterated its opposition almost immediately after US troops pulled out. 

For those with selective memory, I will remind them that NVN was supplied by the USSR with all its arms.  It never could have held out as long as it did if the USSR had no longer propped it up.

Also, SVN did just fine on the previous NVN invasion attempt.  What was different, besides the passage of time, about the successful defense and the unsuccessful defense?  The difference was, Congress withdrew almost all material support, to include humanitarian, from SVN.  Without arms & ammo, SVN collapsed before the USSR-supported and equipped NVN forces.

Millions were turnedinto refugees.  Hundreds of thousands killed.  Many thousands fled VN b any means necessary, including leaky boat.  And, yes, the much-derided Domino Theory was proven at least partly correct when Laos & Cambodia also went communist.

[Werewolf]

Which is the old "we coulda killed 'em all!!!!" argument - except that removes any rational or moral basis for pursuing a war, so it is entirely irrelevant.

WTF?

War is neither rational nor moral. It is what happens when rational and moral fail. War is controlled chaos (you'd know what that means if you'd ever been in one). There's nothing moral or rational about it.

Thus it needs to end quickly and DECISIVELY. If war didn't hurt where is the incentive to end it? NEWS FLASH! There isn't one which is why the half assed war on terror will go on and on, why Vietnam lasted from '63 to '74, why we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan and why we'll probably end up in Iran.

When push comes to shove War at the National level isn't a whole lot different from taking on the school yard bully. If you don't beat the snot out of him and make it so every time he looks in the mirror for the next week he remembers you he'll just keep on coming back.

Too bad the emasculation of the American male over the last 50 years or so has resulted in that lesson being lost to history.

America has turned into a land of pussies wailing over the loss of a few thousand guys a year. Compare that to the loss of a few thousand guys a day in WWII - a war where our fathers and leaders knew what needed to be done and DID IT!

Until we learn that lessong again we're doomed to being involved in wars that last decades and not just years.

[wooderson]

War is neither rational nor moral. It is what happens when rational and moral fail.

Nonsense. In the modern world, particularly for the US, going to war is a rational decision made by the state - and in democratic societies is generally proclaimed to have a moral basis ("stop communism! free the Iraqis!" etc.). It has a set of objectives (ideally) to be accomplished for the war to end.

Those objectives are never complete genocide of the opposition - which is, of course, a possibility. We could have wiped Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq out without breaking a sweat, and 'won' the war.

That, of course, wouldn't have accomplished any of our proclaimed objectives in any of those instances.

(One wonders if you realize that your argument - 'war is irrational and immoral' - is essentially the basic pacficist and anti-war argument? By your words, we never should have been in Vietnam or Iraq to begin with, much less needing to wipe out the entire population...)

[Werewolf]

War is neither rational nor moral. It is what happens when rational and moral fail.

Nonsense. In the modern world, particularly for the US, going to war is a rational decision made by the state - and in democratic societies is generally proclaimed to have a moral basis ("stop communism! free the Iraqis!" etc.). It has a set of objectives (ideally) to be accomplished for the war to end.

Those objectives are never complete genocide of the opposition - which is, of course, a possibility. We could have wiped Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq out without breaking a sweat, and 'won' the war.

That, of course, wouldn't have accomplished any of our proclaimed objectives in any of those instances.

(One wonders if you realize that your argument - 'war is irrational and immoral' - is essentially the basic pacficist and anti-war argument? By your words, we never should have been in Vietnam or Iraq to begin with, much less needing to wipe out the entire population...)

Let me repeat once again...

War is what happens when rational and moral fail. The reasons for going to war are entirely seperate from the war itself. The reasons define the why, the what and more often than not the how. None of those make the actual acts of war either rational or moral. Those really aren't terribly difficult concepts to grasp.

When the diplomats are done and just can't work it out because one side or the other or both just can't agree to what the other wants knowing full well that the end result may well be war then Rational and Moral have failed. That doesn't mean a nation can just say screw it - we're not gonna play. Well - they can but they'll lose.

The reason for going to war can be as rational as, if we don't we're gonna be wiped out (Iraq and the imaginary WMD's) or any number of other rational reasons. That doesn't make the war itself rational. Personally I can't think of a single reason that would on a moral basis alone justify a war (the god squadders might but I reject religion as a moral reason for war).

Try telling an infantryman that's ordered to charge a MG nest up a hill that what he's about to do is rational. Try telling his mother that her son's death was moral. The acts of War and thus War itself is neither rational nor moral. Why is that so hard to understand?

The reasons for war may be rational but the war itself is not! And that's why once a nation is in one it behooves that nation to end it quickly and decisively.

The fact that war is neither rational nor moral doesn't mean that nations are not forced into them. On the contrary it is proof of my contention that war happens when rational and moral fail.

[wooderson]

War is what happens when rational and moral fail. The reasons for going to war are entirely seperate from the war itself. The reasons define the why, the what and more often than not the how. None of those make the actual acts of war either rational or moral. Those really aren't terribly difficult concepts to grasp.

Um, you realize that you've been referring, this entire time, to that 'how' - 'how a war is conducted' (with brutality, total war, etc.). Right?

And your first sentence... well, it's in English, but it's not exactly coherent. War is not the conduct of the war ('the how') or the reasons for going to war or... What?

The reason for going to war can be as rational as, if we don't we're gonna be wiped out (Iraq and the imaginary WMD's) or any number of other rational reasons. That doesn't make the war itself rational.

That gives the war a rational basis, if only for those who support it. That means war is not the unexpected, unplanned and bizarre act you previously attributed it as.

"War is irrational and immoral" is a great thought and all, Mr. Hippie Peacenik - but it's absolutely meaningless, as you've defined it as unrelated to the choice to go to war, how the war is pursued, whatever endgame there might be... and well, everything else. What is it supposed to mean? How does it relate to Vietnam or Iraq? What argument can it be used to support?

[Strings]

ok, I have to ask a couple questions...

>Nonsense. In the modern world, particularly for the US, going to war is a rational decision made by the state - and in democratic societies is generally proclaimed to have a moral basis ("stop communism! free the Iraqis!" etc.). It has a set of objectives (ideally) to be accomplished for the war to end.<

What WAS the set objective of WWII (in the European theater) again?

>Those objectives are never complete genocide of the opposition - which is, of course, a possibility. We could have wiped Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq out without breaking a sweat, and 'won' the war.<

And we're too "moral" to do so. Rome was mentioned somewhere above: how much trouble did Carthage give them after being destroyed?

>That, of course, wouldn't have accomplished any of our proclaimed objectives in any of those instances.<

Yes and no...

>(One wonders if you realize that your argument - 'war is irrational and immoral' - is essentially the basic pacficist and anti-war argument? By your words, we never should have been in Vietnam or Iraq to begin with, much less needing to wipe out the entire population...)<

Actually, we SHOULDN'T have been in Vietnam like we were: we should have been there MUCH sooner, when "Uncle Ho" first asked the US to take Vietnam as a protectorate. Would've eliminated the whole problem (but we didn't want to offend the French)...

[De Selby]

I have a hard time believing that victory was always around the corner, yet the war dragged on for more than a decade and the North Vietnamese side obliterated its opposition almost immediately after US troops pulled out. 

For those with selective memory, I will remind them that NVN was supplied by the USSR with all its arms.  It never could have held out as long as it did if the USSR had no longer propped it up.

Also, SVN did just fine on the previous NVN invasion attempt.  What was different, besides the passage of time, about the successful defense and the unsuccessful defense?  The difference was, Congress withdrew almost all material support, to include humanitarian, from SVN.  Without arms & ammo, SVN collapsed before the USSR-supported and equipped NVN forces.

Millions were turnedinto refugees.  Hundreds of thousands killed.  Many thousands fled VN b any means necessary, including leaky boat.  And, yes, the much-derided Domino Theory was proven at least partly correct when Laos & Cambodia also went communist.

This is absolutely true-the NVA was supported by the USSR.  But we weren't attacking the USSR to stop the supply chain, so it's hard to see how that makes it any different.

Congress withdrew support from the SVN because the SVN weren't winning-they were losing.  Victory was not around the corner, in large part because the NVA had a steady supply of weapons and a political organization that functioned; the south had weapons, but sucked at politics, and was pretty much incapable of defeating its russian supplied enemies.

So yes, I agree that it is only because of Russian support that the NVA was able to do what it did-but Russian support was a fact of the war, and not something that could've been eliminated without making Vietnam into WWIII.

[De Selby]

The reason for going to war can be as rational as, if we don't we're gonna be wiped out (Iraq and the imaginary WMD's) or any number of other rational reasons. That doesn't make the war itself rational. Personally I can't think of a single reason that would on a moral basis alone justify a war (the god squadders might but I reject religion as a moral reason for war).

What is morally wrong with terrorism then?

Is it your opinion that terrorists aren't actually immoral, as long as they call their attacks on civilians warfare? 

Why is terrorism immoral, if "war is irrational" and any means of warfare are legitimate once a war is declared?

[Firethorn]

The infinite potential for greater inhumanity is not the same as arguing that Vietnam was 'clean.' It was dirty/nasty/horrible - on both sides, as the story above relates - and that didn't shorten it in the least.

I should probably note that I'm not necessarily talking about dirty/clean war, I'm talking about prosecuting war to the fullest.

While continuing a high-level bombardment campaign is going to cost more lives during it, if it can shorten the conflict it can easily end up saving lives on both sides by convincing one side to give up before they're completely ground down.

Sort of like the nuclear bombings of Japan - convinced them that resistance is futile and got them to surrender.

What did shorten it was the US home front's growing displeasure at feeling the pinch from a war they didn't see a benefit from. That sound familiar?

It ground on for so long because our government wasn't willing to take decisive action to finish it.  You could argue the same with troop levels in Iraq today.

[wooderson]

What WAS the set objective of WWII (in the European theater) again?

War was declared on the US, of course. As we were a party to the Allied states, our objectives were to roll back the Nazis in Europe and end their government in Germany itself.

And we're too "moral" to do so. Rome was mentioned somewhere above: how much trouble did Carthage give them after being destroyed?

Such a bizarre non-sequitur. Hannibal invaded Rome. The Carthaginians posed a threat to the continued existence of Rome.

Gimme a call when you find where the Vietnamese were poised to destroy the US.

[CAnnoneer]

The moral of the story seems clear - confiscate and destroy the film of all reporters in the area of military operations.

[Balog]

There's no hero in that picture.  I see a gunman from one corrupt, repressive regime putting a bullet in the head of a gunman from another corrupt, repressive regime.  See, the world isn't like the movies.  It's not always, or even often, good guys versus badguys.  Mostly it seems to be bad guys versus other badguys.

  Kind of like Iraq.

Call me crazy, say I'm feeding the troll, but....

did you just call US servicemen in Iraq the functional equivalent of the terrorists they're fighting?

[Joe Demko]

No, I said that the regimes of both North and South Vietnam were repressive and corrupt and that I didn't consider their gunmen to be heroes.

[Balog]

No, I said that the regimes of both North and South Vietnam were repressive and corrupt and that I didn't consider their gunmen to be heroes.

I know that's what you said Joe. I was referring to Tecumseh comparing it to Iraq. Right below your quote.

[Bigjake]

No, I said that the regimes of both North and South Vietnam were repressive and corrupt and that I didn't consider their gunmen to be heroes.

I know that's what you said Joe. I was referring to Tecumseh comparing it to Iraq. Right below your quote.

That's what I read.  Wish he had the balls to say that to a few returning Marines I know, perhaps at the airport in front of their families' after getting off the plane.  I'd delay seeing my loved ones happily to stomp a mud hole in his kind and walk it dry.

[seeker_two]

The moral of the story seems clear - confiscate and destroy the film of all reporters in the area of military operations.

Fixed it for y'all...... 

[De Selby]

The moral of the story seems clear - confiscate and destroy the film of all reporters in the area of military operations.

Fixed it for y'all...... 

Why is it that reporting on these wars is bad?

Do you not think that public support is important? Or is it better if public support is manufactured by means of propaganda, instead of just allowing the public to see whatever information comes out?

If people don't have the "stomach" or whatever you want to term it for continuing a war, the decision should be in their hands.  I don't believe in making-war-by-bureaucracy without the input of the people, and I highly doubt that the founding fathers believed in it either.

[Bigjake]

Why is it that reporting on these wars is bad?

Two words: Geraldo Rivera.

With "friends" like him, who needs enemies??