@--kitt

I suppose there is one thing we disagree about. That is, the notion that the US pulled out of Vietnam because it was militarily defeated by Vietnam.

I don't know about where you live, but in my town, we don't have a single North Vietnamese Communist on our city council.

So you really believed the Domino Theory and that the North Vietnamese were interested in taking over America? Wow.

We occupied that country for more than a decade, but they never held an inch of US land. We slaughtered more than a million of them and they only killed about 60,000 of us.

That's because we were in Vietnam. Why would they even want to "hold" an inch of US land. I've never heard them express that as their desire. And if you think killing a couple million, including many civilian men, women and children, and if you think losing "about" 60 thousand of "us" is winning, well...

The danger of your view, that conflicts are settled on the battlefield, is that it ignores our voice. War will end when we demand that it end.

The first part of your statement is not "my view". As for the second part, how about we demand that these wars and occupations don't begin? Judging by your comment you're still sticking with your theme that nuking a country and the people who live there into oblivion equals victory.

The issue in Afghanistan, as it was in Vietnam, is to what extent our overwhelming force (the Powell Doctrine) will be constrained. This is a political quesion.

-- JoeTheMechanic

It's only a "political question" if you think that the fact that we killed 3 million and used insane amounts of bombs and etc was small potatoes. I disagree with your assessment of the amount of firepower and the amount of how many more people we could have killed and still call it victory. I disagree with your 'point?' all together that more bombing was an option and that something called victory could have come out of it. If we had done that we still would have been considered defeated, defeated both militarily and defeated by becoming even more of a pariah than we had become in the eyes of many all over the world.

What you are still saying is that we could have made or could make the "political decision" to use all our nukes and that would be victory and not defeat. I say it would be defeat. We can't win these disgusting engagements that we we call wars without slaughtering voluminous amounts of innocents, which means that we can't win these disgusting invasions and engagements that we call wars, period. There is no "political question" about it.

We used only a tiny fraction of our military power.

-- JoeTheMechanic

Unless you're still counting all those nukes that you claim to just be bringing up to make a point then your above statement is incorrect.

The American air campaign during the Vietnam War was one of the largest in military history. The US contribution to this air-war was the largest, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, stated that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age". However Chinese, Southern Vietnamese and North Vietnamese aircraft also utilised a range of bombs and fought back against the American forces. Weapons from both sides contribute to the below list of bombs in the Vietnam war.

(See list and all at signature)

My question to you, Joe was, and still is, what does the fact that we have the fire power to annihilate countries have to do with winning or losing militarily or politically. Why even mention it if it is not an option, or a losing option, which of course it would be a losing option? You don't declare victory by annihilating everyone.

And I disagree that we weren't defeated militarily. Millions were killed in Vietnam. We had to leave without accomplishing our supposed goal even after all of that insanity. We never should have been there militarily, but since we were, we were defeated...militarily.

Military, we could destroy the entire country right now. We choose not to.

-- JoeTheMechanic

That doesn't answer my question. Parents could kill their children when they cry too loud and too often but would that be victorious child rearing because the crying would be stopped? It's big 'so fucking what' to say that we have the big shit to kill 'em all and wipe out their country but it doesn't mean a gawd damned thing in the language of what is winning and losing. If you think it does, which is what my question to you was and is, then you're nuts. And your "politics" versus blowing the whole place up tripe is bull shit.

Now, see if you can actually answer the question this time instead of repeating the same idiotic, chest-thumping scenario.

The US could have blasted Vietnam off the face of the earth. We had the military power to anihilate the entire country and every living thing in it for decades.

[...]

We have even more military power today. Afghanistan could be vaporized in a matter of seconds. What restrains the U.S. is politics. It is politics that will end the war.

-- JoeTheMechanic

What is your point in those comments? Do you think that "blasting Vietnam off the face of the earth" or "vaporizing Afghanistan" or annihilating "every living thing" and "the entire country" would have been or would be 'Victory'!? And do you think not doing that counts as 'restraint'? Because if you do, you are not only dirt stupid, crazy-stupid.