Creationism is a mental illness (Page 277)

kittybobo34: Going to war with Vietnam was such a colossal mistake. At the end of WW2 Ho Chi Min loved Americans, was instrumental in rescuing American pilots, even wrote a constitution that was similar to Americas. Then after the war was over, the USA sided with the French who wanted their colony back. , forcing Ho to seek out the Chinese, and Russians. Had we supported Vietnam against the French, Vietnam would be the Japan of Indo China right now.

BelgianStrider: I think it is a little more complex. You can say quite the same about Mao Tse Tung: he also tried to have close relations with the USA that factually saved his country, and was denied bythethat time administation (Truman).
Moreover, if I am not mistaken, the USA was publicly against colonisation; (in action and politically that is a total other question).
Note the US involvement became clearly 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 the independence of Vietnam: a consequence of the French military disaster of Dien Bien Phu. It started as military advise for the SVDF while never being an open war it culminated under the Johnson administration. There is no denial about it: numerous coffins were repatriated !!!

"The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 2] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.[10] It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China,[14] and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies.[59][60] The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war.[61] It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975.

After the French military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, and the U.S. assumed financial and military support for the South Vietnamese state.[62][A 9] The Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare with U.S. and South Vietnamese forces (ARVN). North Vietnam had also invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC.[63]: 16 By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south.[63]: 16 U.S. involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964.[64][33]: 131

Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to increase American military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000.[64] U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. The U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam,[33]: 371–374 [65] and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive; though it was a military defeat for the north, it became a political victory for them as well, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade.[33]: 481 By the end of the year, the VC held little territory and were sidelined by the PAVN.[66] In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Operations crossed national borders, and the U.S. bombed North Vietnamese supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. The 1970 deposing of the Cambodian monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country (at the request of the Khmer Rouge), and then a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating the Cambodian Civil War. After the election of Richard Nixon in 1969, a policy of "Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while U.S. forces withdrew in the face of increasing domestic opposition. U.S. ground forces had largely withdrawn by early 1972, and their operations were limited to air support, artillery support, advisors, and materiel shipments. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 saw all U.S. forces withdrawn;[67]: 457 accords were broken almost immediately, and fighting continued for two more years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war; North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.

The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000[26] to 3 million.[55] Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians,[56][57][58] 20,000–62,000 Laotians,[55] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, and a further 1,626 remain missing in action.[A 8] The end of the Vietnam War would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions of refugees leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 of whom perished at sea. Once in power, the Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam would eventually escalating into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, which toppled the Khmer Rouge government in 1979. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with subsequent border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the United States, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvements,[68] which, together with the Watergate scandal contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s ..."
Wikepedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

ghostgeek: Going to war with anybody is always a colossal mistake if you end up losing, as Hitler found out after invading Russia.

BelgianStrider: Letting the military taking (temporaly) over the diplomacy is 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 a mistake; there will always be "senseless coffins" on both sides !!!

I always liked that analogy given by an officer during my formation as officer:

- Economics dictates politics.
- Politics dictates diplomacy.
- When diplomacy does not work mostly military power has to take "ovewhelming diplomatic conviction" over till the decision for going over to "nomal diplomacy" is taken.
- Often the new economical situations pushed politics of one of the parties to go back to "normal diplomacy" !!!

He even told us: even behind "religious wars" there was always some economical influence for obtaining an economical monopoly; during the crusades what was a crusial economical trade that time? what about the "control" of trade of spices from the east to the west ???

BelgianStrider: Oh; for all those pacifist that really do want peace at all hand.
An advice: enroll as an officer and arange you get to the highest ranks !!!

It is a myth that any general wants war!
What is factual: the ones that really wants to keep peace are also the one that trained themselves and their armies to convince the eventual opponents to think twice and it might not be wise to confront them. The military term for that seems to be " deterrence " !

ghostgeek: If some politician can convince themselves that they can win a war, it's likely they'll get the troops marching and the bugles blarring. Convince them that they'll get their arse fried if they try and peace will likely be the result.

ghostgeek: Mutual assured destruction ( M.A.D. ) has quite a bit going for it, not least the fact that so far it has stopped an all-out nuclear war happening.

BelgianStrider: indeed: though it did not stop local "wars"

BelgianStrider:

kittybobo34: Have you heard , some high placed Russian officials are commenting that Moldova is next, and Poland's borders should be adjusted too.

BelgianStrider: tbh;
- putin dreams to be compared with Catharina the Great
- his second target will be probably be Bielllo Russia
- may be Moldova after that

Though (I hope) he is wise enough not to mess with a NATO member like Poland

BelgianStrider: Oh btw if Polish borders should be adjusted, that means it should move +/- 200 km Eastward!
With the consequence the German eastern border should also move 200 km eastward !!!

Many do not know: but Poland "moved" +/-200 km westward when comparing the borders determined at the Versailles Treaty with those after WWII !!!!

Not convinced?

Ok; now can you tell us that "Dachau" was already a "German concentration camp" BEFORE WWII if it was Polish???

What was the origin of that? That extremely unbelievable molotov - ribbentrop pact !!!!
With the specific secret agreements.

BTW after WWII Prussia "disappeared" !!!!

BelgianStrider: the wise conclusion might be for the russian federation "don't touch their tricky mustaches" Not that of "soviet ironman" neither that of "dolfke"

ghostgeek: So the war to end everything is still a possibility?

BelgianStrider: Oh yes and even more now !!!

An idiot just needs to think NATO will not intervene if he decides to mangle with the Polish borders

Moreover, we don't have just "two players" possessing enough thermonuclear energy to turn this planet in wasteland: also a factor to take into account

TheloniousSphereMonk: Don't worry folks, it's just Ole fashioned fear-mongering.

BelgianStrider: No, Monk: Thistime I disagree with you; in 62 we where extremely close, and now, in my opinion, again the slightest misstep and we have our "argameddon"!
WWI was also "la der des der" (typical French to say "the last of the last" )

ghostgeek: Should cure global warming, so some people will be happy.

BelgianStrider: yeah; sure, we will have indeed an undeniable "worldwide instantaneous global warming" effect

ghostgeek: Then nuclear winter without electricity. That should cool people's ardour down.

BelgianStrider: with the only condition, still to have "people"

ghostgeek: Every species goes extinct, but not every one can say it took all the others with it.

BelgianStrider: that might be a fact

Heartless Legacy: I think therefore I have mental illness.
There is no why.
Fact check me.

kittybobo34: If Russia starts throwing nukes, guess who will get the resultant radiation.