01-03-2003 20:13									#31
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Those AK47s coundnt hit anything.

	01-03-2003 20:13									#32
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I wonder if it is enough to convince the young people that you are right in your bellicose stance.

	01-03-2003 20:15									#33
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In any situation where America invaded Vietnam for no reason, they could certainly count on the Chinese and Indians as well as others to supply them with weapons.

I'd also expect that they have reasonable arms manufacturing facilities of their own.

	01-03-2003 20:16									#34
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You don't need a firefight, you just need to know what is right. Lots of Americans went to France in WW1 and WW2 without a firefight.

	01-03-2003 20:18									#35
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Sandman, of course. I should have said that the circumstanses wer the same.

	01-03-2003 20:24									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Lancer You don't need a firefight, you just need to know what is right. Lots of Americans went to France in WW1 and WW2 without a firefight.

Sure, if you tell the young people that war consists of travelling a bit without killing people and without being killed, they will love it.

	01-03-2003 21:27									#37
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quote: If the US were to fight the Vietnam war today, would we win?

Win what?

Could the US prop up a pro-American regime for as long as American forces were in Indo-China?

Probably.

Would that regime last beyond the removal of American forces?

No.

Could the US kill enough Vietnamese to terrorize the rest into supporting the pro-American government after removal of American forces?

Based on past experience: No. The US does not have either the political or moral will to carry out such a policy. The objections from the military leadership alone would be enough to kill it. Domestic disruptions would dwarf those of the 1960s & '70s.

If Pretzel Boy went before the country and tried something like this (based on some alleged Vietnamese link to "terrorism," for instance), he'd be quietly sedated and retired to Crawford while Acting President Cheney finished out his term. Even Limbaugh's legion of idiots wouldn't buy it. End of debate.

	01-03-2003 22:48									#38
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Let the military fight the war, and no question.
But, if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got.

	01-03-2003 23:13									#39
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Well would the US have more clearly have defined objectives? Because if our plan is to just sit in the South or some other region against while the commies continually attack us, then no. Maybe if we could invade, for totaly victory, and train a pro-US force of Vietnamese that might actually maintain the support of the people, and prop the pro-US vietnamese up to the point where they can be safe from the communist guerillas, the US might win.

	01-03-2003 23:19									#40
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It depends on what our objective is. If we don't care what remains in the north, we could bomb them into the stone age. But that isn't possible now due to public resistance.

So I'd have to say no, we cannot win.

	01-03-2003 23:25									#41
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quote: Originally posted by Lancer Damn I hate my last post. Yet it's what I truly think. I have no faith in the young people today, just look at this forum.

Yup... you should have no faith in our ability to blindly listen to a corrupt president. Each young generation is smarter than the previous and we realize our leaders are in it for themselves and not for freedom, democracy, or any other ideals. Kids are smart. They can spot phonies.

	01-03-2003 23:32									#43
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No, because we would not have had the lesson of Vietnam to learn from, and would still have totally FUBARed ideas about how to fight war.

	01-03-2003 23:41									#44
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That's all right Sloww, roll your eyes, but the US will be a much better place in 20 years when my generation takes over.

	01-03-2003 23:42									#45
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most definately yes.

With a Soviet Union not there to threaten to enter the war on the side of the North Vietnamese if we were to invade North Vietnam, then we could actually do that. The reason why we lost it originally was not because of military reasons, it was because of political ones. We could not invade and hold ground in the north, because we feared reprisal from china and the SU. with them politically out of the picture (except for maybe china, but i think they would just want to keep chugging that economy along...), the US wouldnt just be sitting in the bog that is South Vietnam, and getting picked to pieces. We could actually have ground forces to supplement our strategic air campaign.

Therefore the US would win, QED

Kman

	01-03-2003 23:44									#46
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There is no way China would allow the US to invade Vietnam.

	01-03-2003 23:45									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Sava That's all right Sloww, roll your eyes, but the US will be a much better place in 20 years when my generation takes over.

And when you and the David Floyd's take over, I'll be glad I'm worm food; assuming that you all don't grow out of your current mindsets.

	01-03-2003 23:48									#48
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What a wonderful world it will be.

	01-03-2003 23:51									#49
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Yeah. Following the "honest" communist, no doubt.

Here's one for you.

	01-03-2003 23:55									#50
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Nah, we're not taking over in twenty years unless the capitalists really fubar it (which George and friends do seem to be trying to do). Maybe fifty, though.

I find it funny that you and Lancer seem to believe that the willingness to be slaves to evil somehow makes you superior to a generation that refuses to live as servants.

	02-03-2003 01:09									#51
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We would have won the Vietnam War easily had the Soviets and Chinese not meddled there. People often failed to see that point.

The same applied to Afghanistan.

But again, we were only in Vietnam because the Soviets and Chinese were meddling there.

The funny thing is that only 5 years after NVA took Saigon, Chinese invaded Vietnam.

	02-03-2003 01:26									#52
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Is that from your textbook, The World According to FreeRepublic.com?

	02-03-2003 01:35									#53
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No they would lose; the reason being that the Vietnamese were prepared to go to almost any length to win, and I imagine they still would. Demerzel is right - if you don't have the support of the populace, you lose eventually.

The Kurds may well realise this.

	02-03-2003 01:42									#54
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You don't have to get the support of the populace to win.
Not all military victories were liberating from tyrants, and freeing people.

	02-03-2003 01:53									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel You don't have to get the support of the populace to win.

You do if you are attempting to res-establish colonialism over people who are desperate to liberate themselves from it. Otherwise every soldier becomes a target and the human rights violations required to keep the dissenters down become a political eyesore back home.

	02-03-2003 02:02									#56
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That, of course, if you let them be reported.

	02-03-2003 02:04									#57
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Military censorship in a place where the US is the occupying force will only work for a very limited amount of time. As soon as the shooting stops, reporters will demand and be granted access.

	02-03-2003 02:09									#58
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They can always install a proxy, and let it censor.

	02-03-2003 02:26									#59
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a) This won't work very well (having the new government you're claiming is so democratic and free instituting harsher censorship than was likely around in the old regime)

b) This assumes that the new government would be immediately stable and have enough presence to actually carry out the censorship. Otherwise it would be US troops carrying out the censorship "on behalf of the local government", which would be no better in the mind of the public than direct US censorship.

	02-03-2003 02:43									#60
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quote: a) This won't work very well (having the new government you're claiming is so democratic and free instituting harsher censorship than was likely around in the old regime)

since when what you claim had to be true in Intl. relations? all nations bullshit their way through all the time. Besides, this can always be covered with critical situation, "commies want to overrun our glorious "republic" ", etc.

quote: b) This assumes that the new government would be immediately stable and have enough presence to actually carry out the censorship. Otherwise it would be US troops carrying out the censorship "on behalf of the local government", which would be no better in the mind of the public than direct US censorship.

This depends on the beginning phase:
-If you already have a government in place, that is friendly to you and is participating in a civil war, you "lease" them some of your old equipment, send some advisors, build schools to train them to do your job, etc. This government will be assisted financially in order to reintegrate the "liberated" parts of the country, while they'll do all the actual work.
-If your opponent 3rd world nation has control over the entire territory, you try to get intouch with an opponent group that is against them, the "freedom fighters". then, you basically repeat step one, at first giving them weapons, and training them at all sorts of off-shore locations, and injecting them back to the country, then, try to establish a no-man's land part of the country, a part non-accessible by govt. troops. Then you aid with logistics to set up an alternative provisional government, let it govern itself for a while ( It helps to have another frendly regime bordering it), and then you work your way through, though this will be slower, this time. You'll also have to be able to assist this new government, so you'll have to engage in a massive propoganda campaign, while intensly pushing the right buttons on states that neighbour this country, and are quite neutral.
-If you have no opposition, this gets rather tricky, but just a matter of more resources poured in. You'll probably have to norture someone from the diasopora of that country, which has good charismatic abilities, then you'll create a nucleus, then inject, and then move according to plans 1 and 2, roughly.